Everest Base Camp trek, Day 2 - Phakding to Namche Bazaar

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On day 2, we woke to have a basic breakfast. And our ginger lemon honey tea. I took a few photos before we left of the beautiful river and mountain views. We packed up our bags and our porters were ready to collect. It was a fairly early start and most of the first half of the day was either flat or a gradual incline. We passed a couple of small waterfalls, villages, and trains of donkeys carrying good, particularly water canisters or petrol bottles. At our first tea break, it seemed like there would be a traffic jam as two groups of donkeys going in opposite directions were brought together. However they clearly do this a lot and it was pretty cool to see just one group stop and wait while the other group passed - no issues.

We stopped at the entrance to the Sagarmatha National Park (elevation 2855m) and waited while our guides got our tickets. This was a bit of a crazy place as there were many people here waiting to gain entrance to the official park. Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mount Everest and means The Head in the Great Blue Sky. At the entrance, there were some boards with info and a model of the Everest Base Camp trek, so we could see where were and got a general idea of what the remainder of our hike would look like. We also met a few people from England who were hiking just to Namche Bazaar where they were going to get some experience as they had just graduated medical school.

From here is a bit up and down small slopes in the trail. We crossed a few more suspension bridges. We stopped in Jorsalle for lunch and had our typical carb heavy meal - rice and noodles with fried egg and basic veggies. It was good, but a lot and I got less and less inclined to eat this as the days wore on. The break was very welcome though.

We then pushed on and here is where it started to get hard. Soon we were at the base of the slope to climb up the steps to the famous Hillary suspension bridge. The bridge is long and approximately 150m above the Dudhkoshi River. There are prayer flags at the front and my roomie was a bit nervous to cross, while I was excited! It was incredible. We got to the other side to get some photos of the amazing views. Here, though, it started to rain, the first and only real rain of our trek. We put on our rain jackets, though I did not feel the need yet to put on my rain pants. We covered our bags with our rain tarps. And proceeded up up up, about 500m, along switchbacks on small dirt paths through the trees. The trees helped with the rain a bit, but it was still a bit of a slog. My roomie "T" and our friend "Pz" walked up with me as well as one of the guides and two of the porters. We were the back of the pack. While I took my sweet time, T and Pz chatted with the guide and got some insightful history of various things, not to mention the age old arguments of US measurements versus metric (it was during this intense conversation that a few of our group had moved on and left the four of us at the back).

It was a struggle for me, but I actually was fine because I knew this day would be my hardest. And I did it! Once you get up to the top, there is still about 1km left that is relatively flat and you can see the route and I think that was actually the hardest part for me for some reason. I was just ready to be done. However, once you round the one hill and get the incredible view of the 'city' of Namche Bazaar, it was all worth it. It was truly awesome. I just wish it had not been raining so hard! I met up with the rest of the group at a cafe in town where they were warming up - we got ginger lemon honey tea and a slice of chocolate cake, a reward.

Then we were taken to our tea house for the night: Hotel Snowland. This was my favorite of our lodgings. The rooms had an ensuite bathroom, a thick heavy blanket, free wifi, and sockets so we could charge for free - the last time this happened. Each night before dinner, we would have a briefing on what to expect for the next day. While we were sitting there, T told me she was not feeling great and was gonna go back to the room. Soon after, I saw our team leader and another girl come down asking for stuff to clean something up - turns out, T had puked just as she had walked into the room and did not make it to the bathroom. Around the same time this happened, another girl left the briefing, then a guy, while one guy never made it to the briefing as he was already quite ill (this was definitely food poisoning as he had gone to get a yak burger earlier). They were dropping like flies! I went to check on T, and the guides had brought her garlic soup - she had to get something as we had another long hike the next day. I left, and soon after, she threw up all the garlic soup a la exorcist style. After dinner, I came up and she was still in bad shape and apologized because the toilet was now stopped up. So, I emptied the waste bucket and gave it to her to puke in if she had to overnight. She did. About 5 times. The first four times, I would take the bucket to the shower to clean out. I told her to swish water in her mouth and spit it back up. But she was bad and in the morning, she was very weak and tired. I had to use the bathroom downstairs and ran into another guy who was sick (5 people). Aside for the one food poisoning guy, we were at a loss as to what it was. We were only at elevation 3440m, but they were all showing signs of altitude sickness. I guess we would see what the next day would look like.

Phakding to Namche Bazaar, 11km, 2600m to 3440m

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Bravo
What an accomplishment.