December 28, 2000 - December 13, 2001 14 Days in Nepal The long way back...
We left Tengboche around 2pm and decided to try and push to get all the back to Namche Bazaar. We were really going to have to push ourselves to make it before sundown, but I really wanted to go back because the next day we had to go all the way back to Lukla. Making it to Namche would shorten our final trek. So we were pushing pretty hard on the way back- not much time for pictures! But I got this great one of a mountain goat looking down at us from the top of some cliff. I like how you almost just see the goat's dark shadow, against the pale blue sky.
	We weren't sure if we were going to be able to make it all the way back to Namche, but it was almost like this dog was a sign for us to keep going. She ended up following us (or maybe we were following her) for about three hours. Even as it got dark, she stuck with us, guiding us right back to Namche. We also got to see her attempt to kill a couple of birds. She snuck up on them and pounced, but they managed to fly away in a ruckus. Here's a close-up of her face. It was really amazing how she stuck with us the whole time.
So we drained every last ounce of physical energy from our bodies, but we finished out nine hour roundtrip trek back to Namche. We decided to stay in a different hotel this time just to try something new. Andrea's Lonely Planet book said that one of the hotels was where President Jimmy Carter stayed while was trekking in 1985. So we gave that one a shot since we figured it must be good. As we're dumping our stuff on the bed, the hotel working mentions that "this is the Jimmy Carter suite." That just capped the day. We just had an incredible trek and how I get to retire to the same room that Jimmy Carter slept in. So this is it, not too fancy, but at that point we didn't care.
	As promised, here is a picture of the infamous Lukla airport. So when we left, our plane roared downhill on this dirt runway and we had to pick up enough speed so that we could clear the cliff. Because the runway drops right off. If you don't get enough speed, you'll crash into the valley. I felt like I was on a roller coaster or something. And it's amazing how the planes zip in and zip out so quickly. At one point, one plane was leaving and one was arriving and they had to come within half a mile of each other. Amazing experience. Not one I need to re-live though...

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