Dingboche to Tengboche to Kenjoma: Well its another day. We are starting to wish we could fast forward our way down the mountains.  We still have 5 days in front of us.  We are going to try to hike longer days to trim a day off of our travel time.  This will give Shawna and I a day flexibility to catch our flight in Katmandu.  Often the flights out of Lukla are canceled because of the poor mountain weather.  We started walking in the morning and it was a very warm day compared to what we were used to.  As we descend in altitude our endurance improves with every step.  The valleys have more regular Nepalese families living in the area verses the tourist only lodge we saw at high altitude. Even though we were talking about the lower altitudes being nicer we were still at 14000 feet. I took allot of photos along this leg of the trip.  There were yak trains galore and children playing in front of the mountain backdrops.  We moved quickly and without getting to tired.  The final half hour was a touch trek up a steep hill that led to the Tenboche Monastery.  We were going to camp there for the night, however when we arrived we found hundreds of trekkers ambling about the Monastery.  The shock of so many people in one area after two weeks of seeing only a handful of people left us feeling claustrophobic.  Simon and I asked if we could move on to another city down the trail.  Shawna was all for this, and we had a short lunch in Tenbouche then mounted up again to trek on to Kenjoma.

The trail dramatically changed, it was a steep down hill and we walked for an hour and a half down the rocky trail until we were at 11500 feet.  Then we walked back up the next mountain once we crossed Dudh Koshi river.  The way was very steep and we finally ended up three hours later in the village of Kenjoma.  They had no camping place to pitch our tents on the high rocky ledge the town was built into.  Dengie made a deal with the Thamsherku Lodge and she let us use the entire lodge for our group.  We were happy to have a real mattress to sleep on.  It also changed up the day-to-day routine.  It had a nice warm fireplace in the center of the dining room and it had power to charge the laptop.  With real electricity all the Sherpas came up and looked at the photos from the trip. They joked and made fun of each other’s pictures.  We chatted with the owner and let her use my Thuraya phone to call her sister in Wyoming.  She ended giving us 4 cokes and a can of Pringles for the favor.  It may not seem like much but that would have cost us 16 dollars at any high altitude store.  The food had been very good on the trip, however kale, cabbage and potatoes got a little old day after day.  The new flavors of coke and Pringles will be a great change of pace during tomorrows trek down to Namche.  There was a big chess tournament between Simon and Nicolas.  Simon had drank a coke and it must have revitalized his chess skills because he beat Nicolas the chess master. Nicolas was flummoxed by the upset in his unbeaten chess record during the trek.  Simon went to bed happy with the victory.