Trek, trek trek!!

Our routine for each day was mostly as follows; woken up at 6 (or 7 if we weren't leaving and having to pack that day) by the Sherpas, "knock knock MORNING", having an hour to dress and stuff the damn sleeping bag into its tiny bag and shoving everything I didn't need in my day pack back into my big rucksack which I had to take downstairs so that it could be strapped onto the Yaks. The Yaks always overtook us near the beginning of our walk as they didn't need so much rest, but they did always look like they were panting with their tongues hanging out! It's amazing what little path they can walk on. They were led by Yak Man who always greeted us with a very cheery 'Namaste!' as he passed, and it turns out he is a great dancer (more on that later). I only learnt a few words when I was over there; Namaste (hello, sometimes goodbye), Dhanyabad (pronounced Dan-e-bad) is thank you, and something that sounded like 'tik cha' which seemed to mean are you ok? to which I'd usually say no....haha. Also on the subject of Yaks, baby ones are super cute and look like cows but run around like dogs, then the less shaggy ones like the ones we had are actually 'Yows' a mixture, and female Yaks are 'Naks'. Also they all come equipped with a nice bell that meant we heard the gentle chiming and knew to stand to the side of the path! *Yak facts*

Our Yaks with yak man in the background!

So anyway, we usually had breakfast around 7 and then left at 8am to begin walking that day.
Breakfast was odd sometimes and other times nice. One day we were given spicy/garlicky potatoes and the rubbish fake-naan type rubbery bread which I just couldn't handle that early, but we also had porridge, with honey or sugar, and muesli or cornflakes (but with hot yak milk, bit weird) or boiled eggs which were good and one time rice pudding which wasn't half bad! Oh and quite often there was toast with honey or (super excitement...) crunchy PB!! And then there's the tea...we were constantly plied with tea! For every meal and also when we first arrived at the next destination. Tea with no milk this is, either plain, or lemon, ginger, berry or mint and although I don't really like that kind of thing everyone gave in and drunk it. Something I did like is the hot orange they gave us when we reached the stop for that day, it was really nice and hydrating, but that seemed to disappear mid way through the trek, there was hot lemon a few times but then just tea which is a shame.
After breakfast people got there bottles and camelpaks filled up and stuck the purification tablets in, and then we were on our way after doing our count off to check we were al present (there was 21 of us). Our group was mostly UEA people, but there was also a 30 something woman from Sweden, a girl from Czech Republic who was my age, a guy from Germany, a boy at Uni in England but who lives in France, and a man who was 48! Then there was a couple of people from York Uni, Newcastle and Manchester so it was quite a mix!
I started having the purified water with my chlorine dioxide tablets but frankly it was just foul like sucking on a swimming pool and because they were constantly on at me to drink I just got the mineral water 1L bottles and drank that (Everest or Sherpa brand!) and they got more expensive as we went higher but mostly the Sherpas bought it for me so that was nice.
So its 8am, bags are packed and yakked and water is ready, we are good to go! I should mention that some of the crazier people carried their big bags because they wanted to be able to say that they had, and I don't doubt that they were heavy but each day they put more and more stuff in the day packs and gave that to the yaks so if you are going to give a bag of stuff away anyway I don't really think it counts!
Before I talk about the trekking itself I should mention the Sherpas. There was Pemba our guide from Childreach who met us in Kathmandu.


Tashi and I

Me and Bali walking from Namche





Walking with Padam

Bhuwan.

 

Then in Lukla we met the rest; Tashi, 32, has summited Everest twice, once from each side, once as a guide, and kept mentioning that if any of us wanted his services to let him know (its costs around $40,000, and I'm not sure I am keen to go back any time soon!). Then were was Bali, who was the only one also helping the June trip I was originally down for, that my friend Emma went on. He was my age and he was my guy; he was normally always with me and when I got ill usually carried my day bag, made me drink, and held my hand on scary bits!
We tipped the Sherpas at the end of the trip, they suggested $50 but I gave $80 as they were so helpful. Then there was Padam, and Bhuwan both 22 or 23 and Bhuwan was married, it must not be fun leaving her for 2/3 weeks at a time! You could tell the Sherpas were often bored and messed around by taking different routes over the hills, climbing up rocks to show off, dangling from trees and rolling down hills!

Bali with rocks on his head!

They were a really great bunch though, they also always brought us tea, filled our water, and gave us our food and seconds before they ate.
So the actual trekking, we usually walked for about 4 hours before lunch which was relatively early, and then 3 or 4 hours after although sometimes longer. For one or two days it was sunny and I think I even got a few blisters on my hands on the last day, but the majority was all cloudy, this did mean the walking was easier though.
We stopped at 'toilets' sometimes (a shed with a hole in the ground inside) but most of the time we had to find somewhere just off the path to go, so I quickly became an expert squatter! The first time I went 'in nature' as it were, I was desperate and had to wait 'til there was somewhere I could go, and there was a nice foresty bit that I walked through, and it was so much nicer and freer than going in the stinky shed holes!! There was also a time when lots of us girls needed to go and we all went off in the trees and spread out ha. I took 3 loo rolls with me, and a few packets of tissues but I had to buy more as I blew my nose a lot and they were rough out there so my nose got really sore and looked like a burns victim it was gross! And I brought one loo roll out there so 4 would probably have been enough. Handgel was obviously a necessity out there, and I was so so so sick of mine by the end, and so desperate to wash my hands with running water and soap and have clean nails!!
So the toilet situation... first there was no soap and loo roll, then no hot water, then no running water, then no electricity, no flush...just a 'manual flush' (a jug in a barrel of water) sometimes no lock, then no actual toilet just a ceramic plated hole!! Every SINGLE night even if I hadn't drunk much I woke in the dead of night absolutely dying for a wee, but it was just so much effort to go to the gross toilet, as I had to find (mental checklist here..) head torch..shoes...joggers...hoody...loo roll...and handgel and it was just so much hassle and my head torch was very bright so I worried abut waking whoever I was in a room with up. So I tossed and turned for like an hour not wanting the make the effort but every night I ended up having to get up and go, so I should have learnt my lesson and gone straight away but I didn't. So that was the joy of the toilets in the night. I believe you could probably do most of the trek with an ensuite to make it slightly less hassle if you weren't on a budget, but we usually had one or two proper toilets in the hotel/tea house and a few hole ones. There was also a few times when I nearly slipped in the dark in my hurry to go, lets just say I appreciate my bathroom at home a hundred times more than I did!! And I never want to use handgel again. On our last night in Lukla we were amazed with our ensuites!

A sign above the toilets in Namche!

I will just mention my equipment now...
my sleeping bag was a good RAB one that was meant for up to -20, so I was always warm enough to wear a tshirt and pants to bed. They also gave us blankets in each tea house, one had really grimy ones with Hello Kitty on, but some were really nice knitted pink and purple, while another had duvets.

Headtorch; borrowed from Dad whom I ridiculed for having said headtorch, but in the mountains it was amazing!!! SO useful, definitely a must have. It had a dimmer setting that was red so that was a bit creepy! One night we met some guys from NZ and Hannah and I spent a while talking to them, they were one day ahead of us as they had gotten a helicopter up to the mountain whilst we were still delayed...anyway I realised id had my headtorch on red while we'd spoken, looked like a right weirdo!
My daypack was 20L which was more than big enough as you didn't need too much stuff in there. It was a Deuter one and had lots of good adjustable straps etc.
My walking boots were like trainers with more ankle support, they were Salomon, and I didn't get a chance to wear them a single time before we went, but they were perfect, I wore them with thin inner socks and a thicker outer sock and I didn't get a single blister or cut or anything! And my feet are usually pretty sensitive.
I had thin gloves which I needed towards the end of the trek, and wore my buff around my neck and a hat, but I only needed a waterproof jacket (North Face) with a fleece or two underneath, and with my hoody for the evenings I definitely never needed a down jacket, although a few people had one.
I took a few pairs of sports/legging type bottoms but I wore my waking trousers that zipped off to shorts basically everyday. They were Craghoppers and I only brought them at the last moment but I'm glad I did!! I wore thermals on the last day but didn't really need them otherwise. I had a 2L camelpak but it was just too heavy for me once full so I used my bottle until I began buying mineral water. If you can carry it they are very handy though! I hired poles as I said before, and only used one, but it was very handy!! It goes without saying that baby wipes were useful, especially as back-up loo roll. We didn't shower past Namche, day 2, until we got back there on day 10, and so had 8 days without a shower which is going to be the longest ill ever go for sure!! My hair wasn't too bad until the last few days luckily, but my hairbrush took one look at the state of my hair at Gorak Shep and broke, so I didn't brush my hair for about 6 days until I was home!!! Finally I took all kinds of painkillers and things with me, including the dioralyte sachets meant for rehydration, and they.were.foul!! Tashi tried to give me an orange one that they carried too and it made me feel so sick I didn't bother! Avoid, avoid, avoid.
I think that's most things...
So as we trekked we passed many different types of scenery. At first it was quite populated villages, then more mountains views with far off waterfalls and a river through the middle with a strong current, we sometimes had to hop across rocks in the rivers, and then there were crazy suspension bridges

that got extremely bouncy when the idiot boys jumped on them and had pointy wire wrapped around the sides so if you tried to hold on you often got stabbed so it was best to just go quickly! Later on we clambered up the sides of huge hills on really thin paths that felt like I might fall off the side, and edges down paths with loose rock so people kept slipping. Then it got less green and more desolate and everything was grey and houses were a lot less frequent. All the views were amazing though and it was often a nice reward to look down on a beautiful view after some heavy steep trekking.

At Base Camp itself was slippery ice and large boulders to navigate.
Mostly we didn't pass that many people, and when we did it was yaks or Sherpas more often than fellow trekkers although we did pass some. They carry ridiculous things like huge pieces of wood and when they stop to rest with their load balanced precariously I don't know how they don't topple over the edge! Its almost impossible to believe when you think that everything (apart from building materials that already existed in the mountains) from the houses they have built to all the food they eat and stuff that they sell has been brought up by people, along the same trail that I couldn't carry my day bag on! They are all quite small people but amazingly strong, and of course are acclimatized to the oxygen levels. There are also stray dogs on the mountains, and horses that just walk past, strange to see them without a human!

 A Sherpa with his load!

There were steep ascents and tricky descents and a lot of Nepali flat (little bit up, little bit down) AKA not really flat at all. I actually preferred up as I was quite slow going down feeling like I was constantly going to slide or trip and fall. It felt like half the time we missed the view because we were so busy looking at our feet. Speaking of which there was a lot of yak poo to avoid on the paths, big lumps all over the place! But it still seemed a lot fresher and nicer than the pile of rotting rubbish strewn across the streets back down in Kathmandu, and when we first landed it was so so good to breathe the crisp mountain air!
As we walked we would pass religious 'Mani stones' and 'Mani wheels', and also poles wrapped with prayer flags, all these things we had to walk to the left of as it is the custom. The Mani stones have prayers inscribed on them, and the wheels are meant to be spun clockwise for good luck. There are also giant Mani wheels that are turned by the water power from the river. The small ones were often 10 or 20 in a row that you could spin as you walked by, I gave up about halfway through the trek though.

Mani stones.

Giant Mani wheel in Kathmandu

 

So lunchtime... always a good chance to rest and refill our water. There were a LOT of carbs thrown at us, and until day 10 we had no meat and were all vegetarians because the meat would have to be transported over days and days=not safe. The first day for example we were given plain rice, plain potatoes and plain pasta which wasn't great, but other lunches were pretty nice like pasta with a spicy tomato sauce (my fav) pasta and potato with a cheesy garlic sauce, or on the last day we had a spicy curry in a bowl with some fake-naan chewy bread which was really good.
The Sherpas love love LOVE chillis and often have a bowl in front of them at lunch, and I took Tashi's offer of spicy sauce once (I was the only one!), and I dipped the tiniest bit on my food and it was reallllly hot! Crazy Sherpas. We had lots of potatoes, noodles, spaghetti, pasta and rice. We had a lot of chips too which was always my favourite because I can normally always stomach chips. One lunch in Dingboche was chips and baked beans and was really good. One evening we had Sherpa stew, full of vegetables which was lovely. On the 9th evening, i.e the day after BC, as a reward we got pizza, either cheese or tuna, I went for tuna, but it was Yak cheese which is pretty strong so it wasn't too great and I felt ill so didn't love it. On the 10th evening, back in Namche where we also stayed on Day 2, we got the best thing; Yak steak with chips and salad, with some kind of gravy on it and a little salt it was quite yummy! Although that may have been because it was our first meat for ages. James got carried away and ate about 3 steaks and looked really ill after!!

So dinner was usually about 630 or 7 and followed similar lines to lunch with carbs, and cups of tea, but we always got some form of 'starter' and a dessert too. These ranged from Oreos (exciting) to more average biscuits, often popcorn (which I never had but everyone else seemed to go crazy for), one time was vegetable bhaji things which were great.
Then before the main course came the absolutely DREADED garlic soup!! Now, I love garlic, but this soup was just pure garlic with liquid, not nice!! I forced a bit down then gave up most nights, it is meant to help us acclimatize but, yuck!! On the way back down we got nicer soups like veg or tomato which tasted amazing in comparison! Then dessert was sometimes tinned fruit which was nice, one time was a kind of apple pie with cinnamon and another time a pie thing with melted chocolate in which was good! I snacked on snickers but got bored of them pretty quickly. One night Tashi and I shared a tube of pringles (original) for 600Rs aka $6 because we were high up (coke, pringles, chocolate ...everything got more expensive the higher we went; in Kathmandu a coke was 55Rs, but near BC I paid 390 for one!) and at that time they tasted amazing! Whilst on the subject of food the one thing I enjoyed in Kathmandu was a Banana Lassi, this was a milkshake type thing but with yoghurt so it was more sour, but it was good.

Banana Lassi!

So lunch was between 12 and 1 usually then we'd walk for 3 or 4 hours or so and reach our destination for that evening about 5, sometimes earlier and we'd change and then laze around til dinner, playing card games etc. Then after dinner we got a briefing every night which was given by Tashi and then later on by Bali who, bless him, always asked the same three questions 'how was your day' 'how are you' 'how was your dinner' then he'd say 'I am going to brief you about tomorrow'. And they always seemed to say 'the Everest' or 'the Lukla' like it will be three hours to the Lukla rather than just saying Lukla.

They'd tell us how long we'd walk and how much was up, how much down etc and where we were going. Tashi also included some information about the Sherpa culture most evenings, like how they are a people not just porters, and that they were all Buddhist, and a bit about their weddings and funerals and so on, very interesting. He told us the 'che' on the end of most place names (Debouche, Lebouche, Pheriche, Dingboche..) meant print like a footprint and I think 'Namche' actually meant footprint. Back in Namche on day 10 after the steak we got to watch a documentary on Sherpas about them climbing to the summit and all their tasks and it was from their point of view. I was also (among my other books) re-reading Into Thin Air as it made more sense and mentioned things I came across as we went which was cool.... he writes the trek to base camp in about 2 pages though! And I had lots of question for Tashi like is the Khumbu icefall really as bad as it sounds (yes) and it was great to be able to ask questions of someone with first hand knowledge. However he didn't like that book and similar ones as it barely mentions the work Sherpas have to do, such a setting the ropes for all the climbers, clearing the paths, setting up ladders, not to mention carrying all the equipment up, setting up the tents, bringing it all down... when he guided a woman to Everest in May ( I think he summited around the time I was sat in my final exam, crazy) he carried all her stuff around 45-50 kg up and down! And he has also nearly gotten frostbite from removing his gloves every time he had to change the carabiners for himself and his client, and so he said he just hit his fingers on a rock to regain feeling and it must have really hurt but I guess it worked!
Something that's also pretty cool is that...back in April as I remember reading on BBC, there was a 'brawl' on Everest, between climbers and Sherpas, and I know at the time it made out that the Sherpas attacked the climbers or something, but it turns out that without knowing it I was reading about my future guide! And the craziest bit is that Tashi is the least violent guy, but he got caught in the middle when someone pushed him, and then fellow Sherpas came to his aid...He hates how Sherpas are portrayed so he decided to give an interview!
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/mountaineering/everest-2013/Tashi-Sherpa-Interview.html?page=all
It is very interesting and I can definitely see his personality in this interview. He also mentions that families are beginning to prefer other things for their children than for them to be mountaineers, and that was already evident when we spoke to our guides; Bhuwan and Padan will just be trekkers, Tashi is a mountaineer, but Pemba could climb Everest, and one time he had sorted out a trip, got sponsorship and equipment together and then his family did not allow him to go. Then Bali is in training so that he can climb Everest or guide people up it, but he tells me his family is not happy about it.

We often went to bed by 8.30 or 9 pm after the briefing because we were so tired. All the rooms were shared by two people, so I had a roommate once again, which makes about 10 days in four months that I have gotten to sleep by myself, very weird!
I shared with Mikki, Bea, Becky and Helen and everyone kept swapping around. Rooms were just wooden boxes often with some kind of lock on the door that often involved a key with a very bulky keyring, with two beds in with pillows a bed sheet and a blanket folded at the end.

Still being built?

Sometimes there was a light and sometimes not so there was often packing in the dark with headtorches! Most nights I read a bit of my book then tossed and turned, from stomach ache or back or chest pain I usually only slept intermittently and coupled with the nightly toilet run its a wonder I found the energy to walk at all the next day! The teahouses always had a large main room with bench seats lining 3 of the 4 walls and tables, then at one end would be a counter with a plastic display which held tissues, coca cola, various pringles and fake pringles and chocolate bars, loo roll and other bits and pieces for purchasing. Often the room had a woodburner in the centre too so this is where we hung out. Rooms would be down a corridor or up some stairs, or sometimes outside then up some stairs, and there'd be one or two toilets somewhere and that's about it. It goes without saying charging electronics and showers cost extra, charging started at 100 and went up to 250 near the top. I had a battery charger thing Dad gave me that allowed me to plug USBs into it to charge my phone and camera but I forgot I had it til halfway up so I paid for charging a few times (stupid!) Oh and we could pay for wifi too ($5) in a few of the places but most didn't offer it and by then we'd given up on contacting the outside world! We even went one day to an internet café but after sitting there for an hour id managed to send one message it was so slow so I gave up.

This post is crazy long so I am going to split it into one more when I will mention the itinerary of the trip and add some bits that were in my diary!