And now, 'Lauren and Allison's big night out.'

Coming down from Annapurna Base Camp back towards Pokhara, we planned to spend some time at the hot springs at Jhinu. On the way down we stopped at Fishtail Guesthouse in Chomrong for lunch and to pick up some things we'd left on the way up. The Fishtail is perched on the hill in Chomrong, a small village in a stupifyingly picturesque region of the Annapurna foothills. With windows on three sides, the dining room provides a stunning vantage point to see both the high peaks of the Annapurna slightly hidden in the Sanctuary above us and the green lushness of the river valley below us. During lunch, a storm rolled in. We watched for several hours as nature entertained us with her show of sound and light.

The rain slowed to a mist. Then something very stange happened. An enormous white cloud rose from the valley floor and converged with an inpenetrable gray mist that seemed to be almost poured down from the mountain valley to our left. Faster, the clouds gained momentum and traveled down into the valley, thinning as they went, every wisp soaring past and finally disappearing all together as if a giant vacuum beneath the valley floor had sucked it all down. The sun came out. A double rainbow arched perfectly over the green foothills across from us. A smiling face in the clouds appeared in shadow on the mountainside just below the rainbow.

We decided it was time to go. We packed up our things and began the descent to the hot springs, just about an hour's trek directly below us along the river. It was about 4:30 PM. A light sprinkle had begun again, but we put on our ponchos and were on our way. On the way out of Chomrong, we stopped and talked with a girl from near Bishop, California. We hit it off instantly and wanted to chat, but she shooed us away, reminding us of the time and pointing out a gray cloud overhead.

Right away, we lost the trail. The real trail that we didn't see went up and over a wall (of course!) but the one we took winded gently through farmlands and into trees. Walking down felt right and the trail looked well-trodden. We walked for about an hour as the rain steadily got heavier. The trail got smaller. The sky got darker. We got a bit concerned.

Then the trail disappeared all together and we found ourselves what felt to be about halfway down, standing on about a 45 degree angle in ankle-deep mud in the middle of the forest. No trail, no sign of other people. At first we decided our best plan of action was to continue down. We weren't sure we could retrace our steps back and we knew the valley was the right direction. We walked for a bit more but the descent became too steep. We decided the smartest thing to do was to spend the night there and try going back up the next morning.

In search of some sort of shelter from the rain, we found a large boulder with two small dry ledges. By the light of our flashlights, we changed into dry clothes, climbed into our sleeping bags and curled up for a long night. We both managed to get a few hours of shuteye before sunrise when we awoke, ate a little trail mix, took some photos of our night's accomodation and began the process of finding a trail back up.

After about two hours of walking back toward Chomrong, Lauren spotted a roof. We cheered and whooped and nearly broke into a run when we saw a woman, the owner of a guesthouse we had passed the night before. We hugged her and told her about our little ordeal. She hugged us back and gave us breakfast, piling on extra potatoes to compensate for our missed meal. We laughed a bit and breathed a sigh of relief. While in retrospect we realized we were in no real great danger, it was certainly a humbling experience to spend the night on a rock.

The monsoon has come early in Pokhara and most days are at least partly rainy. Two days ago, some friends and I rented a paddle boat and spent seven hours on the clean, clear waters of Phewa Tal, Nepal's second largest lake. We swam, got some sun, and had a picnic; the closest thing to summer fun I've had in a while. I'll go back to Kathmandu in a few days.