Sun 1^st April 2012 Day 2 Monjo to Namche Bazaar 3400m

A beautiful cloudless sunny sky meets us this morning.

Porridge with what looks like lumps in it turns out to be a chopped apple addition... delicious. Rounded off with a single egg omelette on a form of toasted Brioche ... yummy yum yum.

Away we go again. This is a half day with our first real test, an 800m vertical climb. It’s a beautiful morning and huge white toped peaks tower over the fir lined valley that we creep along until we turn sharply uphill. We are at 3,000m, which is almost 10,000 ft in old money, and as you start on the steep ascent there are about twenty seconds during which you are lured into thinking you are really acclimatising quite well to the altitude.  Then you get a slight dizziness, you are now really breathing hard, with little or no effect. You breathe harder and deeper, you become even more dizzy, you are panting, reaching into the very bottom of your lungs with little or no benefit

 In the Marines we had a technical medical term for this, it’s called ‘Breathing out of your arse’!

.... but then slowly, over two or three minutes, on the assumption that you haven’t missed you footing and disappeared over the side, you find the dizziness subsides and your breathing, whilst deep, is less of a gasp. You now have your ‘second wind’, when your cardio vascular system has caught up with the sudden demands that your muscles have made of it. Kind of like coming to a steep hill in your car and having waited a few seconds before the engine responds the pressing of the accelerator pedal. Yup just like driving a knackered Citroen Diane, an early Skoda.or my grandma’s old VW Beetle

Suddenly we turn a corner and there, between the trees is our first sight of our objective..... ‘Brenda’! There she is in all her glory. The guys from Walking With The Wounded wanted to give her a nickname to make Mnt Everest seem less fearsome. Initially it was suggested they call her Liz, in honour of the Queen, it being her Diamond Jubilee year ( I think). However the more respectful of her subjects thought they might feel uncomfortable ‘clambering all over’ or indeed ‘mounting’  Elizabeth Regina ! ....  Of course the same could not be said of ‘Brenda’, who is a big old lump is quite grateful of any attention she can get!

‘Brenda’ it is!

We reach Namche Bazaar where at the village entrance there are ten or so people washing their clothes in the crystal clear mountain stream, they haven’t noticed the two boys giggling and peeing into the water just upstream!

Namche Bazaar is effectively the capital of ‘Sherpaland’. Whilst Kathmandu feels very much like an Indian city,  Namche feels very Nepalese / Tibetan as the Chinese ethnicicity (is this a word?)  becomes apparent in the populace. The streets in the centre are just one big shopping arcade. The wonderful incense mingles perfectly with the strains of soft chanting Nepalese music which emanates from most shops. It was once famous for its Saturday market but with the huge impact of tourism, whilst it still has the feel of a market, the shops are permanent. Nevertheless this is not Oxford Street and when a convoy of Mules or Zapchuks comes through you have to rapidly dive for cover or get trampled.

More luxurious accommodation, two beds, one light, plywood walls. Loos where during number 2’s, the used paper cannot be flushed away as it will block the narrow drains, but must placed into a nearby bin! The smell of that container is ‘nat’ so nice!

Here you can buy almost anything so we all compete for those last minute items. Solar panels for battery recharging, extra down jackets, spare head lamps etc. In my case they will all mostly certainly join the pantheon of items purchased solely for, and used only on, this one 10 week trip. Down suit, high altitude boots, down pants; all perfectly stored for eternity in a forlorn expectation of ever seeing the light of day, let alone another mountain again.

Then there, on the outskirts of the village is the evidence for which this area is famed. The Giant Nepalese Mole. Due to their lack of natural predators and the fertile soil these moles grow to the size of small cats and as a result can wreak havoc with the crops.

We chill, chat, shop, eat and later on mostly all descend on a small bar for an obligatory team drink. I don’t really want even a single beer but everyone is going. I buy a round; quietly drink my beer chatting to the barman and another climber before trying to sneak back to my room. Just as I do so, a couple of the other guys are coming back to the bar because they are locked out of hotel looking to Russell Brice for help. As they do so he catches me trying to leave.... in loud Kiwi, ‘hey Marrrrk, where ah u goin? U not avin a beer’? Russ is God in these parts and our leader. ‘Er yes, I suppose I am’ I meekly reply. I buy Russ and a couple of others a beer. Ok let’s drink this one, maybe leave a bit and sneak out. I am just about to make my exit when I and the rest of us are ‘Russled’. Russ has just bought 25 cans of beer, for everyone in the bar. It’s impossible to leave. Ok just this one..... But no, too late... he’s done it again, just before I can finish my last one he’s bought yet another round of drinks for everyone. Finally he’s called over to the pool table; I just about finish my beer and whilst he’s attempting a long shot from this side I drift pass him and home. All the guides are at the bar still.

It may sound pathetic but 4 beers at altitude, when every conceivable wisdom screams at you not to drink at all before attempting to most gruelling challenge of your life, feels like poison.

Ok I seemed to have turned Gay!