Hi Folks, Back in Namche Bazzar. Our trek went a little like this. Our first objective was achieved early on. Landing at Lukla airport. It has a well deserved reo\putation as being the best tennis court above 3500 m. There is enough rubber on the runway to re-thong the population of India three times over. We were cordially met by our agents representative who posesed our return tickets and said "see you in three weeks". With a pocket map of the Everest region in hand, we were off. Gokyo 4765m was to be our next goal. We headed into the Khumbu region through a valley created by the mighty Dudh Koshi River. As a river, it struggles for attention with the peaks that emerge above it. Our attention only drawn to it when we are peched ovet it on some little better than makeshift excuse for a bridge. Prayer flags and offering scalfs seem to be the glue that keep these suspension bridges together. We visited places such as \namch, Dole, Gokyo and Dingboche, to name the more pronouncable villages. In these pleces (marked with a hazard warning on most maps), we shared tibetan bread and Dahl Bart with the locals and members of the united natins of treckers. There were the french canadians who were summiting this season, the americans who had had enough of George Bush and had headed for the Himalayas, the polish in black lycra pants and knee high black sock and the seweds who knew not one word of our version of the Swedish National Anthem. There was even a japanese guy with a flag of the rising sun stuck in his pack looking for a peak to plant it on. He was avoided aat all cost s and we didn't mention the war. We got within spitting distance of Everest Base camp which was not so plesant for those infront of us. A couple of bouts of tummy wogs and the like aacombind with the odd out of season blizzard meeant that ew were about three days short of an everest picnic.
With lips that resemble two ploughed fields, I have discovered that walking amongst mountains is far more satisfying than climbing to the top of any particular one. Don while still removing remnants of several nesting attempts by the local bird life from his beard, is considering the advantages of airial photography.
Two intraped trickers.
Pete and Don
