Pat's Nepal Journey April 2011

As we started our day we followed a group of pack animals who were taking supplies up to other villages along the trek.  We knew we had 4-5 hours of pure trekking ahead of us but little did we know how arduous the day would be.  Hari our guide said that the morning wouldn’t be too bad but the afternoon would be really tough.  As we hiked along up hills and down, crossing suspension bridges that hovered hundreds of feet above the rive we kept thinking.  How much tougher could the afternoon be?  This was pretty rugged.  Sylvie kept on reminding me that it would give us buns of steel.  We had made a pact years earlier that when we had bodies like Greek goddesses we would go to Greece.  Hence, we have never been to Greece. I digress.

We stooped for a nice lunch at the last teahouse before Namche and we told eat well for the afternoon will be an effort.  

Stanley at  Lunch

Looking down on the river that we crossed earlier in the day

 

I can say that afternoon was the most strenuous of my life.  Think about three hours going up a steep staircase.  We name to the hell stairway to heaven.  I have run 11 marathons and hiked 7 14ers and nothing compared to this day!

But we arrived safely in Namche and were surprisingly not all that tried after having a cup of tea and a shower.  We then hit the shopping.  Namche is a relatively large and prosperous town.  Beautiful homes and Guest houses made from stones.  There is nearly every modern convenience and very tons of markets.  We had pledged not to shop until the way down but we soon succumbed to buy a few light items.  

We were chilled to the bone after taking our showers and then walking into the cold night, we sat by the fire and dried our hair and warmed up.  After a hearty meal of Dal Baht and fried rice we went to our room and read.  I crashed as usual at 8:30 pm and woke up a 6 am.  Ready for another day… Namaste!