Namche Chill Day

Made it....to Namche Bazaar.

But that's a hell of an accomplishment.  Namche, besides having a cool name, is the biggest town up here in the hills.  It has fresh bakeries, pizza, trekking gear shops, and even bars with pool tables and ice cold San Miguels.  It's pretty cool, considering that the city exists in a place with no cars, a two day walk from the nearest airport and a week-long walk from the nearest road.  It also makes it improbable that the postcard I sent it will make it anywhere in the next year or so.

I'll be thankfully brief here in the land of $6/hour internet.  Most people fly to the airport at Lukla and walk up to Namche (2 days).  We instead took a bus, the worst bus ride ever, to the end of the road at Jiri (Shivalaya) and then hiked the 6 days from Jiri to Lukla.  This is the more traditional route, before planes made it to Lukla, and passes through many green hillside villages.  It was a tough hike, with lots of ups and downs, but one that we look back on fondly now that we've rejoined the main Everest trail, which is sort of "trekking rush hour" with big groups and yak trains and lodges and reggae bars every few kilometers.  I suspect that by the end of this walk I will be extremely annoyed with European hiking groups.

We have a good crew of interesting people that we met on the hike from Jiri, since it attracts those strange long-term traveller types who sell their homes to go to Samoa or try to spend half of each year in India.  We're surviving on the lodge menus that I've pretty much got memorized by now: noodles, potatoes, eggs.  I had a "pizza" the other day that may have ruined pizza forever for me, but in general anything tastes good.  Apparently this region also has a burgeoning Swiss-style cheese industry, and we will be buying it by the kilo before leaving Namche.

Leading me to next two weeks: up.  From here on in we climb steady, and there are a bunch of rest days built in to acclimitize to the altitude in places with equally cool names like Tengboche, Dingboche, Gorak Shep.  I hear Halloween in Tengboche is a gas.  Prices are sure to go up, so I'll be carrying some extra food, and that bottle of wine continues to hold a place of honour in my bag, waiting to be cracked open next to an iconic sunrise next to Everest.  Enjoy the warm weather back home, see you from the top!