Maria Jose had a scene with the security also. She was carrying powder Aspegic (a kind of aspirin), which was something totally new to the guard. She might have thought it was drug. The incident was quickly solved when Maria Jose explained by gestures that it was for the headaches. Then she gave the guard some bags, making her very happy. Apparently she wasn't so radical in her honnesty as my guard :-).

We waited for quite some time (more than an hour, for sure) for our plane. There was a group of men with some alpinism gear and snow boots. Their average age was certainly more than 60. What a bunch of grandpas, hum?! We knew two girls from New Zealand. One of them knew Portugal very well. I bet one of the reasons to that was that both countries are exact antipodes of each other. I remember to have two pen pals from New Zealand when I was a kid because I liked the idea of corresponding with someone that was on the other side of the planet. That who had been in Portugal was having troubles with her ears, that was one of the reasons they were giving up the trek. I remember having pity of her, as she certainly would suffer a lot with the flight. Another reason for giving up was that they were advised to leave the mountains before the day of the elections. There had been more than 50 killings on the elections before on the area. It was hard to imagine those kind and apparently calm persons killing each other because of politics done in a so distant Kathmandu, but probably it was true. I had already noticed some unrest abou the elections in several nepali people.

The flight was less shaky than the first one and the views equally spectacular. It was still early morning when we arrived to "our" Twin Peaks Hotel. THe place and the owner was so nice that we felt as it we were guests a long time ago. We spent the rest of the day wandering in Pokhara, enjoying the sun and the landscape. We had lunch and dinner in a nice terrace on the border of the lake. I spent some time at a "communication shop" trying to reach the portuguese consulate in Delhi by phone or fax with no success. I faxed again to the Bangkok consulate.

Mr Gurung, the owner of our hotel promessed us to arrange us a bus to go to Chitwan the next day. Chitwan is one of the more populars natural parks in the country. It stands in the Terai, an area of big planes south of Kathmandu, near the indian border. It is quite different from the rest of Nepal we had seen, with no mountains at all and a really tropical ambience. The park has several endagered species that disappeared completely from other areas, like the tiger of Bengala, wild elephants, bears, panthers, deers, rhinos, snakes, lots of birds, etc.

There had been a land slide on the road, so we would have to make a turn of more than 150 or 200 Km.