Getting there is one sixth the fun

I met my goal—I made it to Everest Base Camp on November 12!

There, I've violated all literary tradition and given away the ending, robbing you of all the suspense I could have built up by blogging about each day of the trek, hinting at my worries that I would miss a plane, get turned away at a border, freeze to death, break an ankle, fall off a mountain, or get carried away by a yeti to be "peeled like a potato".

But my friends will probably want a few more details, so I will oblige. I'll start at the beginning, which is, I am told, a very good place to start.

I woke early on October 31 (Debbie's birthday) and Ellen drove me to the airport (thanks, Ellen!). We picked up Tomas along the way and met Mat at RDU. All went well (it's a big relief when the agent takes my info and gives me a boarding pass—"Yes, I'm here on the right day! My passport has not expired!"). After a brief but crowded 5:50 AM flight, we met Thomas and Tiffany in JFK and boarded a 777 for Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific really sticks it to you, making you walk past Business Class mini hotel suites/cubicles on the way to Economy Class.

The flight to Hong Kong was pretty cool, even from seat 67K—lots of movies, plus live plane-cam shots of arctic ice, and animation (alternating between English and Chinese) of the plane flying over the North Pole. It's a long flight, about 15 hours ("How much fuel does a 777 carry? What is my CO₂ footprint?")

We grabbed some breakfast (or was it dinner? ...we're now 12 hours ahead of Eastern time) during a 3 hour layover in the Hong Kong airport, then catch the next flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh to connect to Kathmandu.

Wow, I'm actually in Kathmandu! At the airport, we get our first experience of a bathroom in Nepal, which is not the way you really want to be introduced to this country, which is truly wonderful (except for its bathrooms).

Arriving in Kathmandu

Our driver Kumar was there to meet the five of us, holding a Tusker Trail sign (a welcome sight after 30 hours of travel) and we each get a lei at the van (Tusker really does everything right). Our driver takes us through the city: the houses are lit up for Divali, the festival of lights. Then, amidst the construction/destruction/rubble that is the road that is not a road, we arrive at the Hotel Shangri La, an oasis in a dirty, poor, crowded city. Among other amenities, the Shangri La has nice bathrooms.

Matt, Tomas and I checked into a large room the first night (we booked an extra day at the beginning of the trip to help get over the jet lag; it was a good idea). It was 1:00AM local time, so we went to bed.

I was up a little earlier the next morning, so I put on my Tusker Trail cap and went downstairs to get some pictures of the grounds before breakfast. Amy Micks-Frank, our Tusker Trail lead guide (and co-owner) saw the hat and came over to introduce herself, and we chatted until the others came. Several other trekkers had arrived and we all had breakfast at the Shangri La buffet, which was good.

The sights of Bhaktapur, Nepal

We hired our driver Kumar and a van for the day and he took us to Bhaktapur, one of the old capitals; there is a really cool old palace there. We hired a guide, "Roger" who took us around; he spoke excellent English so we learned a lot. It was a fascinating place with many cool photographic spots, even though most of the area was a heavy tourist area. My favorite memory, though, was spotting some kids playing kickball from the second-story window of a shop.

The next day we visited Patan, and Amy's longtime friend Archana was our guide. Patan is another cool palace and old capital of an independent region from before the three separate kingdoms merged into the country of Nepal.

The sights of Patan, Nepal

The rest of the crew had arrived at the Hotel Shangri La, and we anticipated a nice authentic Nepalese dinner together on Sunday night. Getting here has been fun. I won't say it was half the fun, but it was a grand adventure.

Then, we learned from Amy that there was heavy snow up on the trail and some groups were turned around before getting to Everest Base Camp. Also, the Tenzing-Hillary airport in Lukla, where we are scheduled to fly to at 6:30 the next morning has been closed for the last three days and has a huge backlog.

The next day, maybe, we would fly to Lukla and start our trek.

Maybe.