We swapped Tibetan mountains for a jumble of buildings, honking cars, and masses of unwashed humans that is the city of Kathmandu. Inge and I hit the ground running, picking up necessary trekking gear during our whirlwind trip through Tamel and plopping ourselves down in the airport at 6am the next morning, excitedly waiting for our flight number to be called. And we waited…and waited…We went from sitting attentively to sprawled across uncomfortable benches, slobbering all over our new fancy gear. One by one hopeful hikers dropped like flies, some having waited up to 7 days for the skies to clear. But not us, nope, the bad weather couldn’t possibly stick around with our clean, shiny faces in the vicinity, right?! In between catnaps, I cracked open my new book, The Alchemist, and latched onto my new favorite trip quote:
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it!”
And so we sat there day after day, wanting Everest Base Camp with every corner of our squishy hearts and drinking overpriced Nepali milk tea.
On Day 3 a dusty young Irishman (aka Podge) approached us with an ingenious helicopter escape plan that entailed us finding our wallets and 2 other passengers for the ride. After a few seconds and mulling over the torturous last few days, we agreed! And so we scurried around the airport, from one set of weary looking travelers to the next, Podge working his magic with the ladies and Inge and I taking on the guys. Soon we had a whole group of converts and were ready to hit the skies, but the weather turned even too evil for our beautiful bird…
Day4: Our last chance at Everest. We all filed into the airport with shoulders dropping and spirits low. We had agreed to change our MO today and to act as if there was no place in the world we’d rather be then chilling our heels in the wonderful Kathmandu airport in hopes that this would trick the grouchy Everest gods into letting down their clouds. We wore different clothes, bandannas, hair up instead of down, choose seats closer to the front…4pm finds us broke, we start planning the incredible dinner we’re going to have to make up for another dismal day…then the call comes…”Better weather”…psh…If I had a penny for every time I heard that! So NOT impressed. Then we are carted to the waiting room, still looking so apathetic you’d think our grandmother just died. It worked! We are zooming across the tarmac towards the prettiest darn lil helicopter I ever clapped eyes on! And in one of the most happy and exciting moments of my life we take off and that, my friends, is how we escaped the jumble of Kathmandu for the cool green mountains of the Himalayan!
Meet the Everest Base Camp crew, together we tag teamed it all the way to the top!
Colin, 5th Grade New York teacher/philosopher
Podge, the Irish nomad
Us, two purple booted, camera totting dweebs
More photos coming soon!
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