It was a tough trekking day, but we took small, slow steps, took deep breaths and made it to the small town of Namche Bazar in just under 7 hours. The views were spectacular, and apart from a bit of nausea and a headache (which was fixed with the panadol), I felt fine. And pretty chuffed I just climbed a mountain. A massive fuck-off mountain in fact, until we saw some sherpas carrying massive wooden boards on their backs, which made me feel much less impressed with my efforts.
The stuff they carry up and down the mountains is insane – sometimes they had such a momentum going that when you saw them coming from behind or ahead you would stop and rush to the side of the track to let them pass. We also used this technique for bulls and yaks, which wasn’t as interesting, with bulls and yaks having massive horns and all.
But it was a great day, and considering it was our highest ascending day we felt a real sense of accomplishment. Supper that night was pizza with yak cheese with carrot cake for dessert, which would be our last western meal until we descended. And, although we would acclimatise at Namche Bazar for two days, we would still have to follow the acclimatisation rule of ‘climb high, sleep low’ which meant another trek tomorrow.
As we were eating, the clouds outside were actually lower than we were, with snow-covered mountains not that much higher. It was spectactular.
An early night with a few sore muscles followed, and I had a vague hope that maybe I will have an ass of steel by the time I hit the beach in europe. I will just have a horrific t-shirt tan is all, but a great ass, which may or may not make up for the tan, I haven’t quite decided yet.
-Sarah
Sarah