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An incredible trek to the roof of the world- the Everest Basecamp Trek. We started with a long, windy and hair-raising bus journey from Kathmandu to Shivalaya. We chose to trek into Lukla (where most people start their treks to Everest after a flight). This added a few days onto our trip, helped acclimatization and allowed us to see the villages, farms and wilderness away from the hoardes. It was tough going. We trekked in 4 days, what most do in 6 or 7. By the time we reached Lukla, we had already scaled the equivalent height of sea level to Everest's 8848m peak! Those first few days felt like it too!
Max suffered with the odd nosebleed, my knee prevented me from speeding on the downhill sections and Gen lost some toenails. We carried our own gear and had no guide, but still made good time. We were rewarded with stunning views of distant snow capped mountains, people farming their land as they would have in the UK 200 years ago, children with smiles as wide as the valleys we crossed and only 3 foreigners in 4 days.
In the evenings we stayed in family-run lodges and it was fascinating to see how hard the children worked both before and after school to help their parents with fire and food preparation. Our lodges cost less than £1 UK per night, although the deal was always the same- you had to eat their food for breakfast and dinner. This didn't matter as the food was great. Sitting in the family kitchens around a clay oven at night keeping the toes warm was magical.
After several days we reached Namche Bazaar, a town similar in feel to parts of Kathmandu, but perched on the hillside 3440 metres up. It was stunning, but cold! From here, we were rewarded with our first clear view of Everest.
As we progressed over the next few days, it became progressively colder and of course harder to gain the oxygen we required. However, the farmland had changed to more mountainous terrain and then to snow capped lined trails. The final few days in the trails approaching Everest we stunning and all three of us will never forget the incredible views. Nevertheless, our journey was marred by the deaths of several other trekkers, one, a man in his 30s, in the hostel next to ours at Leboche. A reminder that AMS can strike anyone at any time!
We had seen amazing views, although it was hard to match the sense of achievement gained from the 3 snow coated (knife-edge) ridges which we had scaled to reach the top of 6018 metre Huayna Potosi in Bolivia last year.
The journey down was fairly painless, just a long way back along paths we'd already trekked.
At Lukla, we had some well deserved drinks and nervously boarded a light plane, launching off the 300 metre sloping runway (which just had a sheer drop at the end!). The views back to Kathmandu as we wound through the air along the lines of breathtaking valleys had as all riveted. One of the pilots had his feet up and was reading the newspaper as we flew. Slightly unsettling......
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