Scary bridges and soothing hot springs at Tatopani

Trekking day five: Ghasa to Tatopani

Sometimes sisters disagree and the elder must make an executive decision. This was one of those days. After an hour on the dust-choked road, dodging crowded tourist buses and smog-belching Land Rovers, I began to grow envious of the barefoot villagers walking their livestock on steep narrow trails on the other side of the wide, churning river. "Can't we just go over there?." I asked our guide, Renuka, who we had come to refer to as Didi (sister in Nepalese). "I don't know the way," she responded. It seemed straightforward enough: just cross the river, walk on the other side, and cross back when we got to Tatopani. So after another mile I insisted.

After a nerve-wracking 350-foot traverse on a rickety wooden suspension bridge high above the roaring blue river, we were on the other side, where we meandered through a lush landscape colored with terraced fields of rice and millet, fresh orange trees, wandering buffalo and brick and mud homes.
It turns out we were lost, so after 20 minutes we had to turn back. But by now Renuka was determined to find the alternate route away from the road, so we tried another path. We pressed on, deeper into the jungle-like landscape, rich with waterfalls, and stopped to visit with a blind, 95-year-old man squatting by the road with his son and grandson.
One mile from our destination, the clouds enshrouded us in mist, just in time for us to cross another hairy bridge. It was a true Indiana Jones adventure.
Around 3, we checked into the Dhaulagiri Garden Lodge, a lovely teahouse surrounded with banana and orange trees, and just footsteps from two scorching hot riverside pools (tatopani means hot springs).

Fellow travelers from Australia, Canada, Germany, and Asia lolled in the water in bikinis and thongs, but at the request of Renuka, we respected the modest Hindu culture and bathed in our shorts and T-shirts. With all our aches and pains washed away, we scarfed down spinach and tomato pizza and chocolate cake, and prepped for the next day - the steepest of our trek - a 5,741-foot climb to Ghorepani.