Ghandruk - 4th night on the trek

We are still alive! Today was our fourth day of trekking-boy is it gruelling! Today was six hours of walking - first down, down, down from Chandrikot and into the river bed of the Modi Khola river. Then up, up, up for 4 hours to where we are staying tonight - the charming village called Ghandruck. We arrived sweaty and smelly and had our first shower in 4 days. The views in the morning are spectacular (I can't attach any pictures to the blog tonight as the wifi here is very slow- Anne is going to try to post some pics on Instagram) but the clouds drift in and cover the peaks by 9 am. Today was the first day we have not been caught in rain - Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday it started raining at 2 ish and didn't let up until late evening. Of course with rain come leeches. Lots and lots of leeches. Baby leeches, giant leeches. Our first day was described as "off the beaten path" through "minor forest trails" really means narrow rocky ups and downs in dense forest infested with leeches. We had to stop every five minutes to flick them off our boots. They even managed to crawl up our walking poles. It was so gross! We should have been prepared from our first encounter on Tuesday night in Bhumdi. Anne and I were resting in our room and I head a thud and saw the big slimy thing on the floor just below Anne's foot. We couldn't figure out how this thing ended up in our room until we saw the trail of blood that started in between Anne's toes! It had had quite a feast before it had its fill and dropped off Anne's toe into the floor. Last night after a disappointing day walking on roads and an actual highway - we ended up in Chandrikot at likely the worst place I have ever slept in. Ironically called Hotel Nirvana it was a real dump. Paper thin walls and rooms so tiny that Anne and I couldn't stand up together in! When we left this morning still grumbling at the itinerary and the choice of accommodation (prepared by our tour company here), we walked by this beautiful lodge with solar panels and well kept grounds. We couldn't believe that this piece of heaven was 15 minutes from our night of hell. But today made up for the first three days. We are now on the real trekking route and are on the beaten path-yeah! Our guide Bakaji and our porter Lal are very kind and are taking very good care of us. We are still joined by Sam and his guide Kul and porter Rabindra but his knees are taking a beating. He may take a slower approach to the Annapurna Base Camp and try to get a jeep down to Pokhara wherever he can get one.