Frightening Drive to Tatopani(Nepali for Hot Water)

Well, after our celeration in Muktinath, we decided to rent a jeep and venture down the river valley to Jomsom. After crossing the pass the environment had changed to a very arid and windy landscape. We drove through the town that is the gateway to the Mustang region of Tibet and the people inhabiting the lands here were of Mongol origin. The drive was incredibly beautiful as we cruised down the valley listening to blaring Nepali and Indian music. We drove through the unrelenting winds blowing up the valley and arrived at Jomsom where we stayed at a nice guest house where we had fried chicken and other comforting foods comprising of protein. Jomsom is always windy and our sherpa guides were singing a famous song about the afternoon winds of Jomsom. The next morning we went futher down the valley in a private jeep and began driving back into the lush evergreen forests and then into subtropical forests. The morning ride was quite relaxing aside from crossing a landslide area that had fallen about an hour before our arrival. We then carried on to the steep section where we entered the tight river gorge of the Kali Gandaki River. The ride was so incredibley terrifying that there was nervous laughter, primal grunts and moans, and even a few tears shed. A huge problem was that we had about 500 lbs of gear on the roof and we were very top heavy. At one point our wheels came off the ground and we very nearly cascaded into the 1000 plus foot river gorge below. We were no longer laughing and we tried to lean our weight to the right to prevent the jeep from rolling off the road. With our bottom cheeks clenched we continued down for what seemed like an eternity and arrived at Tatopani where we would spend a rest day and warm our weary bones in the hot springs down by the river. Two days after we had passed through the gorge a jeep of 14 pilgrims ran off the road and crashed far below in the canyon...a very sad story indeed that verified our fears were not unfounded. Everything is a little dangerous in Nepal. After, our arrival at the guest house we vowed never again to take the road from Jomsom to Tatopani!