You know the road is bad when:

1 the driver stops to buy a second spare tire before going on, just in case

2 the guides unload most the gear from the roof to put in the back of the SUV to keep the center of gravity lower

3 the porters are asked to get out to take a bus to provide the Land Cruiser with more clearance

4 you can drive about 100 km in 11 hours

5 you have to take 400mg of ibuprofen at 3pm because your brain has been knocking against the sides of your skull for hours on end

6 fires in the dry forest on the cliffs above the road send burning logs tumbling down on your vehicle as you bump by

Garrison wrote the last post in a swanky hotel in Kolpur: beds covered in clean sheets, running water, a clean pink towel (albeit one thin piece of hand towel size cloth for two of us), A/C, wifi, and the shower and sink faucets were only missing half their handles. We overlooked the loud diesel generator outside our window, warped floor boards by the beds, windows that wouldn't fully close in a malaria region, broken door handle that wouldn't lock, and the half-rotten bathroom door - our conclusion: 4.5 star hotel in Nepal.

After another night on the toilet (sink was placed in an ideal location so I could rest my forehead and cat nap while sitting in the bathroom 1-3:30 am- this pushed the hotel from 4 to 4.5 stars for me), we hopped in the Land Cruiser at 7:30 am and started north towards Jumla. ( See above descriptions of road. ) Around 11 AM, we dropped the porters off at a bus stop, ate lunch, and started winding our way up into the hills of western Nepal. I kept counting myself lucky that I worked out my issues in the hotel at 2 am instead of having to try to squat and hide on the impossibly exposed cliffy road on the mountainside. The road started off as a one-lane paved highway, but it quickly became intermittently paved with long stretches of deeply rutted track in deep dust, dirt, and rocks. There is only enough room for one vehicle at a time on the cliff side, so if a truck approaches, the driver must either back up or find a section of slighty wider road to let the other vehicle pass. Naran smirks at me every time I put on my makeshift safety belt, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one.

We drove until sunset, then found a roadside hut/hotel. The owner swept out a dust, rock, and trash-filled room on the upper story (second of two floors), and the guides helped him carry in two wooden frames for beds and a floor mat- let me tell you, that green floor mat really tied the room together. I know I sound sarcastic here, but the mud-floored room actually felt like a bedroom (admittedly a hot bedroom- even though we climbed to over 800 meters in elevation, I still slept on top my sleeping bag and pad in my running shorts, and the "cool breeze" the inn owner assured us would refresh us after sunset never really arrived). Naran, Dill, and Rames slept on a tarp outside our door on the balcony as "body guards". I have traveled to some crime-prone regions, and a small farming town on a cliff side in rural Nepal does not strike me as somewhere that necessitates an all-night security staff, but apparently Naran seemed to think so. When Garrison and I headed to bed, he quietly snuck into our room and handed us a purse of cash for Garrison to hide under his sleeping pad during the night. I can happily repot this morning that none of the farmers robbed us at hoe-point last night.

Back on the road this morning by about 715 am (May 25). We are currently paralleling a fairly large green-grey river, honking at the occasional herd of goats or napping cow on the narrow road.