“Did you hear about the circus?”
…
“It was in-tents”
-Simone
And now I present to you, devoted blog followers, a reading directly from my personal journal detailing more “intents” events, documented during the hike.
disclaimer: please throw grammar to the wind, and enjoy the rugged charm of this raw, ranting journalism.
10/24/2011
4 mi hike. Who carries our belongings? A yak/cow hybrid that is nowhere to be seen. Who cooks for us (three meals a day plus hot tang on the side of the trail)? The native trail guide clan. We arrive to our first campsite at 3 pm (we left at 10?) to see our set up tents complete with sleeping pad, pillow and sleeping bag. Where is the rugged experience we signed up for? “we want to suffer!” This was said before the trek, but no one was complaining with hot noodle soup in their cheeks. Two dogs followed us up from town to protect us-mans best friend! Oh wait, they’ve done this before and they’ve come to con us into throwing them scraps of food. We love them regardless. We scramble our brains with brain teasers and riddles (i.e. “black magic” which I still do not “get”). We took a vow to leave books and ipods behind. How do we spend our free time? Playing cards, napping, journaling furiously, pooping in the woods, and waiting for our next meal. Fear for the Yetti that lurks somewhere near. No one is altitude sick (yet), and everyone is well hydrated and in good spirits. Off to a solid start! (famous last words)
10/26/2011
Games, farts, devouring hot food! Why do the polish always get to sit at the table while we sit on a tarp on the floor? “Ba-dusche”=term coined by anonymous trekker describing “a shit that splashes water back up your butt”. Tang=nectar from the Himalayas? …Or poison? Tent parties that go late into the night (9pm), 8 of us sardined into a 2 person tent telling scary stories. Climb stairs for 3.5 hours, then you will know how we feel today. Totally psyched! “TEA TEA” served to us by peppy trek helper at 6 am every morning. We also get “TEA TIME, TEA TIME!” midway through the day. Yows (cow/yaks) and mules roam and tinkle (via cow bells strung round their neck) around the campsite, munching on vegitation while guides grunt and whistle, trying to corral their beasts in the wide open space (sorry for the run on sentence Kat). Fog comes in-more than fog, it feels like you’re going blind. We are very much inside of a cloud.
10/27/2011
We’ve reached our final campsite above the tree line at 15,000 ft. Jake is altitude sick, Simone is hallucinating. 5 ladies in one tent, 3 gents in the other snuggled up like a litter of puppies for warmth. We wake up freezing, it must be close to dawn (we pray). What time is it- 11:15 pm. After a night of shivering half-sleep, we wake at 4:30. At 5:00 we crunch over black hills in the dark, towards the viewpoint (minus sick Jake and feverish Simone). Hello Himalayas! Hello prayer flags flapping in the icy breeze of dawn. We say hello to our polish friends at the viewpoint-“Checht!” We view mt. Kanchenzonga (3rd highest mountain peak in the WORLD) as the raising sun paints it pink, then stark white against the cold blue sky. Head back down for our standard breakfast of fried eggs, toast with peanut butter, porridge and tea. Also…individual bullion cubes? (we speculate they are for good luck and so Ben decides to hoard them in his day pack, just in case.
The decent was quick and mostly painless (Bri kept tripping over…herself? and was offered a fine walking stick from an empathetic Tibetan couple). We took two days to reach Yuksum (where we began). There we enjoyed hot showers and slept like champions. More to come tomorrow…”Revelations” and pics! You will also hear from Brianna and Mariah about their mountainous adventures with a group of Thai tourists.
From across the Atlantic, we send our love to you!
-Cobie