Back from Upper Mustang in Kag Beni from Jane

July 23rd. My back is soaking wet because we are all JUST back from our Upper Mustang trek. We are all well and stayed well the whole time. We hear that planes have not flown for two days, so don't worry if we don't get back to Kathmandu on the 25th when we are supposed to fly--but we will get to this blog again as soon as we are there. We are having lunch in a few minutes at The Red House in Kagbeni and then we walk to Jomsom.

Our trek was,well, beyond belief. Let's talk about its difficulty first. In twelve days, we walked 140 miles, the equivalent of five marathons. Picture a maze, with the rifts and crenolations being Grand Canyons, but bigger. Every day we went up and down several of these mountains and valleys, and the terrain was tough. We hiked seven to nine hours a day, at high altitude, with little food and extremely rustic lodges, one of which we will tell you about in detail later: think, Nepal meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We met the King of Lo and had a private audience with him about our project, which he loves. What a kind-faced man! Tammy and Andrew, you will cry when you see the footage of your son, Cy, translating for Tsampa in front of The King of Lo Monthang, Jigme Palwar. Our time with the King was incredible.

And we also got to trek to The Cave of the Snow Leopard, to see the very "newly discovered" cave paintings reported on the front page of BBC On-line five months ago. This was our most treacherous climb, where we all could have died, but WHAT a cave on WHAT a cliff. We had to have two local guides to get us there, and we were only the third group to see this amazing cave with its long wall of strangely Sri Lankan art, but with Tibetan implements in the hands of the Sri Lankan/Sigiriya figures.

We also met Luigi Fieni, the Italian restorer who is the one who discovered this cave and whose photograph was printed on BBC. Luigi is the Michelangelo of our time, and he and his two companions had dinner and beers with us the night after we had seen the cave. We got an incredible interview with him, about his own restoration work on all the monasteries and chortens (nine years so far in Lo), and we left as great friends. We had access to footage that no one else has gotten.

Iris, this one is just for you. Luigi, who looks like a young Italian Sean Connery, was talking about getting to that cave five months before, having to rapel down (we just used footholds on sheer cliff with thousand foot drops threatening us every second). When he lowered in, he said that the floor was abolutely pristine, no human signs, no footprints. Only the many footprints of a snow leopard who obviously loved the view. And so he named it The Cave of The Snow Leopard. Our interview with Luigi is amazing, partly because we got him talking about our idea of A Gift for The Village.

Jenna just tried to list-serve for half an hour, but the wind is bad and so is this connection. She wants you all to know she did try. Glad to know you are all back safely, Tom, Diane, and Reba. We miss you. Beth, I loved your e-mail about interviewing Nikki Giovanni. Tom, I fear what it means that if I didn't love Carl already, I will now. Carl, if my water heater in that awful basemetn of mine has meant hell for you, tell me what I can bring you!!! And I DID already love you!

Emerson, I got your I-love-you message, but Iris, are you okay???? More from Kathmandu. Our footage is out of this world. Love, Jane