Day 526 - Muktinath - Kagbeni (2800m)

Today we had a well deserved relaxing morning - unfortunately though today we farewelled our new friend Rita who set off bright and early and headed to Marpha. We all headed to the monastery for a look around, before going back to our hotel where we sat on the roof drinking tea and eating lunch, with views out over the village and distant mountains. The walk to Kagbeni was amazing - although Ryan had to detour back to Muktinath after 20 minutes to give back the lock and key to their hotel room!!!
The first place we came to was Jharkot, which was a old, mellow, Tibetan village seemingly unaltered by time and tourist influence that has clearly changed other places we've been through. As we strolled through the narrow alleyways we observed normal life going on: a woman beating chillis in a communal mortar and pestle; kids running wild; villagers carrying loads to and from farms and houses. The jeep road begins in Muktinath, but it was't actually as bad as we had feared with only a couple of jeeps and a tractor passing us along the way - and we also managed to get off the main road and onto smaller trails through villages now and again. It was in a small village that Adam tried out a woman's huge load, after which he was more than happy to take his pack back!!!
As we approached Kagbeni we got a great view over the village and its farms and apple orchids, before breaking our own trail along the river and into town. We strolled through town looking for a nice place to stay, but were so taken with the adorable village the ended up walking around and looking with our packs still on our backs! We finally retreated to the original hotel our search began at, and then settled in for the day.

Adlibing it from Tibetan village to Tibetan village.