After we woke up and ate breakfast this morning, we began the hike up to the next village, Tengboche. Though not particularly exciting, the hike seemed very long and the slope was quite steep. However, during the hike, Troy slipped on a rock and fell on his butt! When we finally arrived at the town we ate a small lunch and read. Then, we went to a temple and saw a ceremony with monks chanting. There was one monk wearing western sunglasses and we all had to work hard to suppress our laughter.
I read until dinner (and during dinner) and had to listen to annoying songs being played REALLY LOUDLY by a group of millennials, and then went to my room, did homework, read some more, and fell asleep but got woken up multiple times by a woman in the dining hall with a severe cough, and a howling dog.
This morning, as usual, we woke up and ate breakfast. We began hiking soon afterward and commenced on our alternating downhill-uphill trek through a grove of beautiful trees. Midway, we stopped to eat and I had to go to the bathroom. However, on the way there I heard a voice, “Help me! Help me! Help me!” I had no idea what to do until I walked closer to the noise and saw that it originated inside one of the bathrooms! Somebody had locked a middle-aged woman inside the stall from the outside! I opened the door for her, and after we ate we continued hiking. Asher and I discussing Deadpool’s backstory and the “unmeritableness” of the buff men hired to be superheroes by the DC and Marvel companies. When we arrived at a village called Dingboche, I worked on a new bracelet technique and read. Then, Asher and I played Snakes & Ladders (Shoots & Ladders?) and were eventually joined by Aba and Ganesh. After dinner, we played UNO and then did homework and went to sleep.
After eating breakfast, we started hiking, again uneventfully, until we climbed a very large, steep hill and arrived at a memorial for people who had died on Everest. Among famous people such as Scott Fischer, there were many who I had never heard of before and really appreciated reading about.
After arriving at our hotel in Loche, we had to change hotels because of our reservations or something. We got to our new guesthouse and sat in the sun. We snacked and played UNO for literally hours in the dining hall (I’m not making this up) and then ate dinner. Then, as usual, we did homework and went to sleep.
We got up this morning after hardly sleeping because of the frigid cold and started to hike to the Everest Base Camp. There was a lot of trash along the way, so I picked it up. The trail was very steep and hard to walk on, but we arrived at our village/camp with time to spare and decided to hike to a peak called Kalapathar in order to see Everest fully and in order to be warm rather than doing it in the next -25° morning instead.
When we put our stuff in the guest house, I started singing Asher a song, I bet he really loved it!; “We did it! We did it! Only three-and-a-half hours to go! We did it! We did it! Only three-and-a-half hours to go!” However, before we left, we met a British couple that I’m only mentioning because I LOVE British accents! The hike was even steeper than the first and Asher had some trouble breathing and had to stop often, but when we got to the peak it was worth it. We were awarded a view of several mountains including Everest, two lakes, Everest Base Camp, and the rest of the mountain we were on.
After resting at the summit, we hiked down and were in such good spirits that we said hello to everyone we met.
On the way down, both Troy and Asher slipped, but they were ok. I tried to make an octopus figure out of some of my strings when we got to camp, but then went to the dining room and met two Israelis. We played a card game called Yaniv and talked, then we played UNO and ate. We talked a lot and they gave us some Oolong tea. I really enjoyed meeting these guys and hopefully, they’re reading this blog!! We returned to our room and I worked on a little surprise and blogged. Then, we fell asleep.
1 24-4-9 4 14-3-26 3-8 8-21-13 11-14-4-22-1-13-10 10-4-12-6-23!
Ella