Altitude: 5300m to 4850m
Atmospheric Pressure: 558mbar to 590mbar
Trek: 10km / 2Hrs
A bad night, I felt it coming at the end of yesterday, when
the glands in my throat started to swell up.
I don’t think I had temperature, but my nose was always
bunged up.
When I discuss this in the morning with Monica, she tells me
that 4 guides have been down with sinusitis (?) and were on antibiotics.
Another disease caught then!!
The danger with this one is that I don’t want it to go down
to my lungs. High altitude already causes coughing, but if on top of that I
have mucus down my lungs, it’s not going to help.
Anyway, time will tell how this goes. In the mean time,
today we’re starting our 1st rotation, this is when we move above
base camp to trigger our bodies to acclimatise at higher altitude, then come
back down to recover and let nature do it’s stuff and create more red blood
cells.
The problem we have, using the South route on Everest, is
that we would have to cross the dangerous Khumbu Icefall, which takes much
longer when not acclimatise and therefore increases risks of accidents..
So, with Himex, we acclimatise on another mountain, up to
6100m, using Lobuche peak.
So today, we get down (unfortunately) to Lobuche base camp
at 4850m.
It’s only a little way down the valley, so the whole group
decided to set off after lunch, making most of the base camp comfort.
Unfortunately, the weather worsens after lunch, and we end
up making the trip in the cold wind, with light snow blowing in our faces.
I’m not feeling too sporty, but push regardless. It’s hard
going, and everybody comments on how far it feels. I make it down in less than
2 hours, which is very good going, but as soon as I arrive at Lobuche base
camp, I elect to go straight to bed (after negotiating another 3 day course of
antibiotics with Monica) lets hope those will do the trick again.
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