Acclimatisation day around Namche Bazar

Last night most of us slept reasonably well at this new altitude of 3400 meters, although we are beginning to feel the altitude a bit. We all had steaming bowls of Garlic soup and well done Yak steak for dinner last night and then sleep came easy.

This Sunday morning we awoke to slightly better weather and after a light breakfast took a long acclimatising walk above Namche. We visited the sherpa cultural centre where there is a fantastic sample of the inside of a traditional sherpa house. We also visited the National Park Headquarters and then walked a nice circuit taking in the Everest View Hotel at around 3900 meters and had lunch there. Sandy met Pemba Dorjee another four times Everest summiteer and he has climbed with Sandy on Lhotse and Ama Dablam in the past. This year Pemba is working for another company and climbing Labouche Peak.However Sandy hopes to hire his seven Yaks when it comes to clearing our Ama Dabalm base camp loads after our expedition finishes.Pembas Yaks graze around Pangboche the closest village to Ama Dablam and they are wondeful pack animals and an important income stream for the sherpas.

We walked along to Khumjung and visited the Gompa ( Monestary) there where we were shown around and also saw the famous Yeti head which is kept in glass box with strong padlock and then locked in another big steel locker also suitable padlocked. We also visted the famous Khumjung bakery where they make world famous apple pie!

We returned to Namche for around 5.30 pm and after a well deserved hot chocolate, we all went our separate ways to make phone calls and e-mails to folks back home. We will meet up in an hour or so for dinner. This is our last night in Namche and we leave the internet behind. Everyone is doing fine, no sore heads from altitude which is really great, Sandy and John have colds and Kambiz a running nose but hopefully these will get better before we gain to much high altitude. Today the weather was much better and we did get some views of the high mountains, Everest, Nuptse, Lhotse, Middle Lhotse, Shartse, and of course Ama Dablam, our main climbing objective.

Our plans for tomorrow are to load up the Yaks and head on up the valley to Tenagboche Monastery and camp overnight at Deboche ( 3820m) and then on Tuesday go on to Dingboche ( 4410m) and overnight there for two nights to acclimatise. There after we head up to Chhukhung( 4730m) and then on to Island Peak Base camp forThursday night ( 4970m). We will spend few days there attempting Island Peak (6189m). We hope to make some Sat phone reports which hopfully will be transcribed to this blog!