April 19th, we arrived at a small air field in Bharatpur(spelling?), hoped in the guest house van, and were on our way.

We arrived at the Maruni Sanctuary Lodge, which is owned and operated by the Kathmandu Guest House chain, in the mid afternoon and had a few hours to ourselves to settle in and relax a bit.

The layout is rather unique. We are surrounded by rice farms on all sides, and about a 10minute by car from the nearest town. There are approximately 20 or so cabins, each with 2 beds and a bathroom. There is also a main building which houses approximately 15-20 suites as well. There is a dinning hall located in the center of the property where all meals are served, buffet style.

At around 430-5ish our guide from the Lodge, Mehadev, took us on a nature walk. It took about 45minutes to walk into town through a forested area and down a riverbank. Along the way we saw goats, chickens, cows, and a pair of one horn Rhinos.

The Rhinos were incredible. An elderly male had adopted a orphaned younger male to help him protect his territory, which happened to be the closest to town. They looked like real life dinosaurs. They grazed on grass, and took a little dip in the river we were perched on the side of. I have some great photos and videos from the experience.

The rest of the evening is pretty much a blur past that. It was definitely the highlight of the day.

April 20th. We woke shortly before 7 and the day was getting warm already. We had a fun filled day of adventures planned so everyone grabbed a quick bite to eat and we loaded up the back of a pickup truck and headed off to our first adventure of the day, Elephant riding.

Shortly after arriving at an open field with a couple of platforms, 4 domesticated Indian Elephants came walking out of the bush not far from where we were. They strolled up to the platforms and backed themselves in the same way we would back into a parking stall at home. The drivers sat on the back of their necks and the rest of us sat in little wooden box which was placed on top of Elephants back. The ride lasted about 2 hours. We ventured off into the jungle for some nature watching. We saw a mongoose, many different species of birds, a few different types of deer, and some other random creatures. After approximately 2 hours we found ourselves back at the same platform we started from. The elephants backed themselves in, yet again, and we dismounted. Now the question came, how do you tip a guy sitting on top of an elephant, 12-15 feet above the ground? The answer is easy, you don’t. You tip the elephant. I pulled out a 500rs (rupee) bill and folded it. The elephant reached his trunk out and gently snatched the bill out of my hand. He immediately rolled his trunk backwards and handed it to the driver. Very impressive!

The group stood around wondering what our next event was. Our guide from the Lodge told us we would now be going to a river near by to wash the elephants. He also asked if anyone was interested in riding on their back for the 10minute walk, now that their saddle had been taken off. I was the first to jump on that idea.

We headed to the river where we played in the water with 4 elephants for a good hour. The videos we have are great, and the pictures are damn near amazing!

We returned to the Maruni Sanctuary for lunch and a little nap. The heat in the mid-day sun was passing 35 degrees, and a little break was much needed.

After a few hours of downtime, we set off on a dug-out canoe tour down the river. The purpose of the trip was mainly for some birding, however we saw a number of crocodiles along the way so it was a rather unique adventure.

We finished the afternoon on a river side patio where the group drank beers, Fantas, and a few bottles of water before heading home to watch a Tharu cultural show.

The entire lodge gathered near the kitchen/dinning room for an evening of song and dance provided by a local group of natives known as the Tharu. They are native to southern Nepal, and showed us the song/dance they use to keep the Rhinos and Elephant out of their crops. Using fire, sticks, and loud chants, it was very easy to see how this would benefit the local farmers in keeping their crops protected.

Our evening was finished off with an authentic Nepalese meal, then we headed off to our cabins. It was a rather late night or us, not getting to bed until around half past 9 ;)

We are currently waiting in the Kathmandu Airport on our way to Bangkok.

This chapter of our adventure is now complete, but I am sure there will be more to come.

While in Lobuche, one of our Nepali friends (B) had a cut become infected, and a day later, while in Gorak Shep she got an infection in the Lymphatic system of the arm where she had her cut.

The day our group made the trek up Kala Patthar, B had to go down to a lower elevation (Pheriche) so arrest the development of the infection.

Our group returned to Pheriche that evening to find one of our comrades, Diane Z, had fallen ill with AMS, the effects of altitude. That evening was damage control. Oxygen for Diane, IV antibiotics for B from the Himalayan Rescue Associations hospital, which thankfully is located in Pheriche.

We woke to find B’s hand/arm swollen like a hockey glove, and blood poisoning beginning to spread through her system (visible with streaks running up her arm). Dianes AMS symptoms has worsened, so Coach White had to hop into action.

A phone call, or 6, to the insurance company to get clearance for a helicopter evacuation for Diane, which would also include a spare seat for B so she could get proper medical attention in Kathmandu.

Seconds seem like minutes, and minutes seem like hours when you’re waiting to get someone evacuated. Finally, after an hour of phone calls and an hour of waiting our turn for a helicopter, there it was. A beautiful black bird with red trim showed up to whisk away Diane and B. As quickly as it came, it was gone. They were on the way to safety. Diane needed drastically lower elevation and B needed a hospital, badly.

Everyone on the trek was under the assumption B had been bitten by something. She said she felt a sharp pain in her hand while laying in bed that evening in Lobuche. It wasn’t until the evening after she was evacuated that we found out it was a previous ‘scratch’ which had become infected.

So now, it’s about noon April 15th, I think. We leave Pheriche for Deboche. The walk takes a large portion of the day but we wind up at a wonderful tea house known as Rivendell. We have a later dinner, and head to bed (surprise surprise eh?)

The morning of the 16th we found another of our fellow Trekkers had fallen ill. This time one of our Kiwis, Chris. For lack of a better term, she had the Khumbu Rumble. For those of you who have never travelled to a 3rd world country, you won’t quite know what this is all about. For those of you who have, she had a bout of rumbly belly. She was zapped of her energy, and felt like she wanted to lay in bed all day.

Unfortunately, laying in bed all day doesn’t really do anything for you when you’re still at an altitude equivalent to being on top of Mt Baker, or higher. The body doesn’t rejuvenate itself at altitude, however there is a catch-all cure for ailments suffered while you’re up where we were… Descend, descend, descend, and that’s what we were going to do.

Chris was able to muster the strength from the tea house to get up about a 1000ft incline of a hill to Tengboche, but that was about it. From there she needed a horse to take her down into a valley which was another 1000-1500ft, then back up the other side of equal elevation.

Speaking from experience (I suffered the same fate last year) I know the torment she went through both with the health issues, and those of being guided on a horse up and down some very unfriendly trails. All in all, she did very well with the hand that was dealt to her and managed to tough it out for the next 3 days until we were able to get out of the Khumbu.

B has had an operation to clear up tue swelling and she is now recovering well in hospital. Hopefully soon she will be able to head home for some much needed rest.

As for the rest of us, there is still a little Khumbu Cough left in some of us, but the remainder are all in good health with nothing but entertaining stories to tell of their travels through the Himalayas.

So it’s the 19th today, and we’re sitting in a cute little bungalow at the Kathmandu Guest House Resort at the Chitwan National Park. It’s pushing 30+ degrees outside, the fans on full blast, and I’m about to take a nap. Tonight, I believe, we have an evening of culture at a performance center where the local people, known as the Thara, will be singing and dancing for us in native attire.

The adventure continues.

We’re back from the trek/adventure part of the trip, and we’re now on the vacation/relaxation part, woohoo!

We arrived back in Kathmandu to be taken to a gorgeous resort known as the Park Villa. A pool (one of only 3 in the city), western style amenities, clean sheets, and a hot shower… We feel like royalty.

Today we’re heading to Chitwan National Park and Game Reserve. The plan is to ride Elephants, see Tigers and Rhinos, and swim with Crocodiles ( ;) ) over the next 3days.

We’re unsure if they have Internet, but if they do we’ll throw up a post or two.

I still have 2 or 3 articles to write about our trip. I’ll try and get to those asap.

Talk soon.

April 14th, 440am. The ringing starts, no one moves. It gets louder, still nothing. We’re both tucked into our warm sleeping bags, and no one wants to touch the alarm because it’s -6c in our room. Finally, Chelsea reaches over and turns it off. We leave in 20minutes, well, 19 now. Head lamps on, there is actually very little to do. We slept in the clothes we’d be wearing today, our water bottles are full, and we have snacks in our backpacks.

It’s barely light out, just enough to see. There’s a 150 meter dune of rocks we must cross to start up the hill. Kala Patthar is a trekking peak located across the Khumbu glacier from Everest and it’s neighboring peaks Lhotse and Nuptse. As we start up the mountain, we’re heading straight up hill. I’m freezing cold, my lungs are pumping, and my heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. There are 4 steps to this mountain, and we’re 20% of the way up the first.

10 minutes later, still on the first step my world starts to spin. My eyes are fuzzy, I’m going to throw up. Darkness is taking over. All I see is a black circle, closing like the shutter of a camera in slow motion. I shake it off. 3 deep breaths and a physical head shake, I’m back to reality. 17,000 feet and climbing. Left foot forward, breathe in, breathe out, right foot forward, repeat. I keep telling myself it’s a mental struggle, not a physical one. I’ve been here before, I can do it again. 5 steps later it starts, again. Dizziness, I’m going to vomit, I’m not getting enough oxygen, my body loses control and I jerk forward like I just fell asleep. I pull myself up on my trekking poles and manage to find a place to sit down. I was seconds away from going face down, half way up a mountain in the middle of the Himalayas. Things are not going well. I’m conscious, and that’s about it. A chill sets in through my body like never before. Thoughts, and pictures, of hypothermia run through my head. I ask someone to get Eoin. Seconds later he shows up, with Kami by his side. We go over the last 2minutes of my life, the future does not look good.

‘you’ve got two options’ he says after a brief discussion. ‘either take the oxygen, or go down’. HA!! 10 days of hiking through these mountains, I am not turning back. Kami breaks open his bag and pulls out the mask, throttles the regulator to full, and we wait. We wait there until my head stops spinning. It only takes a few minutes. I can’t say I was back to normal, but the worse was over. Eoin and I were way behind the group, but we didn’t care. He wanted me at the top as much as I wanted to be there. We moved at a pace that would have turtles second looking. 30minutes later the sun was starting to crest over Everest. The clouds were not clear, by any means, but we had a spectacular view. There’s a cloud blanketing the entire bottom of the valley, which we are now above, and there is a small fog still lingering around the summit of Everest. We are in the middle, and it’s crystal clear. I have the mask off my face for right now, getting some water and a snack, and Kami starts rhyming off the mountains in order from right to left across our view. There’s about 12 peaks, all above 20,000feet in this range, and I can only remember a few. Ama Dablam, Nuptse, Lhotse, Everest, Cho Oyu. After Kami finishes his statement with ‘Now that’s Hey good looking’. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment in my life.

I continued using oxygen until we were about 30minutes from the top, which was about another hour and a bit.

We made it. Eoin and I showed up to the top of the mountain a good 45minutes after everyone else, Chelsea included, but at least we made it.

Everest was not very clear that day as the weather changed every 5 minutes for the next half hour. We got our pictures and got the hell out of there.

The rest of the day was quite arduous. We left the tea house in Gorak Shep at 5am and got into Pheriche at 615pm. There was very little chatter around the dinner table that night, mostly just tired bodies filling their faces then sliding off for some much needed sleep.

We are now back in Namche, after going to basecamp and back.

Let’s rewind a few days.

April 13th, we leave Lobuche at 6am and head out for Gorak Shep(5180m). We arrive at 1015am, 4hours of walking above 17,000ft feels like hell. We settle into the tea house, and get ready for the trip to basecamp. I am feeling way more confident knowing what I’m getting myself into this year.

After the morning haul, our afternoon stroll would have been blissful, but there is very little blissful about going up and down 100meter hills for 2 hours with 50% of the oxygen available at sea-level. When we got there, the welcome mat was outstanding. A 10foot high pile of rocks, covered in tattered and torn cloth, a flattened piece of rock marked with a sharpie ‘Everest Base Camp – 5364meters’. It may not sound like the end of an epic journey, but trust me, that lump of rock covered in prayer flags should be an 8th wonder of the world.

It took us another 2.5 hours of ‘slowly slowly’ before we finally returned to the tea house for the night. Quick eats, and straight to bed, leaving at 5am for Kala Patthar.

We’ve all been asked to reduce our luggage from a bag each, to a bag per pair. As we sorted the bags this morning to be loaded onto the animals everything seemed fine, but something obviously went wrong.

We got to Lobuche at around 2 and started to check into our rooms. Everyone grabbed their bags, except there wasn’t enough to go around. Some how, some way, someones bag was missed.

2pm now, day light ends at 545, that math doesn’t work. Kami, our Sherpa guide, and Pasang Nuru, the owner/driver of our pack animals, offer to go retrieve the bag.

At Sherpa pace, the boys took off in a flash and headed back into the valley we had just come from. Sherpa pace is double, sometimes triple that of the average westerner.

3hours 31minutes later they appear on the horizon, bag in hand. Like the true unsung heroes of the Himalayan trekking community, they were happy to assist their clients in any way they take. These boys are so amazing, I do not have the time or the energy to fully describe how wonderful they really are.

Tomorrow we leave for basecamp. The next 2 days should be very difficult, but extremely rewarding. Next update when I find Internet.

We’ve moved from Namche to Kyangjuma (mistake in an earlier post) on Day 5 and stayed with Tashi and Lhakpa.

On the way we passed by a semi-abandoned airfield at Shumjung, which usage was stopped for passenger planes due to the high volume of crashes. We stopped for lunch at the Everest View Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in all of Nepal ($300USD/night), where every suite has an epic view of the mountain range surrounding and including Mt Everest. In the early afternoon we headed down to Khumjung for a visit at the Hillary School. Sir Edmund Hillary summited Everest in 1953, and along with his mountaineering greatness, he was a humanitarian above all else. He left behind a legacy of hospitals and schools and was instrumental in educating the Sherpa people. He brought healthcare, schools, and the chimney (before Hillary the life expectancy of a Sherpa was 45 due to respiratory infections from the lack of ventilation from their in-home campfires. With the implementation of the chimney, this number grew to 65+). Chelsea, who is now referred to as Hunny by everyone on the trek, and I purchased a painting from the head teacher at the Hillary School. In his spare time he paints the landscapes around the Himalayas and sells them from his art gallery located on school grounds. All proceeds go directly to helping fund the edication of the local Sherpa children.

Day 6 and we’re on a roll. We got up early to a wonderful view of my now favorite mountain, Ama Dablam. We had a very hard day ahead of us, so it was breakfast at 7, and on the trail by 8.

Down 100ft, up 1000ft, arriving in Tengboche around 11am. Tengboche holds the largest monastery in all of Nepal, and I believe it is the highest monastery in the world. We said a few prayers, took a few photos, and we were on our way to Pengboche where we would spend the night. After a long day of up, down, Sherpa flat, we ate dinner, played a few hands of Rummy, and headed straight to bed. That evening it snowed… just what we needed!

at 6:50am on Day 7 we opened our door to find a 2″ blanket of snow covering the entire valley. Our original plans were to hit the basecamp of Ama Dablam, but a change of plans had us heading to Pheriche instead. A 3 days acclimation at the Himalayan Lodge will be great for our mind, body, and souls.

Day 8, our first ‘rest day’ included a 1700ft climb directly uphill for a view of Dingboche. We should have been able to see Island Peak, and Makalu, however the weather was not behaving. Infact, while we were at the top of the hill we climbed, it started snow!

Anyway, we’re staying in a nice tea house which is the equal to a Hilton in the part of the world we are located. Showers cost about $6, and the rooms are ice cold pretty much 24/7, but it’s clean and the dinning room has a fire from 4pm-9pm. What more can you ask for?

Expect another update in 2-3 days from Gorek Shep, before our departure to Basecamp of Everest, or when we have returned.