Day 328 - As snug as a bug in a sleeping bag and 3 quilts at 5,200m

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We set off full of excitement for where we were going today. To start we continued along the main road from Lhasa to Kathmandu, the so called ‘Friendship Highway’. After a while we turned south onto the Everest road and began a steady climb. After an hour or so we reached a prayer flag covered pass and stopped to admire the view. And what a view it was. There are 14 mountains in the world over 8,000 metres and spread out in front of us against a brilliant blue background were four of them, with Mount Everest sticking just that little bit further into the sky than the others.

We were well aware that perfect cloudless views of Everest are rare and don’t last for long. As such we were keen to press on with the journey, but our driver was helping another 4x4 that had broken down. Soon we were off again and before long were bouncing around all over the place as the road for the final hour became very stony and rough. With just 15km to go the road finally took its toll on our poor car and one of the shock absorbers went - not a complete disaster but something we could have done without. We turned a bend and realized that we’d reached Rongbok Monastery, the world’s highest and our marker for 8km to go. Soon after we reached Everest Base Camp or at least the version where normal people are allowed to stay. Visits to Base Camp have become increasingly popular in recent years and it seems that the mountaineers have finally had enough of questions like “What was the view like from the top?” and banished tourists to a separate camp 3km away and 50 metres lower altitude.

Our camp was pretty good and we stayed in a family sized tent (or should we call that hotel) with a yak dung burning stove. The family that own it cooked us a delicious noodle lunch and then we set off for the walk to Everest Base Camp proper. It is not far and it is relatively flat but at 5,200 metres above sea level it’s tiring and takes an hour. Our first impression upon arrival was that it’s nothing like we’d expected, with not many mountaineers in sight but plenty of Chinese army and yaks. We climbed a big mound of earth that was as far as we could go without an additional permit (or without a US$200pp fine) and from its top the view is magnificent. There were about 50 tents in three camps, with Everest from glacier to summit in the background, if that is not motivational we do not know what is. The camp nearest to us belonged to an expedition from New Zealand and we hope that their flag was rigged up with the strong winds in mind rather than signifying bad news. The camp overall was surprisingly clean and litter free - we’d heard stories that you couldn’t move for empty gas canisters and discarded kit but they seemed to have had a spring clean.

We stayed for about an hour never growing tired of the view. We wrote a couple of postcards and took loads of photos and decided that we’d return in the morning. After our walk back to our camp we had a look around at the stalls selling souvenirs and tried our luck at the post office. It really is amazing that this collection of a couple of dozen tents in one of the world’s most inhospitable places includes a small shack that is the post office. Most of the time it remains shuttered and we got very lucky when it opened for all of about 10 minutes. We took advantage and posted our postcards which went straight into the young postman’s rucksack.

As the sun went down we had a very memorable experience watching the last of the day's light fade from Everest’s North Face and since the temperature seriously plummeted without sunshine to warm us we just ate dinner and went to bed. Despite the cold we were very snug in our nests of sleeping bag and thick quilts.

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