around the world in 180 days

Tomorrow we will arise at 4:30 am, eat a quick breakfast and climb 1000 meters, or more than 3,000 feet up to the pass. After tha, we descend 1600 meters or about 5,000 feet before we stop for the evening. The trip is said to take an average of 9 hours, which is a much longer day than we’re accustomed to.

Aside from the hard climbing and descending bits, tomorrow should be one of the best days of the hike as well. We’ll be in the midst (well, we already are) of some of the tallest mountains on earth. It’s been cloudy for the last few days, but this morning, the mountains were clear and we got a good, up close look at a bunch of mountains that, were they on any other continent, would be the tallest in the area.

Yesterday was Anna’s birthday. It’s tough having a birthday on trail. She missed all the phone calls and singing. I tried to do the best I could to make up for it, but it wasn’t the same. I did manage to find a brownie in the middle of nowhere and sang to her, but the real presents, the suit and sweater, are still waiting in Kathmandu. I think that Anna still had a good birthday (she said so), but she missed all of you very much.

“There is a time for revolution and a time for doing the dishes.” –Eskel, the danish revolutionary we are traveling with.

The HRA also recommends doing “acclimatization walks,” or walks where you ascend higher than you will sleep that evening. We hiked longer and farther today, on our day of rest, than we have on our travel days. We climbed almost 1100 meters (3300 feet) towards an ice lake, which we never managed to find, and then descended back to Manang for the evening. While the climb was tough and it was obvious in our labored breathing that the air held less oxygen, we didn’t have any symptoms of AMS. We will continue to ascend slowly, but things are looking good for crossing the pass in three days time.

One of the more awkward symptoms of AMS is gastrointestional problems, of which Anna and I have already had more than our share. We took a course of meds at the beginning of our trip to clear out some lingering nasty from Delhi, but two days ago, Anna started having issues again. We visited the doctor when we arrived in Manang, a volunteer from Liverpool, England, and her diagnosis was that because Anna has had so many runs of antibiotics recently, the natural fauna, the good bacteria, have also been killed off and her stomach has forgotten how to behave. She prescribed loperamide, or Immodium, as a trainer to get Anna’s cranky stomach back in line. So far it hasn’t done much, but Anna has no other symptoms to indicate a bacterial, ameobal or parasitic infection. THe doc said that in the absence of any other symptoms, Anna will just have to tough it out and hope it goes away, a diagnosis Anna was thrilled with.

I’ve also had my share of G.I.n troubles, but of the more windy variety. We learned in our AMS lecture that, in addition to the serious and potentially fatal conditions of HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema) and HACE (high altitude cerebral edema) there is also a less serious condition called HAFE, or high altitude flatauence explusion or something like that. It seems that my body responds to everything unusual with wind, and high altitude is apparently no exception.

Leaving the disgusting bits behind, Nepal continues to be a beautiful country. The mountain views have been obscured for the last few days by banks of clouds, but the early morning has been clear. It makes it worthwhile to get up at 6, something I’ve never been too keen on.

Enough is enough. Goodnight.