How Bizarre

April 30, 2010
Tengboche to Khumjung – somewhere around 13,000 feet

The walk up to Tengboche was tough enough. The lodge was crap, and the night that followed, extremely cold. It didn't help that sometime around midnight I discovered my rented sleeping bag was devoid of down filling in the sections between my hips and knees. The smell of sewage from the unclean squat toilet hung in the thin air as a constant reminder of where I was. I tossed and turned most of the night and needless to say, woke up in a rotten mood.

I was cranky because I had been fairly uncomfortable during the night, but also because my time climbing to new heights was over. I would be turning around this morning and heading back down towards Lukla. And, despite my trouble getting a full night's sleep, I felt okay. Sure, my body was tired and sore, but as far as the altitude was concerned, it was not really affecting me. I sat with a San Jose woman at breakfast who was so ill I couldn't believe her guide was pushing her to go higher. I had expected to get sick, and embarked on the trek armed with diamox (a high altitude drug) and a satchel of other remedies. Turns out, at least at almost 13,000 feet, I needed none of them. I wanted to keep going and was disappointed that I couldn't. (Though after one night shivering in my sleeping bag, I kind of knew going higher could result in frostbite.) The walk down would be long; I wanted to eat breakfast and get on with it.

And so less than 16 hours after I'd dragged my ass up the steep pass into Tengboche, I was about face and descending it. My mood continued to drop with the trail, especially since Phurba virtually vanished. He'd just skip along, way ahead of me until he was out of sight, then stop and wait for me at 30 minute intervals.

“Is problem? Knee is paining?” he said when I caught up with him at a natural resting point.

Let's see, I was moving at the pace of an arthritic geriatric patient, wincing with each step, holding up traffic, watching my knee swell - “Yes, Phurba, IT'S PAINING.” While I had told him to go ahead the previous day, no such words had been uttered today. I was scared I might fall and break my leg, and he'd be nowhere in sight. What if I had to be carried down by the smelly porters, or worse, strapped to the back of a yak for the 2 day hike to an airstrip? With these doomsday scenarios whizzing through my head, I gobbled some Advil and got down the pass as quickly as I could.

We were headed to Khumjung, a Sherpa village near Namche Bazaar. Most trekkers visit Khumjung during a rest/acclimatization day on their way up to base camp, but I'd arranged to spend the night on my way back to Lukla. Like Namche, it is a village carved into the mountainside, reminiscent of an ancient Greek amphitheater. We arrived sometime in the early afternoon to the eerie feeling that Phurba and I were the only people in town. Aside from the school kids kicking around a deflated soccer ball (following his ascent of Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary built a school in Khumjung, as well as hospital nearby), I saw nobody. I asked Phurba what was up, and he told me that most of the climbing Sherpa came from Khumjung. The ones lucky enough to land a place on an expedition were high up on Mount Everest working, probably already plotting for the summit. Some, he solemnly remarked, would not return. Where their wives and families were, I wasn't sure.

Aside from climbing Sherpa and Hillary's school, Khumjung has another claim to fame, one of which would take me by surprise. The village houses an old Buddhist monastery, and Phurba (who confessed that he would one day like to land a job as an Everest Sherpa) wanted to visit and ask the Buddha to keep safe his colleagues who were headed up to the death zone. I was more than happy to take a walk over with him; I felt pretty good. The village was not as steep as Namche, and it was an easy and charming walk. Aside from a couple of nuns cleaning the prayer wheels, the only people there were Phurba, a monk who showed us around, and me. As I always do, I put a few rupees in the donation box. The monk came scurrying over to me and took me by the wrist. He led me to a locked cabinet and took out the key. Was he trying to extort more cash? Is that where the “real” donations were kept? I did not know what was going on. Phurba had a shit-eating grin on his face and asked me if I was ready. Confused and a little bit scared, all I could muster was an unsure, “Sure...” Inside the cabinet, resting atop a '50s-style beauty school bust sat the monastery's prized earthly possession: the scalp of a yeti.

Now of course, as luck (and legend) would have it, I had left my camera at the lodge. The innkeeper had electricity behind the counter and was charging my battery. As in life, the yeti is apparently camera shy in death. Nobody was going to believe me. Hell, I could not even believe it myself. I asked the monk if he had seen a live yeti, and with what frequency. He told me that it was very rare now but when he was a boy he would see them often. He did say that weather like today's (cold, foggy, gray) sometimes brought one around this time of year, looking for food. Interesting stuff. I wondered how tall the tales would grow if I'd made a larger donation. I turned a couple prayer wheels and retreated to the warmth of my guest house.

The date was April 30th, one day before the May Day celebrations. We knew this was a national holiday of sorts, and we also knew, via news trickling up and down the trail, that May 2nd was going to be a day of Maoist demonstrations. I was set to fly back to Kathmandu and start volunteer work on May 3rd. All sorts of rumors were flying around, and I was overjoyed when we got back to the tea house to find the soothing sounds of Nepali screaming out of a television set. I ordered a lemon tea and took a seat in next to a couple from Arizona I'd met a few days earlier. Happy to be in the company of Americans, we quickly got to talking. Rumors had been flying and we were trying to discern what was actually going on. It's no secret that Nepal suffers from bouts of political instability. There was chatter up and down the trail; rumors of airports closing, imminent riots, martial law, mass starvation. Up here in Khumjung, the demonstrations in the capitol mattered little. All any of us really wanted to know was would we be stranded in the Himalayas, and for how long. As I don't speak Nepali, watching TV was little comfort. There were shots of the Prime Minister and the Maoist leader, but not one of the 10 Sherpa or porters would translate anything for us.

I kept asking Phurba “so, what is going on? Is the domestic airport going to close? How will we get back to KTM? Will we have to walk (this was a real possibility – and one that would take over a week)?”

Some people speculated that the protests/strike would go on for a month. Problem was, these guys are so used to it, they really didn't seem to give a shit. They also did not want to relay any bad or disappointing news to foreigners, lest we think poorly of their country, so instead all we got was nebulous information. “Maybe will be OK I think,” or “He is Maoist leader, is saying protest tomorrow.” Gee, thanks guys. Informative and reassuring.

As I passed the time talking with my new friends Lisa and Kris about home – turns out the couple had recently been to a wedding at The Brownstone in NJ, where my sister got married; Lisa's family was from NJ and Italian; they had both eaten the spaghetti for lunch and recommended I try it for dinner - some excitement arose from the Sherpa gang, who were all crowding closer to the TV. Excellent, I thought, some news. The scene that we witnessed was so unbelievably bizarre that had I been alone, I'd have assumed I was having high altitude hallucinations. Every Nepali in the room (save for the woman who ran the lodge) had moved his chair close to the TV. The volume was turned way up. As the sun set behind the giant mountains, we, along with probably the only other people in town, settled in for a three hour long session with the WWE. Wrestlemania had reached one of the most remote parts of the world, and carried with it far more weight than something so futile as, oh, a Maoist-imposed national strike!

This was serious business. The thin air suddenly became thick and heavy, as if the Sherpa were high rollers with millions resting on the Kentucky Derby. Having worked in heavy metal, I was embarrassed to admit I knew some of the wrestlers and moreover their theme songs. I was hearing Killswitch Engage at 13,000 feet. I had even met a couple of the wrestlers, news I kept to myself lest a riot break out. The excitement in the room was bananas. At one point, Phurba got so worked up his chair was rattling. I asked if the featured wrestler (I think it was Darren Young) was his favorite. “Oh yes, He is very good player!” and then I was shushed so the match could be watched in silence. It was truly hilarious, and I had not laughed that hard in a long time. Proud of my country's fine entertainment exports, I focused my thoughts on dinner.

I have to admit, I was nervous about ordering the spaghetti. It was on every menu, but I usually thought it best to stick with dal bhat. We had been talking about food all afternoon, and I was sick of dal bhat. My friends assured me that it was good. So after the innkeeper fired up the stove with yak dung, she went to work (sans washing her hands, I should note) chopping up fresh tomatoes, onions and garlic, and I was presented with a giant plate of spaghetti with fresh marinara sauce and a heaping mound of grated yak cheese. And it was actually delicious. I declined to accept Kris's recommendation to sample the “Hot Tang,” (by far the most curious menu item I had seen on the trek) but thought that if I ever started a band, that would be a great name. The afternoon turned into evening, the Wrestlemania marathon carried on long past sunset and my last day high in the Himalayas was a blast.

I was in bed by 8PM, haunted by dreams of being abducted by a spaghetti-eating, tang-drinking, Maoist-wrestling yeti. Bizarre, indeed.

Can't You Smell That Smell?

April 29th
Namche Bazaar to Tengboche – Part 1

You would think that being so high in the mountains, the thin air would be crisp and clear, the wind carrying with it scents of pine and earth, wafts of the occasional meal being cooked in the distance drifting your way. And you would be right, for the most part. Except for when you'd be wrong, which is about every 7th or 8th minute on the Everest Base Camp Trek. In addition to all the trekkers bound for EBC or Goyko Lake or Cho La, and the mountaineers en route to tackle Ama Dablam or Island Peak (teams attempting the Everest summit have been in place for two months already) the road is also populated with their gear. This is transported one of two ways: either by yak or human porter.

The yaks, or more often in Nepal the dzos (yak/cow half breeds and the chosen beast of burden up here) have bundles (very heavy and very large bundles) tethered to either side of their backs. They travel in caravans of 3 to 10 or more, and carry everything from bags of rice to giant North Face dry sacks stuffed with expedition gear, to drums of fuel (kerosene, I suppose) to their own food (after 12,000 feet, there is no growth for them to graze on). The animals wear bells so you can usually hear them coming, and are generally accompanied by a herder either leading the pack or bringing up the rear. Since I'm told I had an imaginary yak friend as a child, I harbor a certain affinity for the creatures, and always got excited when we would see the rare and sightly pack of real yaks, standing tall with their unmistakable long hair and giant horns. They are an integral part of the scenery and an absolute necessity for sustaining life in these hills.

The first thing you learn upon encountering a pack of dzos headed your way is to watch out – because they will not be doing the same for you. You get pretty used to prostrating yourself face first against a mountain wall when yaks are lumbering by, considering the alternative is being thrust off the trail or trampled. The second thing you learn is that when animals are present, so is their poop. The entire trail is covered in crap. You're on it long enough, and you start to decipher between purebred yak crap, dzo crap, and donkey crap (the most pungent by far). When you're pushing your exhausted body to climb an endless incline of giant stones, chest heaving in the thinning air, sweat dripping down your back, the last thing you want to be breathing in are the fumes of a hot yak load. Actually, it's the second to last.

This is Sherpa country. Having been part of this hostile environment since the beginning of time, sherpas are physically pre-conditioned to have very little problem adjusting to altitude. They also climb up and down these hills like spiders, most of the time in flip flops and t-shirts. This makes them perfect candidates for porter work, and they outnumber everyone else on the trail. Since I was traveling alone, my Sherpa guide Phurba was also my porter. He carried my pack on his back and his on his front. I packed as light as possible and guessed I'd only given him 10 -15 lbs to haul. Unless they are carrying their own gear (and some extremely physically fit people do), any trekking group of two or more will hire a porter to carry their gear. Mountain expeditions for Everest, among others, already set up in tent cities at 18,000 feet, require constant supplies to be refurbished. Tea houses along the way, especially the ones over 14,000 feet where it is impossible to grow any food, require all of their goods to be carried in on foot. The Sherpa porters haul everything – from tents, crampons, ice axes, sleeping bags to cartons of eggs, cases of Fanta and Mars bars to bushels of hay for the animals to wooden doors, aluminum siding and 2x4s – on baskets strapped to their head. A strap goes across their foreheads and is connected to a giant basket resting on their backs. They cruise up and down the path, stooped over, their necks bearing the brunt of the load; which many times exceeds 100kg. One of the tea houses we stayed in had a pool table inside. I could only wonder how any man could bear its weight, let alone carry it up a mountain.

Most people who live in these parts do not have running water in their homes. There is usually a village tap where washing (of cookware, bedding, clothing and people) is done. The temperature, as you would imagine, is ICE COLD. Bathing is not a regular ritual for these villagers (some folks I talked to say they bathed once a week, if that. And these were people who worked at tea houses and generally stayed put.). And so it is certainly not high on the agenda for the porters, who are hauling more than their weight for miles per day over difficult terrain. And, man, do they stink.

I am not sure these guys bathe, ever. The ones who wear flip flops have so much dirt and crud caked to their feet that toenails are seldom visible. My guess is that clothes are worn, sans washing, until they literally fall apart. As for the ones who do wear socks and shoes – well, try and imagine the pungent odor of months old sweaty, funky, unwashed feet that are used daily for 10 or more hours, and that constant funk growing and seeping into synthetic sneakers that retain it. Couple that with b.o., dirty, greasy, dusty hair, cigarette smoke (somehow, these guys can skip up to 18,000 feet and all chain smoke), bad breath, animal crap, fart, kyu (a porridge that literally smells and tastes like rotting garbage), and you learn to breathe through your mouth when one walks by. Get caught in the slip stream of a multi-porter caravan and you're a goner.

The porters and guides usually all sleep in a common room at the lodges. Sometimes it has beds, sometimes carpet-covered benches in the dining rooms are used as beds. Rarely will a guide get his own room. Never will the porters get one. Phurba was complaining after our second night in Namche that he had not slept well. I thought maybe it was the cold (tough guy had not brought a sleeping bag since we were not going that high). “No,” he said, “forgot face mask. And porter not washing the feet. Room is smelling very bad. Keeping me awake.” I hated to admit it, but I knew what he meant. As all of my gear, including and most importantly, my socks and hiking boots, did not make it to Nepal, I was forced to rely on supplies purchased there. (Thanks, Iceland volcano.) The boots I purchased were heavy, clunky, gave me terrible blisters and stunk to high heaven. The sock choice was equally poor. “Special North Face Coolmax Trekking Sock” turned out to be nothing more than cheap knockoffs of the real thing, made from cotton (which is your enemy in as it retains moisture) and I think cardboard. The first night I removed my boots and socks, half of the sock had remained on my foot (kind of like wet cardboard) and I was almost knocked out by stench. Now I know why Patagonia charges $30 bucks a pair for moisture wicking, anti-bacterial trekking socks and never before had I really needed them. The boots, too, were obviously of the non-breathable variety. After a day or so of this nonsense, I quickly learned the routine of washing my feet in the subzero (and public) water spouts as often as possible, and applying a mixture of Purell, underarm deodorant, medicated powder, and straight up Lysol to my feet each morning to keep the smell down. If the Lysol got past my moleskin blister protectors, the pain was intense, but I knew that 8 hours later, the sting would be worth it.

Back on the trail, those rare moments when the thin air was clear and (almost) filled your lungs with the pure scent of the Himalayas were all the more special.

Heaven Isn't Too Far Away

April 28, 2010
Rest day, Namche Bazaar

The Everest Base Camp trek is relatively well mapped out. Most everyone flies to Lukla, spends a night in Phakding, then moves onto Namche Bazaar for two nights. Because of the extreme gain in elevation, it is essential to spend an extra day acclimitizing in Namche. People who are sensitive to the altitude usually start to exhibit signs of distress at around 3500 meters. Symptoms start with a headache, dizzy spells, nausea, unsound sleep and, if ignored, can progress rapidly to Acute Mountain Sickness. AMS is a life threatening disorder brought on by not giving the body enough time to adjust to the lack of oxygen in the air. HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema) and the more serious HACE (high altitude cerebral edema), mostly affecting climbers at higher altitudes than I'd be going, can be fatal. The only cure is to go down, period. Hence, the treks are arranged with acclimitization days built in. It's often times the strongest and fittest people who don't allow time to acclimitize and ignore early signs of AMS (such as a headache) that run into trouble higher up. I was feeling okay, but was exhausted from the grueling day before. I was thrilled to have a “rest” day.

Of course, a Nepali rest day is not a rest day at all. Instead, we'd be doing some more trekking. The motto up here is “climb high, sleep low.” Climbing higher, even a few hundred feet, then descending to sleep at a lower altitude helps the body adjust. I knew the walk would be good for me, even though I was very sore. After breakfast at 7AM (no sleeping in here, even on a rest day) we embarked on another uphill climb to the Everest View Hotel. This hotel, supposedly the highest luxury hotel in the world, was built by the Japanese. Rooms are expensive at a couple hundred bucks a night, and it's rarely full. Trekkers certainly are not staying there. I assume the hotel makes its money by the tourists who chopper in for the day (there's a tiny airstrip about a 90 minute hike from the hotel and it might even have its own helipad on top), have lunch, and split before the altitude makes them sick. Phurba told me there was a sitting area where we could take tea and see the mountain. I was excited for this and hoped the weather held.

The day before, after spending an hour at the lodge resting in Namche, and once I was sure my legs would let me stand on them again, I asked Phurba to help me find some trekking poles. During the brutal climb, I had serious thoughts about knocking one incredibly rude German woman off the mountain and stealing her poles. Luckily, Namche is a trekker's outpost. The stuff is mostly overpriced knockoffs, but I did not care. Phurba talked the vendor down to a respectable(ish) price and I hoped my purchase would lend some extra support to my aching limbs. It did. Namche Bazaar is a crescent shaped settlement nestled into the steep curve of a mountainside. It looks a lot like terraced rice paddies, except the terracing holds stone buildings. The entire town is a system of stone steps. And so we left the guest house and immediately started ascending up through Namche. The trekking poles didn't make my agony disappear, but they definitely helped. We got through the town, climbed over a boulder/wall and the trail presented itself. It was a vertical zigzag to the top, and it hurt. When I looked down to see just how steep this climb was, I realized how steep the town of Namche itself is. I've no idea how those buildings were even built, let alone how they don't topple over.

After an hour of tough climbing (think 2 or 3 thousand giant stone steps) we reached a wide open plateau. The trail was visible for miles, a little brown path cutting through the mossy clearing that wound around the side of the mountain and disappeared, only to reappear far off in the distance, on the other side of a gorge. The weather was perfect for the time being with clear blue skies giving me my first glimpse of some really high peaks. To the west was the omnipresent Kongde Ri (6187m) and the holy and unclimbed Khumbila (5761m). They were absolutely giant, covered in snow and ice many thousands of meters up, towering over the shrub covered meadow we were walking through. It was as scenic a place as I'd ever seen. That is, until we turned a bend and the meadow ended. The path hugged the mountain and the first thing I noticed was the gorge you'd plunge to your death in if you took a wrong step. The second thing I noticed was an extremely rude group of French trekkers literally (and dangerously) running down the trail. Nobody runs at this altitude and I started to curse them under my breath, when I noticed the third thing. Behind them, about a 7 day walk away, towering up above the majestic and vast Solkhumbu range, was Mount Everest (8848 m), with its unmistakable plume of “smoke” (there's always a cloud formation blowing around up there) wafting off its angled peak. Right next to it was the mammoth Lhotse (8501m), and closer to us was the utterly recognizable Ama Dablam (6856m) sticking out like a sore thumb. Tawoche (6542m), Kang Taiga (6685m) and I think Chhukhung (5833m) and Thamserku (6808m) rounded out the view. Pink, white and red blossoms of the rhododendron forest peppered the deep valley separating me from the gigantic peaks, and the place where I was standing pretty much marked the end of the evergreens. Higher up was only shrub, then rock, then snow and ice. This was the single most scenic thing I have ever seen. Every agonizing step I'd taken to get there was worth it, and the pain and shortness of breath disappeared for awhile. We walked on further to the lodge, all the while feeling like I was in a dream (or the Sound of Music, or Lord of the Rings) in utter awe of the landscape. I was in disbelief that I was actually seeing the single biggest thing on the planet with my own eyes. The sheer magnitude of the place was heavy; few people ever get to look upon the Himalayas outside of a book and now I was one of them. We had tea (and paid New York City prices for a pot) and I took about a hundred photos. I made sure to linger for as long as possible, and only started the walk back to Namche when the afternoon weather began to cloud Everest and Lhotse from view. I hoped no climbers were up there, and turned to leave.

I discovered during the climb down the rocky and hazardous path that I'm not too good on the descent. Out of nowhere, my right knee started to hurt (and would continue to do so until I got back to Kathmandu), which made the going pretty slow. There was a lot of scree (loose small rocks and pebbles) on the trail which makes sliding and falling a real concern. I've already got one scar in the middle of my face; I'm not trying to get another one. I was obsessively cautious of my footing. On this stretch of the trek in particular, vertigo became an issue for me because we were in a clearing, so our destination far below was visible, as were the thousand places you could fall into and break your neck. I was also starving and Phurba, who, like all Sherpas, is like a spider on these hills, skipping along in flip flops, was far ahead with my bag - which had snacks. It was difficult and I had to let a lot of people pass me by.

We had to go to the Sherpa museums (yes, 2 of them) before going back to the lodge. I had agreed to do this before I knew how deflated I'd be by noon (which is when my body was used to eating lunch). To tell Phurba I didn't want to go would have been bad; I didn't want to insult his heritage. He really wanted to show me both of these museums. They were interesting enough, but my head was starting to pound and they were not exactly next to each other, which meant more walking. My interest was waning, as was the Mt. Everest afterglow. I was feeling weak and just as we were on the outskirts of Namche, I slipped on some scree and fell down a few steps. I used the pole to break my fall, which thankfully wasn't that hard. Phurba was getting on my nerves and his nonchalant, “careful, please” response didn't help matters. I snapped at him that it was 2pm and about time he got me fed. He produced some cookies and didn't talk to me until later.

I wanted to collapse into a giant white bed with lofty down covers and watch reruns of the Simpsons. No such luxuries existed at the Khumbu Lodge, where the main dining room was warm and cozy but the rooms were like sleeping in a barn. When we finally got back there, I was in no better shape than the day before. Phurba forced me to drink a liter of boiling water (his cure for everything), which actually worked to get rid of my headache (if only it did the same at sea level). I had some food and asked the owner where the shower was. He charged me about 5 dollars, then led me to a padlocked room. The clouds had moved in and the air temperature was probably around 30 degrees. After three days of trekking, I badly needed a shower, but could not put my body through the shock of plunging under ten degree water. I was relieved to see an actual heater, and though the pressure wasn't great, the water was steaming. It was the last hot shower I'd have until I got back to Kathmandu, and was certainly a luxury.

I spent the evening hoping my hair would dry and talking to a guy from Norway who had been stuck at the lodge for a week with pneumonia. He had some dried snot in his beard and a curious gurgle in his voice. I wasn't sure whether he was hitting on me or just making conversation, but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Getting sick up here would be crippling. I finished my dahl baat (lentils, rice, vegetables – a Nepali staple), highly recommended the shower to him and retired to my sleeping bag. I bundled up in my nighttime gear of hat, headlamp, fleece pants and slippers and quickly passed out into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Among the clouds

I'm in Namche Bazaar, the highest sherpa trading village in the world, and the largest settlement in the Kumubu region. Today, I saw Mount Everest with my own eyes. Mount Everest! It was worth all the pain to get up here.

Will write about India and Nepal when I get down in a week. Tomorrow we climb to around 4000 meters, the highest I'll go on this trek.