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Published: September 26th 2010
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DOLE TO NAMCHEE
8/6/10: We had the best sleep ever; the thick air filled our lungs making it hard to wake up. It was also a pleasure not to wake with a dry mouth. We started our walk shrouded in cloud and that's the way it stayed until lunch. We made great time and thought we would arrive in Namche in no time. Just after Portse Tenga we hit a massive hill. We were at 3600 high and had to climb 4000m to reach the small village of Mong la. None of us were expecting this climb, the track had switch back after switch back and even though the air was thicker we had to push ourselves the whole way up. Once we reached the top we knew the worse of it was over, we only had another couple of hours to walk losing altitude the whole way. I rested and waited for Jacinta and Azeret. After we regrouped it was full forward all the way. We all walked faster than we ever had on the whole trek, the air was getting thicker and thicker and we could feel the difference. Thinking that we had no more hills to climb was
just stupid, we had to climb up another hill around 150m high to get a town called Khumjong. Once through the town we bumped into Shanker and James again. We all reflected on how bad the climb up to Mong la was. We payed our respects to a Sir Edmond Hillary statue located inside one of his many schools before moving on. After cresting another small hill we descended on to the airstrip located above Namche, we were lucky enough to watch a Paltis Porter take off in spectacular fashion. Jacinta and I had been here before using the height of the airport to acclimatize on our way up to EBC. We all got excited; Namche was only 150m down steep steps. We walked through Namchee hearing the familiar tapping of hammers onto rock chisels. The workers had put another three courses of stone blocks on a small lodge. We all check into the same lodge and dumped our bags. It was still early so we went for a walk. Jacinta finally bought a yak bell that she always wanted. They were worn on the necks of yaks to warn oncoming traffic that there was a rather large animal coming
around a blind corner. I’m not sure why she wanted one but it made her happy when she found the perfect one. We all sat around the table eating our dinner and happy with our achievements. The lodge was absolutely full with trekkers heading up the mountain. James rubbed it in how good his shower was, I still could not justify paying 300nrs for a shower even though it was solar and not heated by fuel. We said our goodbyes to Shanker and James as we would be leaving early in the morning and they were going to stay one more night.
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