Canyoning!

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We decided after our big hike that we would take a completely different adventure and try out Canyoning. I'll admit this was completely my idea and my convincing. However it turned out great and we had a blast.

So many people don't know what canyoning is. So first off I'll explain that. Canyoning is when you adventure down a canyon through various methods such as, abseiling (rappelling), sliding down rock chutes, jumping walking and sometimes swimming. In our case we did not do any real swimming other then being dunked at the end of some of our slides.

Ok so to start at the beginning. The trip starts in Kathmandu with a "mere 3 hour drive to the borderlands resort." Or so they say. First off we started late as some of the tourist clearly didn't understand the departure time and arrived half hour late. We were told that we would have our own private transport so we weren't expecting to wait (in the Napalli style). Ben and Angela had decided to join us on this adventure as well, for those who don't know these were the Canadians we met on the hike. We were supposed to pick them up on the side of the road by their hotel at 635, we didn't get there until 720 and they had no reason of knowing why we were late. The mere 3 hour ride turned into 4 1/2 hours of navigating their sketchy roads. As the trip started taking longer and the driving seeming getting worse we started to wonder what kind of place we booked in with....and then we arrived at the resort.

This place was gorgeous, and it had such a relaxing atmosphere. It really just like they advertised, which I've come to know you should never expect what they advertise. We ate lunch then went and started our adventure. We had two guides, one that worked at the top of all the drops and one at the bottom. They started by getting us geared up then instructed us on how to rappel the waterfalls. I had done rappelling many times before but this was more difficult as we were going down waterfalls which made it very slippery. We also did some where we would slide down which is really creepy. I haven't heard anyone scream as much as Angela did, and the facial expressions...haha. By the end of the day we were all feeling pretty comfortable (a relative term here) and excited for the next day.

The next day brought us a lot more extreme Canyoning. On this trip we had longer slides where you have no rope and you go down the rock like a waterslide. One of these even scared me! It was a lot of fun though. We were told that we were going to go down a big drop this day but we were not expecting the size of the one when we got on it! When you get roped into this drop you can't see the bottom for the falling water. Only after your out of the site of the guide (beyond the chickening out point) do you realize your rappelling down a 120 ft drop. Really neat as the waterfall is really strong in some sections and is really beating on you! There is a second stage to this drop and about 7 feet from the bottom the rope ends and you unexpectedly just drop into the pool. It was one of the neatest things I've done!

After this we had a victory roof top ride back to the resort and concluded our stay.

Jason and I decided to go to Pokhara. We took the 8 hour bus ride yesterday. The bus was full so Jason and I had to sit in the Cab. Today we are having a relaxing day and looking around town. We will be here until November 16, not sure what we're going to get up to yet. Jason just got a straight shave and is looking great! What a change to the bush man he became on the trail.

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