Advertisement
Published: July 20th 2011
Edit Blog Post
After a full day wandering the streets of Kathmandu I returned to the Hotel Tibet at around 6pm to meet my good friend Clarisa who i've known since medical school. She was pretty up for the trip since I first suggested it and we both felt the call to try the Everest Base Camp trek. We met in the lobby with our guide and tour company leader (after a long delay for Clarisa at the airport) and in a very British way, had a nice cup of green tea! Having been so chilled in Kathmandu, seeing Clarisa again, I suddenly felt more fired up to get trekking and get out into the mountains. Our company leader informed us there had been one full day of bad weather at Lukla where we'd be flying to so there may be some back-up, pissed off trekkers waiting for us in the airport the next day still waiting their turn to fly out. We both knew and had heard about the weather problems and the difficulty for pilots landing in Lukla at the best of times so we sort of took a philosophical view and prepared for a long day at the airport. We ate
out that night at the Ying Yang Restaurant in Thamel and had a few beers in the company of a massive group of American tourists who in turn stood up to toast various members of their party at regular intervals. When we asked how their trek had gone they hadn't been yet! LOL! Ha ha! (You crazy guys!)
We woke a little earlier than planned every though we left EARLY as we'd taken some time packing, lifting then repacking our stuff for the trip. We managed some hot tibetan bread with marmalade and scorching coffee before piling into a car to the airport. A very sleepy but impressively enthusiatic employee of the company came with us and was optimistic about the flights despite the hazy looking morning.
To cut a long (and not thrilling) story short we spend all day till about 3pm at the airport, buying snacks and reading, chatting to every nationality of trekker possible. At one time the airport staff cruelly raised hopes by getting us through to the departure lounge but the only flight to leave was one going to 'mountain' which apparently flys around a mountain and comes back without landing, sounds a bit pointless?
By lunchtime we were back in the main (but still relatively small) departures area which was by now heaving with 2 days worth of massive rucksacks and large numbers of walking boots sadly stayed firmly crossed! One group of American and Canadian tourists who were also headed to Lukla, we believe managed to hire a private helicopter to fly out for around $250 as there was rumour then an hour or so later they all disappeared! (money talks, eyebrows raise, ha ha!) Other than them everyone else gradually gave up and left and headed back out to Kathmandu. It was pleasant to step back outside the airport and the sun broke through as we sat down with our guide who had come up with a back up plan should the cloudy weather persist. We agreed that if the flights were delayed the next day too (as these weather windows can last for up to a week) we would head instead to the Annapurnas to the west of the Everest region and embark instead on the Annapurna Circuit trek.
Next day came a repeat of the previous morning, by this time the inside of Kathmandu airport was becoming unsettlingly familiar and
we just wanted to get going so off to Besisahar it was. We met with our new guide Sonam and our porter Gansa and drove from Kathmandu for several hours into the evening to arrive at Besisahar from where we would jeep-it to the start point of our trek.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.039s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0215s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb