3860m to 4000m (+140m)
2.2km - 2 hours
Super-easy day today with only a 140m climb over 2.2km to aid acclimatisation. Had a good nights sleep, apart from the occasional rat scurrying noises, and some extremely vivid and surreal dreams (effects of high altitude). One I remember: I visited my friend Paulie who had moved to a huge cave in the mountains with his girlfriend. They were sitting on one sofa each, but they were surrounded by hundreds of other sofas of different shapes and sizes, none alike, and they all had the clear plastic wrapping on. Paulie told me that they were collecting them. That's all I remember.
Dave was feeling much better today and we all had Tibetan bread crowned with a fried egg. There was broken clouds about and this morning and Lhotse, Ama Dablam and possibly the tip of Everest revealed their massive selves - it's hard to explain or record how beautifully enormous they look!
The trail from Tengboche drops steep down into a cool, shady rhododendron forest - this place must be incredible in the spring. We saw two dogs, still joined after mating but facing opposite directions - quite a disturbing sight. The path then passes a nunnery and crosses a bridge over the river, then it's once again up, up, up. On this up I could really feel my lungs begging for the 38% missing oxygen! The sun was now fully out and I switched my trousers and waterproof for shorts and t-shirt. Here we met an Englishman called Tom, a German called Verena and a Swede called Martin.
We arrived at Pangboche at 10:30am and checked into a bright triple room at the Himalayan lodge - run by Nema and his friendly family. As the sun was out we did a little washing and put it out to dry on the wall outside, but of course as soon as we did this the rains quickly came! I had some powerful garlic soup and we spent the afternoon reading, lazing about, eating pringles (300 Rupees) and watching bad Indian soap operas on TV
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| Room 9 at the Himalayan lodge |
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| Us! |
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| Pangboche fields |
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| Ama Dablam revealing her shoulder |
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