We spent our first night in Lukla wandering around town - actually that would be late afternoon, as none of us can stay awake past 8:00 pm.
We had a happy hour drink at the Irish pub, which was formerly a Starbucks - their coffee mugs still have the Starbucks logo on it. Copyright laws don’t seem to mean much here, although I understand the Venti Yak milk Latte is excellent at the Lukla location. This morning we set off on a five hour hike and made it to 3,500 metres or 11,400 feet. This will be the elevation the helicopters will drop us to on Saturday, so we have a good head start on the rest of the team, who are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Speaking of helicopters, our lodge is adjacent to the helipad (our room is less than 100 feet from the landing area) so we are bombarded with periodic noise when the helicopters come and go. We also got to see an aborted take off from the runway this morning. Apparently the co-pilot, who was inexperienced, panicked and started steering the plane into the mountain. The pilot managed to stop the plane short of the end of the runway. When we returned from our hike, the plane and its passengers had left, so alls well that ends well. Except for the co-pilot, who has been grounded for a month. Tomorrow we meet our team and lead guide, Kevin. So far our local guide, Pinjo, has been great.
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We were up at 5:00 am this morning for our flight to Lukla. After spending an hour in the waiting area watching Bollywood dance movies (I think Dante needs to add these movies as another circle of hell), we were driven in a bus to the tarmac.
Along the way, our luggage was hitched to the bus in what looked like a large shopping cart (an interesting but effective way to make sure your luggage doesn’t go on another flight) and after driving around the whole airport twice, we reached our airplane, a Dornier 220. We waited another 40 minutes in the plane before taking off - a scant 25 minutes later we were on approach to Lukla. Please google Lukla airport to see what the runway actually looks like (or see below) - it is on the side of a cliff in a small valley. The airplane can’t descend quickly enough to land directly in such a tight valley, so the pilot has to make a tight turn to lose enough altitude to make the landing. Anyway, we hit the ground running and made a rather quick stop (the runway is steeply uphill). We were met by one of our guides and checked into our accommodation (aptly named Paradise Lodge) and shortly thereafter went on a three hour acclimatization hike - maximum height 10,500 feet. We will be in Lukla for another 2 days, acclimatizing and waiting for the rest of the team to arrive on Friday. Today was spent preparing for tomorrow’s flight out to Lukla, as well as a healthy dose of sightseeing.
We started our morning at the Monkey Temple, which was true to its name - we saw a couple hundred monkeys during our visit. More interesting, though, was the temple complex itself - we walked up 360 stairs to the top of a hill where a beautiful view of the city unfolded beneath us. Worshippers and tourists alike crowded the complex, and after an hour we descended back into Kathmandu. Next stop was Durbar Square, which is the religious, cultural and historical centre of Kathmandu. We spent an hour and a half touring the complex and were lucky enough to see the Living Goddess, Karuna, come to the window and grace us with her presence. She became a goddess only 11 days ago, so this was one of her first public appearances. Durbar Square was one of the hardest hit areas during the big earthquake of 2015, and many of the temples here were destroyed. We are now packing up, as we must divide our trekking gear from our climbing gear. Our climbing gear will go directly to base camp, while the trekking gear will accompany us up the valley. Tomorrow’s flight for Lukla will leave around 7:00 am, so we must leave the hotel at 5:45, at which point our holiday ends and the expedition begins! After 37 hours, 11 time zones and 4 airports, we have finally arrived in Nepal!
Our intrepid group of three managed to meet in the Istanbul airport, where we connected to Kathmandu, our final destination. We have spent the whole day in the bustling Thamel area, buying and renting the last of our equipment and trying to escape the omnipresent jet lag. A couple more hours and we are free to sleep - tomorrow we will try to see some of the tourists sights of Kathmandu before leaving for Lukla on Wednesday. With three of us leaving in just 5 days, we are busy packing and preparing for whatever mother nature will throw at us.
The monsoon season has just ended, so we are hoping for clear skies and not too much snow for our trip. Temperatures range from a high of around 30c in Kathmandu, to as low as -25c near the summit, which means layered clothing will be important all the way up the valley. Up until the last couple of days we will be hiking, which means little to no snow (hopefully), and no technical climbing gear. After that, things get a bit more tricky... We will turn on our spot on Saturday morning, so you can see our progress at our various stops along the way - the first group gets into Kathmandu on Monday morning (Canadian Thanksgiving). Time change is 10:45 minutes (yes, that is correct) ahead. Now back to work - our next post will be when we are on the way! |
AuthorsOrdinary guys, boldly going where others have gone before. Archives
November 2017
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