Hiking?!

Hello!

I skipped breakfast this morning in order to get a couple more minutes of precious sleep! Because today we are venturing out on a four hour trek! Four hours! Let me tell you something about Tara, Tara likes to sit on the couch, the only physical exertion she enjoys is basketball, and working out with friends. Walking around the neighborhood is enough of a workout for her. So let’s just say that this was a long four hours. It’s not that it was hard, just hot, and long. However the view at the top was most definitely worth it. I tried to capture it as best as I could with a camera, but it definitely doesn’t do it any justice.

We learned that tea comes from a tree, and they cut the tree down to make it easier for the tea gatherers to gather the tea. The workers make about 2 rupees per kilo of tea that they collect. The average is about 320 rupees for about 8 hours of work in the sun, so about $3.50 to $4. So not a lot, but the business does provide housing for the workers so that helps cover most of the finance issues. But still 320 rupees is not that much for an 8 hour day. 

Once the trees are planted they are pruned every 5 years and the tea from the plant is gathered every 15 days. There are three types of tea that come from these plants, green, black, and white. The white being the most expensive because of all the medical benefits it has by drinking it, that’s why it is also known as medical tea. Green tea is the next most expensive out of the three, and black is the last. 

We hiked all the way up to about the top of the tallest peak I’d say, and the view from up there was absolutely breathtaking, and so hard to explain. Again it’s something you just need to see. 

After all of this we went to lunch and then to walk around a small fruit and vegetable market. It’s interesting how many different fruits and vegetables they have that we don’t have and haven’t even heard of. There are sooooo many I have never heard of! We tried a passion fruit for the first time and liked it so much that we bought 5 to eat at the hotel! 

Following lunch and the market we went to a chocolate factory (yum!) we got a demonstration on how the chocolate is made. Which we obviously already knew because of when we went to the chocolate factory in Switzerland. And we actually ended up spending about $20 on different kinds of chocolates. Everything from fruit to nut to toffee, dark and milk and white. They literally had everything, and they let you try whatever you wanted too! So um totally worth a hike! You can get me to do pretty much anything if it involves food of some sort, especially chocolate.  

Now we are back to the hotel to take a shower (because we are literally disgusting, like mud everywhere it’s not supposed to be) and then we are off to dinner, another day down, and only a couple to go ://