Embracing the Funk

There is no warm-up when you leave Dughla. The very first part of the trek is a bastard of a climb. As we were leaving, we saw some Korean climbers coming down. Most of them had huge beards and were so badly sunburned, their faces looked like bacon. I guess they’d been up there for awhile.

Unlike other areas at lower altitude, there are very few small villages and teahouses between the larger stops. Few people want to live in such a cold, desolate place.

A popular stopping point between Dughla and Leboche is an area called the tombstones. Most porters and hikers stop to rest here. People offer prayers to appease the mountain gods. You can see monuments to foreign climbers who have died in this area, usually from avalanches. Deceased sherpa climbers (even those who died of natural causes) are cremated and their ashes are left here. It’s a very spiritual place.

We also stopped in an area where locals often graze their yaks. We were very fortunate to see a large yak train passing through. The animals wandered around grazing and resting, while the sherpas tried to gather them up. Several yaks ended up at the top of a hill and the sherpas had a hard time persuading them to come back down. It was a really neat sight and I’m glad I saw it. You see a lot of yaks up here, but not everyone gets to see a spectacle like this.

When we finally arrived in Leboche (4,960 meters-16,270 feet), I felt pretty bad. All the Nepali guides, particularly one guy who was wearing a purple jacket and guiding a large group of American trekkers, were staring at me. They see people with AMS (acute mountain sickness) all the time, and they knew exactly what they were looking at. Since I had a headache and felt pretty sick, we decided to stay the night in Leboche instead of continuing to Gorak Shep. The lodge has the best food in town, but the woman running the place was really nasty. The shower (my last for 5 days) was a nice treat.

The next day, I felt better, so we hiked to Gorak Shep. The valley was formed by a glacier that has since receded, so the landscape looks desolate like Mordor. There are no trees or greenery and there are many rocks. The Khumbu glacier was amazing to see and hear. It sounds alive with the rushing water, falling rocks and cracking ice. It was the first time I had ever seen a glacier.

I felt absolutely horrible when we arrived in Gorak Shep. Not only did I have a headache, but I could barely breathe and had to stop every 20 steps or so. The terrain wasn’t that difficult, but altitude sickness (aka my old friend soroche) had returned with a vengeance. I took a Diamox and felt better after I ate popcorn, tomato soup, and the red licorice the American hiking group offered us.

Gorak Shep is a small, desolate settlement that has more yaks than people. Situated at 5180 meters (17,000 feet), it really is the rooftop of the world. There are a few teahouses here and nothing else. We chose the least filthy teahouse, based on a recommendation from Dieter, the Teutonic marathon runner. It was a good choice, because we knew a lot of people there: Big Bird and Fozzie Bear, the English fly boys from Namche, the American group of hikers from Leboche, the other Aussies we’d seen on the trail a few times, and the guy from Utah and the 2 Scottish marathon runners we met in Dughla.

The blankets smelled like eau de porter (sweat and all things yak) and it was absolutely freezing. At this altitude, showers and laundry are too painful to bother with. You just shiver and make yourself go to sleep. At least it’s too cold for bedbugs and mosquitoes!

The next morning, after what will forever be known as the “porridge incident” (don’t ask), we decided that I should descend instead of going to Everest Base Camp or Kala Pattar. I was disappointed not to see the view of Lhotse and Everest from Kala Pattar or the glacier by base camp, but it was better that I went back down. It turned out to be a cloudy day, so the views from Kala Pattar were not so clear anyway.

The Nepali guide in the purple jacket lent us a spare porter who was on his way back to Pheriche. This was the only time during the trek that we used a porter. It was much easier walking without a pack, and the load we gave the porter was certainly lighter than what he is used to carrying (shame on you rich tourists who treat these people like donkeys!). We walked considerably faster than on the way up, when I was constantly gasping for air. Even still, the porter was usually way ahead.

We stopped in Leboche for lunch, avoiding that nasty sherpa woman’s place. She actually came into the teahouse while we were there, I guess to see what we were doing. We made it to Dughla in a few hours. In retrospect, I wish we had continued to Pheriche instead of staying in Dughla again because Pheriche has better teahouses. Then again, if we hadn’t stopped in Dughla, we wouldn’t have met the American Christian missionaries. One was originally from Nepal and though he had lived in the US for years, he had a better idea about how things work in Nepal than some of the clueless “I’m from America and I’m here to help” missionaries and aid workers I’ve met in other places. I found it interesting that missionaries would work in a country that is 80% Hindu, but they were open to answering questions about their work and the challenges of dealing with Nepali authorities.

Their organization supports an orphanage in Kathmandu. There are only about 20 kids there. The kids get quality education, food, and medical care, and are cared for by workers who receive medical and child care training. This led to an interesting discussion about “quality vs. quantity.” We told them about the overcrowded orphanage we visited in Kathmandu. They said that they like to keep things small so they can really have an impact on a few kids, partially because their donors want to see tangible results. They also told us about the corruption that they constantly face from the Nepali government. Even if you are trying to do good work in Nepal, the authorities still demand bribes and special “fees and permits.” They don’t always understand that western non-profit organizations have limited budgets and that funders expect that all finances will be used for the project, not enriching local authorities or adding money to their pet projects. Sound familiar?

They also told us that several families from their church wanted to adopt Nepali kids and ran into problems because the Nepali government prefers for orphans to be adopted in Nepal. There are strict laws on the parents’ ages and foreign parents with no kids are not allowed to adopt children from Nepal. This means that foreign couples who are unable to conceive find it almost impossible to adopt Nepali kids. I am not sure how many Nepali families can afford to adopt another child, and I can understand the government wanting to prevent human trafficking, but it seems a shame that these kids would be stuck in a poor orphanage instead of having a chance at a new life.

We continued from Dughla to Tengboche, where we stayed in a different (and much better) guesthouse this time. The highlight of my stay in Tengboche was taking a shower for the first time in 5 days. This was a new record for me. The amount of hot water was unlimited, unlike other showers where I only had 10-12 liters before it ran out. The weather was almost balmy in Tengboche, especially compared to freezing Gorak Shep.

In Tengboche, we met Nick, a 19 year old Brit trekking with his father and a couple guides/porters. We had some interesting discussions with Nick and his father. Nick is very bright and perceptive compared to most 19 year olds. Even though he was very drunk on whiskey and eventually had to be carried to bed by the porters, he offered some great philosophical observations. Too bad he couldn’t remember specifically what these revelations were!

We hiked back down to Namche the next day. Once again, there was a bastard of a climb out of Tengboche. It rained the last 2 hours of the hike and the downhill stairs were very slippery entering the town, which was rough on the knees. Needless to say, we were happy to be back in Namche. There were so many treats: cinnamon apple pastries, Pringles, hot chocolate, red wine, and best of all, mandarins, the first fresh fruit in weeks!

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