Solu Khombu Trek - Day 7 (Berkley)

I felt pretty crappy last night, but woke up feeling pretty good.  I managed to keep down a bowl of porridge and we set off towards Phalpu.  At first, I was feeling pretty good, but was super down on myself for not being with Seth.  I kept wondering if we had just stayed at Sengephuk for another night, would I have been able to continue on?  Because my issue was definitely not altitude.  I felt just as horrible when at a much lower altitude as I did at the high altitude.  But, I guess there's no real way of knowing.

Later on our trek I began to feel progressively worse and worse.  I became so weak, my stomach was doing backflips, and I could barely lift my feet over the small rocks.  I needed a full day of rest and I wasn't giving it to myself.  So, then I revisited my thought about how I might be trekking with Seth to Dund Kund right now if we had just stayed another night at Sengephuk, also, if we had stayed another day in Jumbese maybe the trek to Phalpu would have been easier.  I decided the pony idea was a bad one.  The trails are too perilous.  So many slippery rocks on trails that drop off the mountain.  Anyhow, after about four and a half to five hours we finally made it to Phalpu.  I feel like crap, but I'm drinking a lot of water.  I'm staying at the Hotel Everest and I get my own bathroom, not shower, but at least I don't have to walk down the hall in the middle of the night.  And if all goes according to plan, I'll see Seth tomorrow.  I hope all goes according to plan!

Solu Khombu Trek - Day 2

We woke up bright and early with tea in our tent.  It was a cold night, but putting Nalgene bottles filled with hot water at the foot of our sleeping bags helped loads.  Our trek today was about two and a half hours, once again, and it was not too bad.  Well, it was not too bad for us.  I don't know how these porters do it.  They are carrying a ton of weight and they carry it all by using a strap that rests on their heads.  Totally different from anything I have ever tried.  But, I guess we've seen that many other cultures carry loads on their heads.  This looks very difficult though and potentially quite painful.  Seth brought up a good point, that  perhaps this is why there are many older people hunched over.  Not sure.

Junbesi is a picturesque village in the valley of some beautiful mountains covered in large pine trees.  A river runs through the center of the valley and is the lifeline for the village.  They actually have a really interesting solution to drainage.  They dig ditches and lay flat rocks to cover the ditches, leaving enough space between the rocks to allow the water to drain.  We visited Junbesi Monastary.  Though it was empty, it was nice to poke around.  The monastery was painted in bright colors and had beautiful murals on the walls.  The art form here is so different from anything we've seen so far.  It's refreshing.

We, then, went to visit the Hillary Secondary School.  Sir Edmund HIllary, the first to summit Mount Everest, is the namesake of this school.  Whether he made a donation or not is something I don't know.  It was nice to watch the children play.  And it's absolutely adorable when you say namaste and place your hands together in front of your chest, because most of the time they will return your greeting.  So cute.  We spent a while watching them play.  Seth eventually turned into the main attraction.  He took a picture of a little boy that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get him to smile.  He just looked at me like I was a giant ugly bug.  Then I saw him look at Seth and smile largely.  It turned out that he liked to have his picture taken.  Seth was soon mobbed by children who wanted to get their picture taken and then look at them on the viewfinder.  They soon figured out that you could swipe the screen and scroll through the photos.  But once two fingers touched the screen the camera didn't know what to do and just didn't do anything.  It was fun to watch as Seth was encircled by the small children.

That evening, Seth wasn't feeling so well.  He probably was running a fever, either way he was feeling pretty crappy.  Hope that remedies itself quickly, because I'd hate for it to mess up Seth's trip.