Bihim is banging at my door before 7a.m.  I eventually get up and have a bowl of watery porridge.  Today, Bihim has promised to guide me through blooming rhododendron forests to Ghorepani.  This was agreed upon with a handshake yesterday evening, after repeated breaches of the subject on Bihim's part, and repeated attempts on my part to change the subject.

I take my time getting up, getting packed ... time sitting and watching, transfixed by the panorama of mountains that begin where mountains I'm accustomed to peak out.  Bihim suggested 8a.m. as a time to leave Ghandrung to reach Ghorepani, in 8 hours, maybe 9 ... 7 if we push it.  When I'm finally ready to leave, Bihim has mysteriously vanished.

I sense an open ear from the woman who keeps the wheels turning at the Annapurna Lodge, and express my concerns about Bihim's unexpected absence from presence.  She says she overheard Bihim saying he was hoping to find someone else to guide for a day.  Bihim suddenly appears with a drawn, tired, consumptive face.  His stomach is still bothering him, and he is too weak to make it to Ghorepani.  He offers to go with me part way to Tadapani, and has brought another man who would go with me all the way to Ghorepani.  I feel anger, anger that soon subsides.  I instinctively don't trust Bihim.  I decide to make my own way.  After a magic show for an appreciative Nepalese audience -- the woman with the open ear laughs delightedly when one sponge bunny multiplies to two in her clenched fist (those frisky rabbits) -- I set off.

Trekking along midway up the side of a valley.  The clouds from yesterday afternoon have cleared but threaten to return.

The view across the valley, of the southern edge of the Annapurnas that ring the snow-filled Annapurna Sanctuary, is blinding white in the clear air.  A deep valley cuts through the Annapurnas to the Sanctuary, and at midday, shadows are already beginning to creep across that valley.

Onward, up and down ... and up ... and down ... more up than down on the balance.  Forest, nearly jungle in places, covers the hillside.

Here and there, more often as the day progresses, are rhododendron trees in full bloom with bunches of pink and bright red flowers.

As I sweat my way up a jungle-covered hill, following the path of a small stream, I pass a group of about a dozen porters who toil under the weight of enormous, bulging red packs labeled "WORLD EXPEDITIONS".  We reach an isolated collection of trekking lodges, a small village at the top of the hill, where the porters stop to rest and I stop nearby, silently watching them.

The porters struggle with their loads, and have little contact with those whose burden they bear.  Removing their towering cargo to rest their bare, worn feet without teetering over backwards necessitates backing up against a stone step or gently-sloping rock formation and falling back into it.  Free of their burdens, they play like happy children, wrestling, laughing and chatting animatedly.  Two of them pull out curved pipes, which they pack and smoke.

I trek on, and reach Tadapani just as a light rain begins to fall.  I escape the rain at an inviting trekking lodge, order dal bhat and warm myself from the pot of coals under the table.

On the trail out of Tadapani, a sign warns ominously against traveling alone in these parts -- the thick jungle ahead provides ample cover for bandits.  A trekker was robbed and murdered in these parts a few years ago, but most of the Nepalese I ask say it's o.k. to travel alone during the day.

The trail leads down a steep jungle-covered hillside, then steeply back up to the base of a valley, a rain forest full of rhododendrons in bloom.

Misty rain soaks in as sweat bursts out.

Climb.

A structure, more structures, lodging, a respite, a chance to pass the night.  Ghorepani lies somewhere ahead; I'm not ready to stop yet.  Up over the peak, down a ridge through sparse forest, towering Himalayan peaks shining brightly in the distance as sunset approaches.  Pastoral, terraced, shepherd, outskirts, Ghorepani.

Following an earlier recommendation, I find the Hotel Snow Land, and sink into a chair in the dining room near the fire.  Soon I'm chatting with a British guy named Pete and his Nepalese guide, Kaji.  They're getting up very early tomorrow to hike up nearby Poon Hill for the incredible sunrise views it offers.  I ask to join them.