Everest - Part I

A quick summary of the last two weeks:

We're back from our sojourn to the Everest Region.  Unfortunately it didn't go off as planned.  We intended to fly to Lukla and then over the course of 15 days hike to the Gokyo Sacred Lakes and back (via the same route or over the Cho La Pass).  We got to Lukla miraculously (more on the Lukla flight in a later blog) and hiked to Phakding on the first day.  That night we both ate dal bhat and the next morning we were both nauseous.  We walked for a few hours and collapsed in a bed before the step ascent to Namche Bazaar.  After a rough night, we felt slightly better the next day so we hiked to Namche.  Our constitutions seemingly improving in Namce, we hiked to Kyangjuma the following day and spent a delightful day in the Sherpa village of Khumjung (more on that in a later blog).  That night, however, our food-borne illness struck again -- I will spare you the gory details.  It is enough to say that that night was not pleasant.  The next day we made the executive decision to not go any higher (we were already at close to 4000 meters) but regretfully to go back down as neither one of us could hold down any food.  We didn't want find ourselves in one of the 6 helicopters that fly up the Khumba valley daily air-lifting trekkers suffering from altitude sickness or already zipped comfortably in a body-bag back to Kathmandu.  So we walked back to Lukla hoping to catch a flight back to Kathmandu -- but that was not in the cards.  Lukla was fogged in and all flights were canceled.  We waited two days but there was no change in the weather.  (The weather is still bad.  Apparently near a thousand trekkers are still stranded there and can't get back to Kathmandu).  On the second day of waiting we started feeling better (though at that point not completely healthy) and made the decision to hike to Jiri where we could catch a bus back to Kathmandu (more on the hike in a later blog).  We knew it'd be rough going if we had to carry all our stuff (still being sick and all) so we hired a porter in Lukla (Ram Sherpa -- more on him in a later blog) and started hoofing it.  On the way Ram found out that there was a bus from Bhandar (a village 6 hours shy of Jiri) that left daily and was direct to Kathmandu.  In 3 long grueling days we made it to Bhandar and the next morning boarded the bus.  15 hours of indescribable hell later we arrived in Kathmandu (more on the bus-ride-from-hell in a later blog).  We are relieved to be here alive and well.  Yesterday Bob Seger's lyrics rang loud and true.

We were supposed to fly to Bangkok on the 26th -- which would have meant 8 more days in Kathmandu --  but we were able to change our flight to the 22nd.  So we have a couple more days here and then on to the next stage of our trip.  I hope to blog a few more times before we leave -- specifically about the Everest hike and the region, the bus ride which will go down as the worst travel day in my life (and Erin's), and our visit to a Hindu temple the day preceding our Everest trip and about which I did not get a chance to blog before we left.

Hope all is well and go blue!