We get a rest day in Namche to help us acclimatize to the altitude. I woke up at 2:45 am; it looks like 5 hours of sleep is going to be the norm for this trip. While my Dr. gave me a prescription for a sleeping aid, I don’t like taking pharmaceuticals; plus the trek/expedition Dr. Doesn’t want us taking anything that might alter our breathing at altitude.

Being up early, I did have the chance to walk back down to where we entered the village. It is nice walking around the village in the early daylight hours; the streets are empty of tourists/trekkers (except me). You see locals from other villages coming in. I was so tired coming in to the village yesterday, I totally overlooked some of the beautiful features of the village.

Namche is the trading hub for this area, and has a market on Saturdays. It is nested into a “bowl” that is very interesting; I guess you build however you can.

We met up for breakfast and discussed plans for the day. We could either go to the Everest View Hotel or tour some local musuems. Either way we needed to get out and do some exercise to help with our acclimatization. Once I learned that the potential view of Everest would be about the same, I opted for the shorter trek to the musuems. After talking to the group that went to the lodge, I knew I made the right decision; it was as rigorous as our climb up to Namche. And clouds had rolled in, so there were no views to be had.

The musuems were interesting, but I’m not sure how much I’ll retain considering I’m on information overload from trip prep, etc. We first stopped at the national park information center and looked through the displays.

We then walked down to the Sherpa Cultural Musuem, where we could walk through a fully furnished sherpa house and view a slideshow. We had the privilege of doing the tour with our trek Sidar (Kancha Nuru) and one of or Sherpas (Kami who I wrote about previously). Nothing like getting the information from those who have lived it. Then the short hike back to town.

One of the people on the climbing team (Mike) went with us on the museum tour. I was a little apprehensive about how us trekkers would be received by the climbing team. While clearly you have to be in a very good financial position to pay for a climb to the top, all the climbers have been down to earth, friendly people.

I wandered around the village and made a few small purchases. The shop keepers are hit and miss; some not very friendly, but the older shop keepers seem to be the friendly ones. On in particular I was very glad to buy some things. She cut me a small break on prices too. I don’t see the point of haggling over fifty cents or a dollar when it means so much more to them.

The effect of tourists and western culture is very evident here; streets are lined with shops with mountain gear, bars (yet another Irish bar!), coffee shops, bakeries, etc. There is even a North face store! But you still see daily life here if you look for it.

We had a pre-dinner meeting. The expedition Dr. (Sophie) gave us a talk about altitude sickness. The main thing is you can’t think you are going to tuff it out. That will get you in a serious situation and impact those around you as well. Dinner (I still can’t believe the quality of the food so far) and off to bed and ready to head out to Kumjung.

I got 5.5 hours of sleep for the night. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was a welcome reprieve from the sleeplessness I had been experiencing. We needed to get an early start, so we dropped our larger, heavier overnight bags in the courtyard to get loaded on animals and grabbed some breakfast.

We started off on the trail with the summit team, they ended up heading off in front of us at the entrance to the national park. We passed through several small villages on the way with bakeries and shops, as well as folks just going about thier normal daily routines. In one village, these cute little girls (4ish) came up to me with their hands up and said “high five”; of course I had to oblige! I just wish I would have seen the parents so I could have gotten permission for a photo.

A little over 2 and 1/2 hours in, we stopped for lunch. The food has been much better than I expected; I guess I can thank tourism for that.

We continued on after lunch, arriving at the view of two span bridges, the higher of the two would be at later in the day. There are a lot of these two person wide cable span bridges on the route. Right before getting on the span bridge, I stopped for a picture with Flat Stanley and Penny Webster. Flat Stanley belongs to the niece of a work friend, she asked me to bring him along, and I was excited to be able to do so. Penny is one of the climbers on the summit team. It is great to meet the climbers; I’ll enjoy watching thier progress online as they work thier way up the mountain.

The final ascent to namche marked a noticable increase in difficulty. We climbed around 2000 feet in rocky terrain. This is easily the harshest terrain I have ever hiked in.

About midway up Namche hill, we stopped for a breather. Here we heard the story of a hiker in one of the groups resting there getting too close to a Yak; it swung it’s head at her and split her pack open with a horn. Note to self – give Yaks plenty of room.

I started slowing my pace intentionally after the stop. We still had our guide and one other behind me, so I saw no reason to push hard to stay with the main group. I was glad I did; I found myself in serenity with almost no people for a bit. The quiet of the mountain coupled with the sound of birds in the trees, it almost didn’t seem like I was so far from home (save the fact I knew I was on a mountain and in the clouds). This was the second time I’ve experienced this; the first was at our team dinner at a nice restaurant eating western food on a patio at Le Sherpa.

Not far from Namche, I decided that I was going to wait for the few folks behind me. After I sat, I realized that one of our Sherpas (Kami Tsering Sherpa) was there conversing with another sherpa. Kami talked me into going ahead instead of waiting and walked with me to Namche. Kami has worked really hard (as all our 3 sherpas have) to take care of us this trip. Oh, by the way, Kami has summited Everest twice.

We got to the lodge shortly thereafter and had some soup and tea; we’d meet for supper later. Again, the facilities were much better than I expected; nice restaurant, good rooms, and a hot shower. I think with the shops and nice lodging, you could consider Namche almost a resort town.

Looking back, today was a tough day, but not miserable. I picked up a couple toe blisters I need to watch, but all in all I’m taking this pretty well. If it was easy, more people would take this on.  My O2 level is normally 97 or 98% at home. In Phakding, I was at 92-93%. Arriving at Namche, it was 88-89%. After a night of sleep, back up to 92-93%. I wonder if it will improve more after another night at Namche; tomorrow is a rest day; we’ll do a small hike and have the rest of the day in Namche to ourselves.

I got 3 hours of sleep yesterday after the tour, but unfortunately no more sleep that that (a long night). That gave me 9 hours total for 3 days; not how I wanted to start my hike, but you play the hand you are given. I’m not sure what mixture of jetlag and excitement are at play. We met down in the hotel lobby at 0545 to sort  gear and head out to the airport.

Like everything else, it was crowded :). We got through security, including a mandatory pat down that was a little more personal than I liked. Our flight was delayed an hour or so, but we finally got cleared to get on the transfer bus and head to the plane. I was a little disappointed to see I’d be riding in on a Dornier 228 rather than a twin otter. Maybe on the ride back.

On the plane we were given cotten for earplugs and mints. Our flight went by quickly, we were down in the mountains. Unfortunately the windows were cloudy so I don’t have great in air photos. The landing was awesome, but it was over way too fast. Before we had walked into the airport, the return passengers were getting loaded up. The mornings are the only real window for flights, so they keep folks moving.

We staged at a nearby teahouse and had breakfast while Porter’s got our checked bags. I had scrambled eggs and toast. Much to my surprise, Peter Hillary (Sir Edmund’s son) sat down at the table next to me. I knew it pretty quick when I saw his face and heard his voice.  I’ve already met some people with serious climbing pedigree on this trip, but now I was sitting by mountaineering royalty. Another group in the tea house seemed to know him, and they had a good chat. Of course, we left him alone; you don’t come to the Himalayas to get pestered by strangers. One of our group had met him several decades ago, so they did have a quick exchange.

We had a little spare time, so we wandered around Lukla a bit. I finally got my Yak hair warm hat from a local shop as well as observing the oddity of an Irish pub.

And finally, we hit the trail. The first day, we actually went down more than up. Folks going the other way did not seem happy about that final climb up and out to Lukla. A lot of beauty. The terrain is a little more rugged than what I expected. I can already feel large downhill steps taking a toll on my knees; I’m using my trekking poles to minimize the the load in that case. We stopped to get lunch two hours into the journey. I had lemon tea and cheese pizza.

After the tea house, we ran into a traffic jam; a donkey train of at least 50 donkeys crossing our first cable bridge. Nothing to do but wait; the porter’s and yaks bring all the items into the mountains here that make our journey with all the conveniences possible. Once across, one more slight problem; the donkeys got unruly and trapped a few trekkers not in our group, one of the girls with them was freaking out and trying to climb up off the trail. It all got sorted, and we were on our way again. That span bridge makes it clear I would never make this journey with someone who doesn’t like heights; it got to wobbling pretty good half way across.

We passed yet another Irish pub, and I was told strangely enough it did not have any Irish beer!

An hour or so later, we had view of our lodge. It looked quite pretty nestled in the mountains, and looked even better knowing we had a meal and a bed in our near future.

For this first night on the trail, I lucked into a private room. We also had the coveniences of a hot shower and sit down toilet. Those will be harder to find as we go higher.

Supper was Dhal Bat with chicken and more lemon tea.

We have an early start (0630) so I best try and get some sleep.

Unfortunately, the day started off with a lack of sleep. Woke up after 1.5 hours of sleep and could not go back to sleep.

I shared a table with 2 other trekkers and one member of the climbing team. The climber was back for her 3rd attempt on the mountain; that takes a HUGE financial and personal commitment.

At 0900 we took a group tour of the city, focusing on visiting 2 temples. This bus ride took me further through the city than I had been to date. As chaotic as the traffic feels, I am absolutely amazed I haven’t seen any traffic accidents.  Lots and lots of motorcycles and scooters; shops selling bikes and gear (helmets, etc) are everywhere. As you can imagine, the streets are not very clean by western standards, but everyone here seems to be well accustomed to it.

We finally arrived at the first stop, the Pashupatinath Temple (Hindu Temple). Burial (cremation) services are performed here. Non Hindu are not allowed on the side of the Temple where services are performed, but are allowed to observe from the grounds on the other side of the river from which the ashes are released. You get quite the olfactory experience (assualt). Animals are allowed to roam free and other trash decomposition smells are abound as well.

It is a little unnerving for me to stand and observe cremations across the river; burial are normally a private affair in my culture; having tourists/strangers observing and taking photographs of the ceremony would be offensive and unnerving. On one of the burning woodpiles you could clearly see feet hanging out. We were also told the cremations being started in the morning were for people who had passed over the night or in the early morning; a very quick turnaround. There were several wood fires running for cremations and 3 more queued up with bodies in orange bags on them. Our guide (a Hindu married to a Buddhist) explained thier funerals were always very peaceful, no sorrow or crying/etc.  There was a separate section for cremation of officials or other people of significance. The guide also said in recent years the Temple had added an electrical crematorium. We toured other portions of the grounds with statues and monuments; quite pretty once you looked past the level of dirtiness on the path in and out.

After a 30 minute ride (and passing by the US Embassy), we arrived at the Buddhist Svayambhu Mahachaitya Temple. We were allowed on the grounds here. At the entrance there was a pool with a statue with a bowl at its feet that you tried to toss a coin into; the picture shows a lot of folks miss. These grounds were MUCH cleaner.

This was called the “monkey temple”, for a good reason. Once I have dependable internet, I’ll look up if that is what the real name means or if is merely a nickname. We had a long climber up to to top of the Temple, but it was worth it: you could view a lot of Kathmandu. There was one major, large shrine at the top with prayer wheels all around it, with various shops near the top of the Temple. Our tour guide demonstrated healing bowls in one shop; no chance of buying one as they were super heavy and would clearly put you over your baggage. The next stop was a place that sold religious canvases. We got a lengthy talk on how the canvases were created. The times spent on the canvases ranged from one week for a student to months for a master. The teenager giving the talk had either been privately educated or sent abroad; her English was better than a lot of folks back in the States.

We got back to hotel, and I was ready to grab a bite, get my gear together, and try to catch some Z’s.

So I thought getting off the plane in Kathmandu was the end of the trip, welcome sign and all.

Not just yet. To actually get into the country I had to get in line to pay for my Visa. Just pay for it. They only accept foreign currency for this, not thier own; I guess a good way to keep an influx of external currency.

Then you get in line for your Visa. I was having flashbacks of the Ron White routine where you had to get beer “kupons”. I picked the slow line for that. After getting my Visa, I headed to the next line. We had to pass a metal detector and x-ray on our carry on to get into the country. Then pick up our checked bags. I was so glad when both mine finally popped out on the conveyor. Finally one more check, I had to clear a station to check my claim ticket against my bags.

And then I’m finally out the door. This was at 11 pm and I walk out into noise, people, and cars everywhere with absolutely no structure. My pictures don’t do it justice. I got across the street and started working down the row of drivers with cards, and found my guys. Waited another 20 minutes for another rider – an Everest Climber. I had an interesting talk with him on the way back to the hotel regarding his current attempt as well as his attempt last year.

Finally got to the hotel, and I was wired. So I checked all my gear and sorted it for my gear check with the team leader the next day. Finally got to sleep at 1:30 am Nepalese time, 30 plus hours after I started my day. SLEEP.

Whoah, what a long travel day. I knew it was long on paper, but I really had no idea. Like Alaska, I’m hoping the work will payoff in the things I see, do, and experience. I can tell you there is a good chance my butt is bruised from sitting on airplanes 18+ hours today. My hat’s off to people who do fly like this on a regular basis. It’s like fast forwarding through pieces of your life. I did enjoy other than getting through security, making connections, etc, this is the first 24 hours in a long time I haven’t felt overwhelmed trying to keep up with all my life demands. Big waaah, Jasmine could say the same.

My Emirates flight from DFW to Dubai was an experience. I’m so glad I paid the extra $135 to get a front row economy seat; I could stretch my legs and get out to hit the restroom without crawling over people. The plane was nice, the attendants well mannered and educated. I was provided 3 meals that while still airline food, they were better than average. Attendants regularly made rounds with water and juices for any who wanted. We had good service on our American flight to London in 2012, but this seemed at the next level to me.

This continued at the Emirates main terminal. After getting through a quick connections security check, we were basically dumped out into a huge duty free mall that would give American high end shopping areas stiff competition. Jewelry, fashion, you name it. Elaborate waterfall building features, everything spotless.

Then… I had to transfer to my Fly Dubai terminal. First, I had to take a train to gates B/C. Then a short hike, and a lengthy airside bus ride to gate F. If you have to transfer to gate F at Dubai, allot plenty of time. Gate F is a different world; crowded, less clean, well worn. You wouldn’t believe it’s the same airport if you saw the gate pictures together. You are ultimately queued up by bus to shuttle to the airplane and walk up the “stairs on wheels”.

While Fly Dubia is fully adequate, it is just a huge difference coming off that Emirates flight.

Boarding the plane to Kathmandu, I gave up my window seat to a 4 year old girl (Uplah) from the Ukraine so her whole family could sit together. At the end of the flight she gave me a sucker and thanked me.

I’m typing this up an hour out from Kathmandu. That means I’ve been up 28+ hours at this point. I caught a few Z’s on the Kathmandu leg, but I couldn’t sleep on the way to Dubai. And it’s a horrible idea to sleep on your own at a foreign airport. I’ve got maybe 3 hours total sleep since 6:30 Friday morning.. I just need to be alert enough to get my Visa, get through customs, and get picked up by my trekking company. Then I get some rest. But for a software engineer, an all nighter isn’t too much of a stranger.

I was going to cover the trip to the hotel here, but I think that will have to be another post!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had been exercising with a training mask for two months now. My travel doc had suggested getting a little altitude the month before my trip to start preparing my body.

It was the perfect chance to get out to Albuquerque and visit family and see thier new house. The “guys” took on the La Luz trail while the girls did thier thing. We started in the desert, and somewhere above 8000 ft we turned a corner and found ourselves in snow and ice. That, coupled with the altitude, slowed us down pretty well. We did get passed up by a group of young-uns from the local Air Force Base. But it’s not a race.

All in all, it was a successful hike up. I was slightly winded from 9k to 10.3k feet, but I expected worse. No headaches, nauseau, or anything else indicating altitude issues. I think we were all ready to take the trail over to the Sandia Tram rather than go on to Sandia Crest. I do want to go back and do the whole thing someday. But if it is in March, I’ll be sure and have some micro-spikes to strap on our feet.

The next day I did 4 miles on the treadmill at 15% grade at the hotel in Roswell. Didn’t hurt at all. 7 hours later I woke up and did 1 hour on the elliptical crosstrainer. At that moment I figured I was as ready as I’m going to be, knowing I’m still at a amateur fitness level.

When we land at Lukla, I’ll be around 9k feet altitude. Then the real test of my readiness begins.

 

Or so I thought!