Eventually we got away!

We are in Namche today, the weather is still not great but yesterday we chartered a helicopter sharing the fees with another trekking group. It still took a long wait at Kathmandu but eventually we got out. It was quite a smooth ride up to Lukla although we did not get any views as all the mountains were obscured. The old Russian M19 helicopter was great though, even although it was stuffed to the gunnels with luggage and Kathy, Ed and I had to squeeze into the tiniest space as all the others took the better seats. Lakpah our sirdar sat on a bag of rice on the floor and the whole journey was unlike anything that anyone had experienced before. It took fifty minutes to fly to Lukla and we kind of hoped we would get to Nanche but at Lukla the rain had just stopped pouring down for our arrival and Namche was obscured by thick grey turbulent cloud! So we got out at Lukla, ,sorted out our loads into Yak loads and once the yak drives were ready we commenced our walk towards Namche. Our original plan was to walk to Phakting but as we were late we walked for about one and a half hours to the village of Ghat where we stayed at the "Everest Summiters Lodge" owned by friend of Sandy's. Phanden sherpa summited Everest with Sandy and his American client on the 23rd May 2001. Phandens sister and her husband mange the trekking lodge and we all had wonderful night there, eating garlic soup, and Dhal bhat with vegtables and drinking Shandy. This morning we awoke at around 6.30am and after breakfast of Porridge and cheese omelette we had the yaks loaded up and continued our trek to Namche arriving here by 3.30 pm or so. Hastily drank lemon tea and had showers at the Kwonde Lodge. Ed manging to send texts on his mobile so that's a advanced development from my lass visit two years ago. It's bit strange to see Yak herder with Mobile phones, but it great and cool really. They probably need them as much as we in the west do!

The walk in was ace but bit cool. Everyone is enjoying the fresh air after Lukla and the sherpa culture. Our plans: To spend two nights her as the altitude is around 3400 meters and we need to give our bodies a chance to acclimatise and also it gives us an opportunity to explore this sherpa capital and and check out the local villages of Khunde and Kumjung, the home villages of many famous Sherpa mountaineers. These sherap's like our own sirdar Lakpah ( who has summited Everest 3 times and Ama Dablam once) are the back bone of all our Team Ascent expeditions and if it were not for them we would never ever be able to guide these wonderful peaks. Consequently Sandy has very many freinds here and its great just to walk around the tiny streets with many market stalls selling everything from bars of dettol soap to Yak Bells and modern high altitude climbing equipment and meeting friendly smiling sherpa faces. We have internet here too so we can update the blog for a day or two yet, then it will be sat. phone reports without so many photos! For friends and family back home, everyone is doing well, zooming up the steep hill to Namche and no one is reporting any sore heads from the rarefied air!