The road to Everest continues.....
| It's a small world after all |
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The road to Everest continues..... |
We are in hiding..... : 13 March 2004
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If anybody want to get a hold of us...ya know, a long distance, very expensive chat to say "hello" We can be reached at:
The Great Wall Sheraton We would love to call all of you...but we can't afford it...ha ha. We will be here until possibly the 25th... Why we are in hiding one might ask....well, it al started in Lhasa. I know Robin told you all about our fabulous trip to Lake Namtso, but let me just elaborate for a moment. Robin, David (an English guy that joined us) and myself had a great time...Robin and David where far better at building a Yak dung fire than they give themselves credit for...I sure wasn't going to deal with it..I had my own issues going on....more on that later. The trip out to the lake was, long and bumpy. I was with three men which made my squatting time...necessary still yet very unusual. It is so easy for men. Trying to find a snowly rock to go behind in -10 degree weather with the wind blowing..was so much fun. I was so happy when the guys would get back in the car after maybe stepping about two feet away and turning their backs....ooohhh, how tough for them, and say with dissapointment..."i couldn't..it's too cold" Ha Ha! It was an amazing drive all the same. We saw huge snow capped mountains surrounding the massive frozen lake and tons of Yaks and sheep and goats grazing on the plains around nomadic herders' tents. The herders' actually live in these tents..it was amazing. and they are so nice, they all wave at us as we drive by. I do not think I would be so happy in that weather..I actually saw a frozen sheep with its feet straight up in the air. When we got to the lake we got ourselves settled in our...I don't know what to call it...then we head down for a nice walk across the frozen lake. The ice was beautiful, it was sorta scarey too. I believe Robin forgot to mention that he totally bit it on the ice. It was literally like watching a cartoon. He was running in place trying to catch his balance..then BAM..down he went. It was really hard for David and I to contain ourselves..as, obviously, concerned as we where that he was okay..it still just looked so dam funny. He was okay..His camera is a really tough piece of machinery..it definately smacked the ice with some force without a scratch..I'm just glad it didn't break the ice. Or Robin, for that matter. Well, that night i had my special moment as well...oh yes...I was that oh so wonderful time of the month for me, and China does not believe in Tampons...and I got a serious case of Diarrhea. It was absolutely awful. There are no toilets in this place..duh. It was freezing outside as I had to squat behind one of the shacks...all night...Imodium was NOT working. Not mention the cute litter of puppies and all the other mangy creatures that hung around waiting to eat your..well you know. The cute puppies where not so cute anymore. It was an awful yet funny experience (in retrospect). The next morning, after a very, very long night..we woke up with our Dung fire totally out leaving everything in our room pretty much frozen. We had ice chunks on our sleeping bags, our waters where rock solid. Our clothes where crunchy. It was awesome..Thank god for our -18 degree celcius sleeping bags, otherwise we would have frozen as well. The lake was just as gorgeous, despite the piles of trash that surrounded our...still have no name for it....and the heards of sheep and dogs and goats all in the trash. It was awesome! Okay, Now we can move on.... We got back to Lhasa safely..we where so tired, but not too tired to run out and get another layer of clothes...we where leaving for Mt. Everest the next morning and if Lake Namtso was any inclination of what the weather would be like then we needed to be better prepared. We got a group of four of us together, Robin and Myself, David (again) and a Chinese girl named Eva. Eva actually lives in Guangzhou but she spoke English very well. We hired a Landcruiser and a driver, Tsul Dul...a very funny and nice Tibetan man. And head out bright and early the next morning for our five day trip to Everest. Our first adveture happened after passing through a gorge along the Yellow River, when the car suddenly started making a very weird noise. We pulled over, and Tsuldul spent the next 15 minutes climbing under the hood. We had been assured that, unlike our other driver, he had 10 years of experience as a driver, and used to be a mechanic before that, so we weren't too worried. And, sure enough, after enough time for us all to pee, we were back on the road. Of course, to call it a road is being generous. It was a bumpy dirt path, with lots of "construction," meaning lots of people standing around, blocking our path. We crossed two different passes that were over 5,000 meters tall, including the enterance to the Everest area at 5,220 meters. And in the valleys, the dust storms would pick up. From a distance they were amazing, but as we drove through them, and could barely make out the oncoming traffic, it was a little scary. If you ever feel like life is treating you bad, just think about the guys that drive these passes every day. We would pass these big trucks driving along the one-lane dirt road, through dust storms, over these 5,000 meter passes, every day. It makes sitting in front of a computer or dealing with annoying clients seem... not so bad after all.
It was an incredibly long drive. Both of us were exhausted at the end, when we finally pulled into Shegar late in the evening. The little hotel we stayed at had a nice little restaurant that we didn't eat at, and the toilets were just holes in the ground, and we both simply passed out. But we were both very excited about the next day's journey... to Mount Everest itself! |
