A First or Last Look at Everest
Dateline: April 10th, 2010
Today was all about clearing my mind and recuperating in a place with a touch of civilisation, but without the bad air and crowded insanity of, say, a Kathmandu. I feel relaxed. I feel a little stronger. Today was good for the soul. Though it would probably have been a lot better for the body had I not spent what should have been a down day hiking for five hours.
I'd forgotten how noisy Namche Bazaar can be. I retired at 2100 last night but couldn't get to sleep through the music blaring from the Café Dafne just up the road. The racket stopped just after 2200, but that might as well be the middle of the night when there are exhausted trekkers around who crash by 1930. Regardless, I was out quickly after all became silent and I felt more than rested when I awoke this morning at 0630.
It was a beautifully clear and windless morning – everything that conditions weren't during my rest day in Namche twelve days previous. At the time, the uncooperative weather forced us to scrub our plans to climb to the top of the ridge, sitting almost five-hundred vertical metres above. Less than two weeks ago, I was a fresh arrival in the Solukhumbu and the main incentive to climb the ridge was so that I could lay my eyes on Mount Everest for the very first time. While my eyes were no longer Everest virgins the views from the Everest View Hotel were still a draw, as were the large Sherpa villages of Khumjung and Khunde. I'd heard about a really good bakery up there. And I woke up craving pie.
My left leg continues to bother me but I found it easier climbing the full distance today that I felt merely ascending halfway back on Day 3. The ability of the body to adapt to really is a marvel. Still, I took it easy, stopping off plenty of times during the climb to reel off numerous exposures.
Landing at Syangboche
When we came level with the airfield at Syangboche, we stopped to watch a plane fly in through the valley and land on the grass and dirt airstrip. The plane was met by a few sherpas, who unloaded some bulky looking cargo – likely equipment destined for one of the climbing expeditions at Everest Base Camp. Nobody got on or off the plane. Within ten minutes, the plane was turned around and, after executing a quick take off, heading back south.
Five minutes after resuming our ascent towards the Everest View Hotel, the calm of the valley was again pierced by the sound of propeller engines. In the four days we'd spent previously in and around the Namche area, we'd heard or seen a total of two planes. Another flight coming in virtually on the heels of the first seemed… odd. But things seemed less out of the ordinary when we noticed it was the same plane. Winds had certainly picked since we set out in the morning and we figured that the pilot had gotten word of poor conditions at his next destination then decided to turn around to Syangboche and wait it out. But things got odd again when the plane did another u-turn on the airstrip – after barely a minute – and took off again. This time, the pilot didn't even get five minutes through the valley. He circled through the airspace above Namche, lined up an approach with the airstrip, and was back on the ground for the third time in less than ten minutes. This happened another three or four times. Sometimes the pilot would do a flyby of the airstrip before circling around again to land. My theory was that he was practising.
Santosh and the Apple Danishes
After a short climb, we found ourselves at the Everest View Hotel – definitely the glitziest set of lodgings anywhere in the Solukhumbu. We stopped off for about a half-hour, sipping tea and soaking in the views from the outside patio of their café. From the hotel it was an easy twenty-minute stroll, along the top of the ridge, into the village of Khumjung – the first of the two large Sherpa settlements sitting just above Namche Bazaar. I made a beeline for the Everest Bakery – purportedly the home of the best apple pie in the region. Typically, they were out of pie. But I can say that the apple danishes are absolutely delicious.
After chilling out in the bakery for another half-hour, we hiked past Khumjung and into the village of Khunde, making our way past the Sir Edmund Hillary School and the only hospital here in the mountains. It was hard to differentiate between the two villages, especially since both have grown and melded together. There's no physical delineation as to where one ends and the other begins. But while the settlements were interesting, I was more taken by the views of Ama Dablam and other himals surrounding us.
A Stone Wall in Khumjung
Our only real trial of the day came when the winds kicked up significantly along the highlands around Khunde and Khumjung. Scattered through the villages are plenty of open dirt fields and the dust storms generated were ridiculous. Even covering my mouth and nose with my Buff couldn't prevent the fine dust from getting absolutely everywhere. All exposed skin on my face and arms felt sandblasted and I was blowing dirt out my nose for about an hour. This after spending a mere five minutes in the middle of those gusting clouds.
Descent From Khunde
From Khunde, it was a relatively gentle descent back through Syangboche and down to Namche Bazaar. The afternoon was spent lazily, playing cards and napping back at the Buddha Lodge. After two weeks of eating almost nothing but daal bhat, I opted to order something completely different at dinner: a garlic steak with fries. What I got was a well-done yak steak (expected); covered in about a half-head of potent, raw, minced garlic (not quite expected). Despite the fact that I was presented with enough garlic to both burn my tongue off and turn my mouth into a chemical weapon, I practically licked the plate clean and enjoyed every second of it. I'm definitely in an "anything that isn't daal bhat is a gourmet meal" state of mind.
At dinner I started chatting with a Welsh couple and a Scottish gentleman in the guesthouse common room. The Welsh are ascending, heading for the Gokyo Valley; Scotland is descending, having turned back at Dingboche after suffering from the onset of severe AMS. Strangely, what drew us all into conversation together was discovering that we had all spent significant time travelling in New Zealand. The magic word was "Fergburger".
Over the course of the evening we shot the shit about a lot of things: trekking in Nepal, experiences around New Zealand, and travelling in general. In particular, we spent a long time swapping black humour about flying. This can't be any big surprise given our proximity to Lukla. The Welsh flew in two days ago while Scotland and I are running down the hills tomorrow to try and catch a flight out the morning after. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn't nervous as Hell about flying out of that airstrip.
Around 2100 the humour about planes falling out of the sky took on an even darker quality when somebody came out of the Internet room telling us that a Polish government plane had gone down wiping out a large swathe of the country's ruling elite. I'm utterly flabbergasted that so many members of the government, army and civil service hierarchy were allowed on a single plane. Still, I'm going on third- and fourth-hand information and don't think I'll fully believe it until I get to a reasonable web connection and can surf the news sites myself.
Rumours have a way of flying through the Himalaya and the weirdest stories seem to take hold. For the past three days, I've been hearing – from both trekkers and guesthouse proprietors – about a two-hundred-and-eighty kilogram man currently making his way up from Lukla to Namche Bazaar. That's over six-hundred pounds. That’s utterly ridiculous and every time I've expressed even the slightest skepticism I'm regaled with the "facts": that he bought six seats on the plane to Lukla (which still doesn't work unless you remove the bloody seats); and that he's moving ever so slowly – taking four days just to travel between Lukla and Phakding. They go onto say that the plan is to cover the distance between Lukla and Everest Base Camp in forty days.
Of course, nobody who tells this story has actually seen this man.
It's obviously somebody's idea of an elaborate joke.
Thamserku (6,608m)
Related Entries:
1. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 14: Back to Namche
2. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 13: Starting the Descent
3. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 12: Arriving in the Gokyo Valley
0 comments
Post a Comment