Monday 2 April 2012

A true rest day

The overnight temperatures in our room was 0.7 degrees Celsius last night. So chilly that the condensation had frozen on the window. Reminds me of Home Farm House (my wife's parents house). It's only going to get colder once we reach BC.

Whilst the lodges are stone built the roofs are normally corrugated iron. Internally everything is constructed from plywood and consequently a major fire hazard. They are often L shaped with the dining room and kitchen at one end and the bedrooms at the other end. The dining room is the only heated room and the wood/yak dung burning stove is often not lit until 6.00 pm in the evening. (as we are close to the equator the sun sets and rises around 6.00 ish).

Unlike the north side where you can drive into base camp everything on the south side has to be carried in either by porter or on a yak. Consequently the price of goods increases the further you move away from Lukla.

For instance the price of a bottle of water has steadily increased from 100 rupees to 250 rupees here at Dingboche (approx 80p to £2.00).

Today has been an auspicious day as I've had a shower and cleaned a pair of socks. The underwear schedule was thrown off course by an accident quite early on but thankfully the current pair are holding up well!

The rest of the morning was spent reading.

I hope you are finding at least some of the blog interesting. I'm operating in a vacuum at present as its very much a one way conversation so do post comments or ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Otherwise it'll be more of the same!

This afternoon we walked over to Pheriche for a talk about high altitude sickness at the Himalayan Rescue Association first aid post. It's aimed mainly at trekkers but was nevertheless interesting. The doctors will also be manning Everest ER at Base Camp which is great. Facilities like this are so much better on the south side.

Whilst at Pherche we took the opportunity for another coffee and cake stop! Thankfully it also doubled as an internet cafe.

You can tell David's trying to put off the moment when we start to loose weight.

We move on again in the morning.

3 comments:

  1. When do you think you'll be arriving at Base Camp? and do you have an acclimatization/summit schedule yet? am curious when you'll be reaching the various camps as you gradually ascend..

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    1. Thanks for the question Ben, ETA at base camp is this Saturday, I'm unsure of the rest of the schedule but will post here when I have some more information, this is the rough itinerary but it doesn't include specific dates:
      www.jagged-globe.co.uk/exp/itinerary/everest_itinerary.html#expedition-itinerary
      Henrietta (Ian's daughter)

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    2. Thanks, Henrietta.. That's great. It will be fun to watch as the itinerary unfolds.

      regards, Ben

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