Altitude: 1300m
Atmospheric Pressure: 890mbar
Temperature: 28DegC
If every journey could be like that!
Checked in with Jet Airways knowing that I was about 5Kg
above weight limit, expecting to be charged, but nothing. Then connection
flight to Kathmandu from Delhi
was brought forward 30mins, so less wait.
Didn’t sleep much in the plane, preferred to watch a couple
of good movies then crashed out for a couple of hours. Good food.
Something’s gonna go wrong, this is too good!
Looking forward to get to the hotel, catch up with the soldiers,
Russell and the guides and the other guys from Manaslu (Sergey the crazy
Russian, Valdez and Kristina), oh,
and the swimming pool at the hotel J.
There’ll be also plenty of new faces, with a big group of
trekkers (25 ish), we will be around 50 “clients” on the way to base camp, a
huge group, but this shows how touristy the trek to base camp has become. I
guess above base camp it won’t be so busy.
Not sure what kind of people to expect amongst the trekkers,
but suspicion is that there might be some “I booked the trip by mistake” kind
of characters, no kit, no training and no idea J, entertaining!
This time around, my driver has found a shortcut to get from
the airport to the hotel therefore missing the permanent traffic jam in town.
It’s a bumpy road, but it definitely shorter.
Small snag only 5minutes out of the airport though, just as
I settle back into the chaos that Kathmandu is, we hear a loud bang caused by
the front tyre exploding.
Luckily, we’re 5 metres away from a tyre shop. The driver
take the “spare” wheel out of the boot as this is also flat, and fit a fresh
wheel in less than 5 minutes, impressive!
Just got back from group meeting, followed by dinner.
Excellent to catch up with the soldiers, their training and
media exposure. Sounds pretty hard core actually, I think I’m better off
climbing “incognito” and skipping the interviews, launch parties, video
diaries, early morning TV news, etc…
Only 6 of them are attempting the summit (Wisey, Martin,
Karl, Jacko, Doc and Henry), the last 4 will be trekking in to Base Camp.
All together, we are a group of 55:
10 guides / staff (including Monica the doctor and Billi the
blogger), then there are 20 trekkers up to Base Camp and Lobuche summit (some
of them friends and family of climbers) and finally, 23 climbers hoping to make
it to the summit. As always, lots of new names to remember, but on the plus
side, we will have time…
Russ mentioned that there were some issues with the
helicopter plan but this should be sorted by tomorrow.
Also, I need to go to Russell’s storage to find the kit I
had left here after Manaslu. So far I have my down suit, but missing summit
boots, down gloves and balaclava.
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