EBC to Jiri.

Starting our trek back from EBC. It was cold.

Returning from EBC allows for more hours of trekking. Like I stated earlier, what stopped us from continuing on the way up wasn’t time or fatigue, but altitude. When coming down, there’s nothing stopping us from hiking all day except ourselves. On the first day back, we hiked 9 hours and covered 14.6 km. We stopped in Tengboche to visit the monestary since we missed it on the way up. It was closed to the public, but Ganga found one of the monks and asked if he could let us in for a few minutes. We removed our shoes and walked around the main prayer area as well as the surrounding structures. We arrived at Pheriche, the town we were originally scheduled to sleep in. Ganga asked if we wanted to stay or keep going. The next town was 3 hours away. We kept going. We arrived in Pangboche (3985m), ready for dinner, shower, and bed. Unfortunately for us, there was no hot water, so we washed our feet and faces in the freezing cold water, and figured that would have to do.

yummy cake. Micheal in the background

The next day we hiked through Namche on our way to Monjo (2800m). We would be parting with Michael here, so we all sat down at the coffeehouse and had some tea and chocolate cake together. We said good-bye and kept moving to Monjo. On the way out, we saw loads of people making their way in. Ganga had to check us in at the checkpoint, and the line was so long, he told us to go ahead and he would catch up. There are checkpoints along all of the trails, this is how they keep track of people. If there was a disaster, they are able to account for all of the trekkers. We actually saw a few posters set up looking for lost trekkers, last seen at, (last checkpoint). It’s pretty great, not an ideal system, but it’s the best they can do, and I for one appreciate that they keep track of your progress. 

Happy monastery dog.

We went ahead and kept seeing the people pouring in. We had noticed how crowded Namche was while we walked through, and we both commented on how crazy crowded it was going to be that night. We also said how glad we were that we trekked when we did and were able to avoid the crowd. We arrived in Monjo in the early evening. Ganga knew of a place to stay, but when he inquired, they were fully booked. Instead, we stayed on the other side of the road, which was very nice. We finally had a shower!! After 4 days of trekking, we really needed one. That night, we met two other guys staying in the guesthouse. We all gathered around the small furnace to keep warm. One guy was Russian, but lives in England and the other guy was from Fresno. We tried to talk with them, but were tired quickly. The Russian firmly believes that London is the center of the universe (his exact words) and the guy from Fresno knew everything. I couldn’t handle it.

Happiness

We woke up feeling like new people! We were clean and refreshed! We had another long day ahead of us, so we started early. We passed through Lukla where we stopped for first lunch. The regional Lama was visiting. It was a very special affair. The whole town was decorated, the women dressed in their best, and the food aplenty! After we had lunch, the ladies brought out a basket full of cookies, biscuits, and fruit for us. I think they brought it because of Ganga and we were just the lucky beneficiaries. We took the path away from the airport and towards Jiri. It was already starting to feel warmer. We stopped at a little shop to buy some crackers and there was a tiny puppy barking at us. The owners let him out for a bit and while we were petting him, a group of donkeys came barreling past us. We scooped him up just in case, but he was probably already smart enough to know to steer clear of the pack. We learned to live with the animals. They all wear bells around their necks so you can hear them coming from afar and move out of the way. In a full day of hiking, we have to pull over to let them pass at least 5 times a day. Sometimes they are very slow. I don’t mind the yaks, they’re smarter, but they only live above 3500 meters. Anything lower is simply too hot for them. Conversely, the jakyaks and donkeys only work at the lower levels since higher up is too cold. I hate the donkeys.

Donkeys

At one point on our trek, I heard them coming, but was in a place that didn’t have extra space, and I couldn’t even climb up to get out of their way. I smashed myself against the rocks behind me and most of them walked past me, no problem. Then, one came running alongside another, but couldn’t fit. Of course, I’m the smaller, lighter object, and was subsequently smashed into the mountain with the propane tanks he was carrying on either side of him. To be fair, if he didn’t have the extra wide of the propane, he would have passed me, no problem, but the extra girth got me. We were already in a habit of pushing the animals away from us. In the beginning, I was afraid to touch them, but quickly learned that it’s actually safer to give them a tap to have them move over a little bit. The yaks don’t take much, but the donkeys need a little more force. I pushed that donkey as hard as i could but he barely budged. The yaks wouldn’t have done that to me. When I caught up to Javier and Ganga, I told them what happened. Ganga said, “Stupid animal.” That became our mantra whenever we saw donkeys from that point on. We would inevitably see them do something stupid or erratic and one of us would say, “Stupid animal” and we’d all have a chuckle.

Javier surprised by the little cow. They became BFFs.

At one point in our walk, we briefly stopped for a bathroom break. When I rejoined, Javier was standing there with a little cow. He said he was just standing there looking at something when he felt something warm and wet on his hand. We took a picture of Javier and his new friend. We found ourselves alone on the trail. There was hardly anyone who passed us, and those who did were mostly locals. It started to rain and get really windy. We were close to a random guesthouse with nothing else around, so we decided to duck inside and wait for the weather to improve. We had some tea while we waited and I was convinced that the wind was so strong, it could blow this tiny structure over the mountainside it was perched on. Once the rain stopped and wind died down, we moved on. Again, the elements were acting up, so we paused again. This time, we stopped in someone’s house and stood in their kitchen. The woman was making alcohol in a big pot over the fire. Ganga gave the little girl a candy, which she quickly hid from her older sister. It was still sprinkling, but we had to keep moving if we were going to make it to our intended destination.

On our way to Piya

Ganga had asked earlier in the day if we needed a shower that night. We told him that a shower option is always nice, but we didn’t need one. He had some friends that he wanted to support, but their guesthouse was very simple and didn’t have a shower. We told him that was fine, so Piya it was! When we finally arrived at his friend’s place, we saw what he meant. It looked new, the wood still looked fresh, but it was very, very simple. The floorboards and walls were made out of a single row of wood planks and you could see through the cracks in-between. Thankfully, it was warmer where we were, and the draft wouldn’t be a big deal, as long as the bugs minded their own business.

Jackie by the fire

Ganga told us that these people were very nice and very good, generous people. He said they used to have another guesthouse, but it burned down in a fire. They rebuilt, but were having a difficult time. For one, they are on a trail that doesn’t get a ton or traffic, and secondly, there are other, much nicer accommodations on the tiny mountainside town. We were shown to our room, and would be the only ones staying there that night. For a guesthouse that has been rebuilt from the ground up, you would think they would have built the toilet inside. Instead, we had to grab our headlamps and put on our multiple layers just to use the squatter- and don’t look around too much while you’re in there; lots of critters both dead and alive just waiting to getcha!

Jackie and dhal bhat.

That night, we joined Ganga in the kitchen while he visited with his friends. We had some tea and watched her prepare our dal bhat. Ganga told us, “You’re in a real Sherpa kitchen.” The place was so smokey. There was a small stove with several pots cooking different parts of our meal. We were asked if we wanted vegetable curry as part of our dal bhat or goat curry. The goat was fresh from that day, so we said we’d try it. We watched her cook. Everything was cooked using fire. When they want the fire turned up, they add more wood, and when they need to reduce the heat, they take wood out. Pretty simple, yet very tedious in application.

At the Sherpa Kitchen

They use these pressure pots for cooking. Javier said he remembered those from Peru. He said they were dangerous as they have sometimes exploded. I sat a little further away from the fire after that. It was amazing to watch her work. Her husband helped by cutting up vegetables, but all of the cooking was done by her. When it was time to eat, they had us sit in the dining room. The food was delicious. Although, I couldn’t eat the goat. It was a little too gamey for me. Javier had no problem finishing it for me. The man and woman were very attentive to us while we ate- constantly refilling our bowls. We ate until we were stuffed. It was early to bed yet again, and we were indeed tired.

bear hug.

After a great breakfast, we decided to buy our snacks from them. They were such nice people, when we said good bye, they gave us big hugs. When I hugged the woman, she squeezed me so tightly. I wasn’t expecting it. I had my sunglasses hanging around my neck. When she squeezed me, it was so tight, that one of the arms of my sunglasses snapped. 🙁 We taped them up, but they are so light, that even the little bit of weight from the tape causes them to tilt to that side. 🙁

The terrain was changing around us. We were starting to see tiered fields. We were seeing large valleys. It was also getting warmer. We hiked through an area that is inhabited by the Rai, a group of people that Ganga said are known to carry large knives at all times, and tend to be mean and violent. We had lunch at a random restaurant.

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warmer

Ganga knew the lady there and told us she was pretty harsh and that her husband was in jail for killing someone. I said, “Why are we eating here? Isn’t there somewhere else we could have stopped that wasn’t the home of a murderer? He just laughed. We quickly ate and left. A little ways down, we stopped to use an actual toilet (squatter) as opposed to nature. When I came out, Javier and Ganga were sitting peeling a large mandarin. We all shared the mandarin while we watched a woman grind peppers using a large wooden bucket and pole for smashing. It was like a really big pestle and mortar.  We arrived in Taksindu in the evening. It was another 10 hour day of trekking. We stayed in a really nice guesthouse and had a hot shower. Ganga told us that the owner is rich. His brother lives in the US and sends money. 

Views from the trek.

When we started the next day, we had to walk through the town, which proved to be quite large. At one point, we were stuck behind a large herd of donkeys. We walked alongside for quite a while, and I was cursing them the whole time. Because of the long days, we started eating four meals a day. We would trek for three hours, stop for a snack, hike a few more hours and stop for lunch. On our way to the first lunch stop, two women were walking with one carrying a baby. As we passed, we smiled and said hello. The baby perked up and I swear to you, reached out towards Javier and said “da-da!” We all started laughing including the mother.  She reeled her baby back in, and I asked Javier, “Is there something you want to tell me??” I doubt the women spoke much english if at all, let alone the baby, so it was quite perfect. We stopped at our second lunch spot and while we waited for our food, I was in search of a rock. I had been struggling with my boots for a while, and once we started covering major ground, my left boot was proving to be too much for my foot. Basically, I had been taping my little toe to keep it from rubbing too much. My boots were great for the longest time, but after wearing them everyday for almost a year, they had changed in a way that longer worked for my foot. We weren’t exactly in a place to replace them, and the tape was working. It was only a temporary fix, and at one point, the tape stopped working. My toe was purple by the end of each day. It was so painful. It would somewhat heal overnight, but I would abuse it agin the following day, and it was getting worse and worse. I had an idea to shove a rock into the toe of my boot to try and stretch it out and relieve the pressure. So that’s what I did during lunch. I found a rock and shoved it into my boot to hopefully make a little space for my purple toe. 

Buying cheese.

On the way to Junbesi, we stopped by a little shop selling nak cheese. I had been wanting cheese for a while, so we bought a 100 gram block and some crackers. We took our treasure into the smokey kitchen of a local guesthouse, ordered some masala tea and shared our cheesy treasure. It was a delicious snack but we were soon smoked out. 

We made our final few hours to Junbesi. At one point Ganga had suggested that I take my boot off and walk in my flip-flops. My toe was hurting so badly, I almost did. Instead, I just slowed to a crawl and when we arrived, by toe was nice and purple yet again. Ganga helped me search for a suitable rock to shove in my boot for the night. Javier and I were able to take another shower, have a delicious dinner, and sleep well. 

sun light

Nest stop, Kenji. When we started out, we saw a few people walking in the opposite way. No one seemed to be walking the same direction as us, they were all just getting started on their trek to EBC. As we walked, a oncoming trekker stopped and said something to Javier. We stopped and looked at him quizzically. He looked back at his guide who encouraged him somehow and he repeated himself. We recognized that he was saying “good morning” in Nepali. We smiled, and Javier told him he wasn’t Nepali. We all had a good laugh, and it turned out the guy was from Minnesota. Pretty funny. 

Even though we were technically hiking to a lower elevation, the hike from Lukla to Jiri is not a slow downhill. It is constant up and down. You hike from valley to mountain pass all the way. At one point in the day, it was hot and we peeled off several layers. After a few hours, we were walking alongside snow.

Jackie’s little friend. She likes to share her cheese.

We stopped at a very small town for lunch. While we waited for the woman to cook our food, her two year-old baby came out to entertain us. This little girl was so cute and loved the attention. She wandered all over the place by herself. When we first saw her, she was chewing what turned out to be cheese. Ganga explain that when they make cheese, there is a hard layer that forms. It’s not for eating, and is really chewy. This little girl was using it as chewing gum. She was kind enough to take it out of her mouth to offer me a chew. She would play with us, and then run back inside. One time she emerged with a machete. I’m telling you, if the children here survive to three years old, they probably have more sense than many adults I know. 

Smiles!

While we were waiting, we saw a young Sherpa making his way past us. There are stray dogs everywhere on the trails. They’re harmless, have no owner, and go wherever they please. Well, this dog pulled a fast one on this guy. This Sherpa was just walking past, and the dog lashed out and bit him. He broke skin and was bleeding. Poor guy. This happened right behind us and the dog took off around the corner. The woman, Ganga, and another man came outside to check on the Sherpa. He insisted that he was okay and hobbled along to catch up with his friend. Meanwhile, Ganga and the little girl went to look for the dog. 

Ganga explained that the dog was really sick, and that’s why it lashed out. The woman brought out a plate of food for the dog. I was confused. Why are they feeding a violent dog? What if the dog attacks someone else, or the baby? Surely, it will stay around if you feed it, and why do you want this dog around? No one seemed to worry about it, and Ganga pet him while he ate his plate of grains. Weird. 

recovery mode

We stopped again for tea and crackers at some point before reaching Kenji. We took a couple of showers and Javier borrowed a bucket where he did some VERY necessary laundry. Ganga was friends with the owners, so after the three of us shared some popcorn outside, we all sat in the kitchen while they cooked dinner. 

We started the next day crossing an open valley. We were slowly walking up the mountain, but the town was very spread out, and we didn’t follow a trail. We just walked right through the middle. We arrived at a monastery where we stopped for first lunch.

Strong Jackie

As Javier and I sat outside, we asked Ganga where we were going from there. He pointed to the top of the mountain in front of us and said we had to go over. My heart sank a little. I was not feeling up to climbing over that mountain. I asked him how long he thought it would take. He said, “One hour.” Javier and I started laughing. No way were we making it over that mountain in 1 hour. We had been trekking long enough to know how long it was taking us these days, and that mountain looked like a good two hours. I had been eating sandwiches during first lunch, but for some reason I ordered spaghetti today. I was always afraid of overeating in the middle of the day, and suffering for the rest. I only mention this because once we started our journey over the mountain, it took us less than one hour to get to the top. Since my toe issues, I was by far the weakest link, and they guys had to slow down for me. On our trek up the mountain, I don’t know what happened, but I powered over that thing with both Ganga and Javier trailing right behind. Neither of them had hiked that intensely in several days, and they were shocked. They have a saying in Nepal: Dal Bhat power, 24 hour. Ganga and Javier were joking on the way up: Spaghetti power!! 

Cheese stop

Once at the top, it was cold and there were several Buddhist shrines all over. We stopped for tea and cheese, and as it was the first place to have wifi in several days, Javier was somewhat successful in face-timing his parents. I decided to send an email to Rom, our Tibet contact to let him know that we had extended our trek, and would come to pay him the balance once we returned to Kathmandu.

We were heading to Shivalaya for the night. As we approached, we passed by a parked car. We both looked at each other and made sad faces. We had not seen a car in over 2 weeks. It had truly been lovely to hike without the noise and pollution of cars and jeeps. For me, this is where the trail ended. We still had another day of hiking until we arrived in Jiri, but at that point, I was done. I had enjoyed every step along the way, even the painful ones. Once the cars were reintroduced, the magic was gone. Shivalaya had that big town feeling, with people haggling as you walked by to come into their shop and buy something. We didn’t like it. There was too much traffic, and we both longed to be back up in the mountains, away from it all, in the peace and serenity of nature. Even the donkeys didn’t seem so bad at that moment. 

Javier did a bit of laundry, and I opted to wait until we arrived in Jiri the following day. After dinner, we had a hankering for coconut cookies, which our guesthouse didn’t sell. The three of us scoured the town looking for some, with no luck. 

Last day’s green hike

We only had a three hour trek the following morning, so we took our time. We had to walk a portion on the road, which we didn’t like. When we finally arrived in Jiri, Ganga dropped us off at a guesthouse and went home to see his wife. That night we were having dinner with him and his wife, but we had a few hours until then. Ganga said he would be back later to pick us up. In the mean time, Javier and I grabbed a few buckets and did some much needed laundry. After our hands were frozen and everything was hanging, we warmed up with a nice hot shower. We decided to walk around the town for a while. We found a place selling cheese, and another place across the street that had wifi. We bought the cheese in one place, crackers at another, and a little snot-faced girl came out to take our tea order at the wifi place. Hopefully she didn’t decide to wipe her nose before making our tea, but the truth is, we’ve probably had worse. We ate our cheese and crackers while we used the wifi to reconnect to the world, and I have to say, after being disconnected for a month, reconnecting is not all it’s cracked up to be. Javier may disagree with me on that. 

To be continued…

 To see more pictures of the Everest base camp trek, click HERE.