Back from the mighty Himalayan mountains, with many many pictures!
Namaste meine liebe Freunde!! I’m back!!! 🙂
Wow, it’s been a very long time without contact with the so called modern world, and I feel a bit weird!!
I arrived on the 23rd of December, after a wonderful month trekking on the nepali Himalayas. It was beautiful!!! At last the picture on top of my blog makes some sence. My original plan was to trek only to the Everest base camp, but as always happens when you are travelling, plans change a lot.
The majority of people that visit Nepal go trekking and no wonder why. The Himalayas extend over 2400 km across Asia, and Nepal has 800 kms of this beautiful mountains. In fact three fourths of Nepal’s territory are Himalayas, including 250 peaks that exceed 6000m and eight of the world’s fourteen highest giants exceeding the 8000m barrier!! No wonder, ah??
Ok, let’s leave all those numbers away and let’s get to the story, but I’m afraid to tell you that this is A MONTH post, so oops it’s a bit long and with tons of pictures, I hope you’ll enjoy them, it was a very tough work to choose between 4000 pictures that I took over the month. So, shall we?
What normally happens is that the people don’t have all the time, energy or money that they want to make a very long trek and they start theirs flying to Lukla, the village that I walked to. It was an 8 days walk, including two days doing side trips, one to a very small village and the second to a monastery. But how to start your trek? First, you have to jump in a bus that after 9 hours, very loud folk nepali music and many many bumps arrives in Jiri, the village where your legs become the only way of getting around.
This is the map of the trek I did, courtesy of www.peacenepaltrek.com, click to enlarge.
The walk is fantastic! You are always walking besides a river, thru forest and villages.
The air becomes pure and the silence complete. Because you are walking in a valley and besides rivers you have to do a LOT of going up and down. You start the day walking 2 hours up the mountains until you reach the pass (the highest part of the mountain) and then start descending again to the river, only to find out that of course you have to cross it on a suspension bridge (some very long +\- 120 m) and then up again to the next pass!! Yippee!!
According the Lonely Planet, by the time you reach the Everest base camp, you’ll have ascend 10’000 m! That’s like climbing the actual Everest itself, and then take a stroll to Bogotá!
MAD!! but great :), jajajajaja. So finally after more than a week walking ups and downs, I arrived to Namche, the biggest city from the area and the place you are recommended to stay for two nights in order to acclimatize to the altitude. This would have being boring if I hadn’t meet Sam and Dan, both from England, and some other very nice trekkers, and between chats and card games we had a very nice time. Sam and Dan were also walking from Jiri and we stayed some nights in the same lodge.
SAm ready to conquer the Everest base camp
Dan
You have to get a place at the stove that is burning Yak poo to get warm at night. It’s cold!!
After Namche we started to walk together. Namche is already at 3440m so the walks became shorter and slower. Oh by the way, as I was gonna start trekking there was a “new” law, that you had to hire either a guide or a porter. I hired a porter, Señor Sher, a nice guy , that’s about 1.50m tall but could still carry my bag, his and walk. It was ok althought we had a couples of strong fights, like “you are walking too much, yuo are walking too fast, your bag is too heavy” you know those normal arguments between couples, that spend too much time together. Now, after the seasson has ended the law changed again, no porter or guide is needed, hum strange…
His bag and my bag, guess wich one’s mine
Sorry, let’s continue. We arrived to a village where we were gonna do a second acclimatization, and a short day walk was a good way of doing it. First I was not gonna do anything, but then I ended up climbing a 5550 m peak (Chhukhung Ri) with a guy from Israel and one from Australia!!! jajajaa,
Roy (Israel) and I
Scott (Australia)
but the real craic started when Scott and I were coming back. Roy was to fast for us and was descending when we were in the middle of the ascend, it took us 6 hours and 1100m ascending, but we made it!! We even met a guy doing research for an article on the glacier that will be published in National Geographic!
Ama Dablam, my favourite mountain
Then coming back was a bit late and the sun set. Luckily we both had headlamps, but they were not very useful, because a thick fog cover us and we couldn’t see 10 meters from where we were. We continued walking but after a while we starting wonder if maybe we were lost.
We decided to continue and suddenly we saw some lights in the distance. As we were coming to them we also saw torches coming to us. It was Dan and Roy that had come to look for us!! My God! Thanks again guys, thanks a lot.
Ok so finally we got to the last village, Gorak Shep at 5140m, the place you’ve being wanting to be for the last couple of days! Dan and Sam went to the base camp and I climbed Kala Patthar, a “hill”, at least for Nepali, wich summit is at 5550m above sea level,
This is Kala Patthar. No, not the snowy one!
to watch the sunset on the Everest range. It was BEAUTIFUL!!
Seing all those mountains SO big, although you are standing on a pretty high “hill” yourself, and how the sun changes their colors from white to yelow and pink. Peace.
Everest and Nutse, Everest is the stony one
Nutse
“Kala Patthar, it ain’t that far!!” thanks Sam 😉
It was there at that summit where I met Steve, a guy from England that helped me complete my trek,
because I needed a partner to cross the Cho La pass, a pass at 5330m that takes you to Gokyo Ri and it’s lakes.
Next day I started walking to the base camp by myself and just when I was walking it started snowing. This was at 7 am. I walked like and hour and a half, including a small loss/detour, because there where rocks almost falling on top of me from another mountain, finally I made it safe to the base camp. The walk is beautiful along a glacier, but the base camp itself has little to offer, just a crashed helicopter and …
but it was nice.
Then next day was time to start heading to the pass.
It took us, Steve, I and our crew (2 porters and a guide), two days to do the pass. First we went to a village, composed of two lodges. The bad news are that both were closed, so where to sleep?? Thank God a guy came and opened one and we could continue. The actual pass took us 9 hours walking thru knee high fresh snow, it had snowed two day ago for the whole day, and there was no track. We were making our own, walking very slowly, with my toes FREEZING!!
Summit!!
Then going down, it was so steep and icy that we had to seat on our bums and slide!! Exhausting but amazing!
Victory!
Then Gokyo, a village at a beautiful turquoise blue lake, that also has a “hill” Gokyo Ri wich summit is at 5340m. We climbed it also for sunset, and again amazed ourselves with the beauty. It was an amazing evening, and I couldn’t believe that we were the only two persons there. Fantastic.
Everest, Nutse and Lothse
The very last light on the world sets at the summit from the Everest
This was already the 21th day of the trek, and it was time to get back. I walked with Steve until we had to split, he was gonna fly back to Kathmandu and I was gonna walk. But before that we had a big “good bye” party in Namche, with lots of Chyang (home made rice beer), Momos (Tibetan “raviolis”) and Nepali dancing!
Going “down”, remember the ups and downs?, was no so great as was going up. I was exhausted, not so much from the body but from the mind. I was bored of walking, of looking at the ground the whole day, of Dal Baht (rice and lentils, Nepal’s traditional and almost only food you can find),
and I wanted to get back to the noisy and busy Kathmandu and rest. I still had some very funny moments, thanks to Chyang and locals but it was time to get back.
Ever had a wild fox hat while drinking Chyang?
It took me 6 days walking and one in a bus, but I’m here. I took a very nice hotel room, with en suite toilet and satellite T.V., and I’ve spend the last days watching films, eating Snickers, Pringles, Peanut butter Jam sandwiches and instant noodles soup, great :)!, I needed it, trust me.
Don’t tell anybody but I stayed undefeated for 34 days without a shower, and I had a plat (trenza) that stayed with me for 20! That has to be a backpackers record 🙂
My next plans are to go to Pokhara, another city for a couple of days, then south to a natural park to see Rhinos and Elephants and then head to India. I got my Thai visa today so after India (probably February) Thailand here I come!!
Bueno mis amigos, I’m SO sorry for the eternal post, but a month is a month and the Himalayas are the mighty Himalayas, so…
Thanks to all those who made my trek the unforgettable expirience it was, mil gracias 🙂
I send kisses for everyone and I hope you are all having lovely holidays. I wish you all a very happy new year, full of success, good Energy and love
see you soon
simon
p.s. now a small sample of the beautiful people from Nepal and Tibet, their culture and how they live
Mothers do everything with their baby hanging from their heads
Yaks are used for carrying wood and supplies in the mountains. They are so nice that we were chasing them with Steve to take some pictures. Well worth it.
Back in Namche Bazaar
Doesn’t she look like Whoopi Goldberg??
This two Tibetan men are part of a group that comes from Tibet illegally with cheap products from China, like jackets, socks and houseware. They had a market, but I think the police kicked them out.
NO!!!, not everyone is beautiful in Nepal!
And now to finish and beacuse this IS a travelling blog, and travelling has some nasty moment I’ll share some with you,
This is how your T-shirt is at the end of the day. Can you notice the two different colors? Nop, it did not rain that day.
This is how you are after 12 hours of walking, Kaputt
And this is the state of your feet after 30 day of trekking.
After doing the Cho La pass, and walking for 9 hours on the snow, my two big toes got a bit frozen, and they are still numb. It’s called the “frost nip” before the “frost bite” wich is when you have dead tissue. I’m ok, but my toes are numb and probably will be for a while
First time doing snow angels!
Cheers and Chao!!!
Tags: Gokyo, Himalayas, Nepal, Travel, trekking
simonuribe@yahoo.com
Ciao Simon, WOW…if I got any more jealous of your adventure I would explode all over this laptop!! Congratz on surviving the trek and no shower for 34 days.
Que te vaya bien mi amigo!
– Greg
HEll YEAHHHHHHHHH!nrnrScheiße, Simon, ich krieg so unglaublich Bock, mal loszureisen.nrnrViel Spaß aus dem grauen MainznrwünschtnrDavid
so seem to love the people as much as you seem to love their mountains..nrnrand, you look like my friend.. he too is comfortable with people. nrnrnot me.nrnrManu Raman
Simon!!
I’m off back to Nepal myself to do the Everest base camp trek. Your blog looks like great preparation reading! Hope everything’s great back in Columbia!!!
Tim
Hey simon
My names Giaya, i live in australia and i just stumbled across your blog
i have to say WOW
it looks absolutley awesome and all those pictures of the nepalese people and yacks, not to mention the scenery are fantastic
i dont know if youll reply but i just wanted to ask some questions because im planning the same trip during the same time.
Im a uni student so the only time i can go is during dec-january…but ive done some research and apparently it might not be a good idea because its the season where it snows the most. I saw in some of your pictures that you had to hike for a fair way through the snow. My dads coming to and hes almost 55, but hes pretty fit, so in your opinion do you think that he could handle it?
Should i go during december or skip out on some uni and go during july ( i hear thats the rainy season aswell so im not too keen on that either :S)
and you wrote on another page that you got alltitude sickness, my dads a bit scared of this so i was wondering if you could give me some tips on that
i just realised how huge my post is …im soo sorry for spamming your wall, anyway congrats on all your amazing adventures keep it up 🙂
btw kudos on not showering for a month 😛
i am very happy to see your web…………….. thanks