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Day 11-13: ‘shouldn’t it be down-down-down’

Any mathematician would agree that if one goes from 6,000 to 2,500 meter, one should go down-down-down. Right?? Wrong! Not in the Himalaya. Its slogan says ‘a little bit up and a little bit down’, which I already relabeled as ‘ a hell of a lot up and a hell of a lot down’. Even on the way back!

Our expedition did not complain too much though, as we had become as fit as a fiddle. Ups were no longer a problem and, in fairness, there was significant more down then up. Did I already tell you how much I LOOOVE gravity? If not, then here you go; most wonderful concept of all times! There are three other amazing things of going down:

1. inhaling increasingly oxygen-rich air. Especially not having nightly ‘gasps’ is a blessing. At altitude, one startles awake, realising that one was slightly choking followed by some gasping to replenish the oxygen. A bit scary, so very nice to get rid off
2. increasing temperature. Surprisingly, even those places that we ‘froze’ on our way up, felt better on the way down. Probably we had adjusted, or the few days simply made a biggest difference for the season. Please don’t think that we switched to swim suits immediately… It was still down jackets plus heater in the evening, but no more gloves and no more fear to move from the heater to the table for diner. Swell!
3. increasing appetite. Altitude normally supresses appetite. (Claire, be relieved; I actually found others that are not sensitive for this phenomenon…). Downwards, the food tasted better and I could eat a fork or two more ( 🙂 ). Plus we could finally indulge in a drink again. Whoop whoop, party time!

There are the yaks again…

…and a goat… Plus a horse… And the first flowers of the SpringTea time…and party timeBack in Kathmandu Baggage collected from ‘belt 1’ (= just directly of the airport trolley)And a final farewell drink…. I will miss you guys. I had been a pleasure and a privilege!!!!!

Day 9: toughest day thusfar… Kala Platter peak (5550m)

Today, I suffered the most, really. We got up just after 4 AM to climb Kala Platter and reach the peak before sun rise. The climb is only 400m up but STEEP. I recommend the Oxford ditionary to use a picture of KP to visually  explain ‘steep’.

There were two more reasons for the suffering. Firstly, I had some light altitude disease and -I now can pledge for that- that makes things exponentially more difficult. Secondly, the cold. O myContinue reading→

Day 2 night time:  mummyfication

Last night, I nearly strangled myself in my sleep. Now, I admit that I do crazy things when sleeping but self-inflicted injuries have been rare. I blame it on my sleeping bag, I suspect that this model was already in use by the old Egyptians for mummyfication purposes.

Let me explain; the bag is only ‘two foot’ wide at the bottom end, then gradually widens up to ‘body width plus 10 cm’ and ends in an integrated hood. It needs to accomodate me, but also my battaries, Iphone, etc, and my clothes for the next day because they get t oooo cold if one leaves them ‘just’ in the room (batteries run for example empty overnight due to cold and puting on freezing clothes is not much fun!).

In short, the bag has FAR too little space for a tosser-n-turner like me. The effect: total entrapment.

I should actually not complain too much much… the bag should be suitable up to -20 degrees and even at our current altitude we already had close to zero degrees in our rooms. The bag has been reasonably warm, so I think I will just have to change my sleeping behaviour.

Day 4 Everest: technical training on a rest day

Today, I realised that I had made a minor assumption error… We had our first ‘rest day’ and I thought, perhaps a little  naive ok, that that would mean that we would not hike (too much..).

Ehmm. No! Rest day is no synonym for ‘relax day’. Prem, our guide, pushed us for some 1000-1500 height meters up and down. We saw a school and we walked on our first snow.

Now that think about it, we actually walked for 5hours just to have a cup of tea on the other side of the mountain. How cray is that, lol! We visited a small museum and a gorgeous monastery too.

Nonenetheless,  admittedly, a great day and inhonesty, I was happy for the opportunity to improve my fitness level before the altitude would really kick in…

Top of the hill, as usual market with a shrine, stupa and/or prayer flags

The Tensing-Hilton school, the traditional prayer wall and our tea house in the far

The looks of the town Namche Bazar when it is in the clouds… And our accomodation.

Today, we climbed to Namche Bazar at 3550m. The total of about 1500 height meters were hard work; up and down and up up up.

I was excited to reach our next accomodation, the Hilton. Err…not… Our’s is called Hill-ten. Some striking differences; no heating so we actually had diner with down jacket, beany (Dutch: muts) and gloves.

The hike today was great actually; fantastic scenery and amazing walking bridges.

The bridges (try to spot the two in the first picture)

And of course we got a glimpe of Mount Everest

Finally, let me introduce our expedition team. From left to right: Ashley, me, Pram (lead guide), Adrian, Au 2nd guide), Ian and Judy. The guides are, not surprisingly, from Nepale, all the other team come from Brisbane, Australia. A great bunch!

Yesterday, we landed in the world’s most dangerous airport. I now understand why because I sat behind the open cockpit. The plane suddenly dove nose down without any landing strip in sight, until just before we would crash into the mountain, a strip miraculaously appeared (al hamd’allah!) and we landed safely.

Lukla at 2500m is cold, very cold. It is still quiete because it is off-peak season, few people dare to face the cold!.

A lovely 3 hour hike took us down another 200m. Yes, I know, the goal is to go to 6,200m but the slogan of Everest is “Everest; a little up and a little down”.

Today, it finally sunk in what I had got myself into with this hike/mounteneering adventure. At 2 PM, whilst being indoors, I was already feeling really cold in my 4 layers incl. light down jacket, but at 6 PM after my first ‘everest shower’ I was freezing…

Admittedly, I made 3 expensive freshmen mistakes:
1) Do not wash your hair with cold water. It takes hours to warm up your hands again
2) Do not forget to have your (travel) towel at arm’s length. Frantically searching your bag scarcely dressed in 5 degrees is not fun
3) Same for baby wipes (the alternative for a shower).

Cold regards, Ice Lollypop Linda…

I am sorry for my cryptic title, but I simply like math and numbers. Let me explain; before I even started my journey I already had 120 minutes delay as my flight got rescheduled from 3.30 to 5.30.

I must admit that Air Arabia impressed by sending a notification ahead of time, so I was able to use the time with my friend Adib. Less funny was that they then tried to deny me on board because they were overbooked. With some hard core Dutch persuasion power, however, I managed not only to get on board but to also have a 3-seat-row for myself.

I landed at 11 am KTM time, suprisingly rested. First thing I did was striving to be a ‘good daughter’; I had promised my mom that I would be pretty much reachable at any given time so my first action had to be to purchase a local data bundle. Then, well then it was time for action 2; doing the supreme thing after having arrived in Nepal: I went for Momo’s.

Momo’s are the local delicacy, pretty similar to Japanese Gyozo or Chinese dumplings. We learned about Momo’s when we were with a Trekkup group in Nepal for a horse riding expedition last year. My below picture made several Dubaian people instantly jealous and hungry, right, JP and Claire?.

Oh, on a closing note. I decided to include the Laboche peak in my hike after Everest Basecamp. The guide is good and the team seems very sensible and fun, so we will probably have a blast togther. As a result, I spent almost my full afternoon buying exorbitantly expensive extra gear such as socks and gloves and other attire that will remain warm in -30 degrees instead of visiting world heritage sites. Grrr and brr