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Well our guide was certainly right when he said that the walk from Phakding to Namche would be tough. The first few hours trekking on flat ground lulled us into thinking the walk would be easy but the final 3 hours was all steep uphill torture!!! I must admit I was cursing my little legs at times but we made it all the way up to Namche which is 3440 meters above sea level.
Namche is a great little town with about a hundred tea lodges set into the side of the mountain. The views everywhere you look are spectacular. There are snow capped peaks that rise high into the sky and you can see the frozen waterfalls imbedded in the rocks. The air is crisp and the cold sets in at about 1pm.
There is a Tibetan market set up on the terrace where Tibetan refugees cross the China-Nepal border illegally and camp in Namche to sell their goods. It's a 2 day walk from Namche to the border and they carry such heavy loads. I don't know how they do it.
Namche is where everyone stops for a day to acclimatize before they head into the higher mountains so during the trekking season in October and November pretty much every tea lodge is full.
On our acclimatization day it was Cal's birthday and we were fortunate enough to have good weather so we climbed up for 2 hours to the Everest viewpoint at 3840m. It was a very steep accent but it was worth it for the amazing views of Mt Everest. The tip was only partially covered by clouds and Gyanundra said that we were lucky to have such good visibility. While we were up there he gave Cal and I prayer flags for Cals birthday and my upcoming birthday. How sweet.
Unfortunately that afternoon I started feeling sick and I was unable to trek the following day so we spent another day in Namche. I had a fever, chills and aching bones so I stayed in bed all day hoping that I would be able to continue but I lost all my strength so Gyanundra thought it would be best if we went back down when I was well enough.
I was a bit disappointed that we missed out on going to a couple of places but I had such a great time already and we reached our maximum height on acclimatization day so overall we were pretty satisfied with what we had done.
The following day we walked (slowly) back to Phakding where we spent the night again. I was feeling a bit better but I was still unable to eat which made walking very hard as I had no energy. Cal was very good at looking after me and making me drink lots of sprite.
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