Everest also called Sagarmatha by the Nepali: a majestic peak which pierces the sky at 29,000 feet


Nestled among the Himalayas it stands out as a giant among giants. Its slopes forming a legendary ascent that has captured the minds of generations of climbers while claiming the lives of some of the best. Just walking to the base of the mountain is to follow in the footsteps of the greats: Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, Sir Edmund Hilary, Messner, Rob Hall and Andy Harris's doomed Expedition as told by John Krakuer, and so many others. My journey up into the thin air of the Himalayas, begins 200 miles away with a fatal misstep that endangered my entire expedition...

Patient resting in hospital bed with medical equipment visible in background.

Whoops

Here I am in a Pokhara Hospital just 36 hours before my journey to Everest is slated to begin. You may be thinking "What terrible injury or disease did Eric suffer to get put there?"


Well when I returned from my week of backpacking to Mardi Himal (see previous blog post) I was elated to be back to civilization and decided to reward myself with KFC and Nepali Baskins Robbins (questionable franchise legitimacy). My excitement over the chicken and milkshake was cut short when I woke up at 4am with terrible stomach cramps and a realization that I could not be more than 30 seconds from the bathroom.

Illuminated Baskin Robbins storefront sign glowing in blue and pink neon at night.

Now that I think about it, it was suspicously warm

To set the scene, I was scheduled to take an 8-10 hour bus ride leaving at 8am that day from Pokhara to Kathmandu. In Kathmandu I would have a day to rest and gear up at my homestay for the expedition to Everest. I had booked the trip to Everest through the host of the homestay, so he would take me the following day to start my journey.


The most popular and easiest way to start the hike to Everest Base Camp is to fly into Lukla airport and then start the hike from there. During high season however, they only fly to Lukla from a small airport in Ramechap which is a roughly 5 hour drive from Kathmandu. This meant that the following day I would be leaving my homestay at Kathmandu at midnight to arrive at Ramechap by 6am, and fly to Lukla before 8am to immediately start the first day of hiking. I would sum up this situation as: "not ideal".

Satellite map view showing a blue route through mountainous terrain.

Pokhara bus ride to Kathmandu, then red line is the drive to Ramechap. Don't believe google, it was NOT 6 hours

Hunched over the toilet at 6am I had firmly decided that the morning bus would not be happening. Still optimistic, I rescheduled my bus ticket for the overnight bus that same day in hopes that I would have recovered by then (wishful thinking).


Suffice to say that did not happen. After checking out of my room it was clear nothing was improving. I could barely manage to lay down on the lobby couch of the hostel which was located 10 feet from the closest bathroom. I have never related to Sisyphus more than that unending cycle of languishing on the couch before dashing to the bathroom and then returning. Repeat ad infinitum. The hostel staff could tell I was in dire straights and graciously let me use an unused room to rest and recover. The room was a godsend for about 3 hours. Unfortunately, early afternoon an unsuspecting family checked into the room to find me in my food poisoning misery. After a quick apology and explanation of my condition the situation was defused. Now with nowhere to hide, I reached the breaking point of my stubbornness and gave up on the overnight bus before I reaching out to the hostel to see what medical professionals were around.


This has certainly happened to many weak stomached western guests of theirs before. They immediately called a local travel hospital to set up a visit for me. They told me to wait where I was as they had arranged a pick up for me. Imagine my surprise when five minutes later a motorcycle with a nurse in scrubs rolls up and tells me to hop on!


After arriving via motorcycle ride around 5pm to the small hospital/clinic, I got tested even though the doctor immediately knew what I had. Given my expedited timeline of heading to Kathmandu the following morning(he initially laughed when I told him I was heading to Everest the next day), he administered me the "good drugs" via IV. After a few hours of IV, re hydration, and antibiotics, it was well into the night. This time I my ride home got upgraded and it was the Doctor himself driving me on the back of a motorcycle. Riding on the back of the his bike through the pitch black streets of Pokhara is one of those times that I really questioned if I was experiencing real life (which may have also been due to the dehydration).

Mirror selfie showing person in white t-shirt and dark shorts.

The doctor told me I could eat a banana. The IV needle was located on the banana hand under the bandages

I checked back into my room still with the IV needle in for a quick night of sleep. I was now scheduled to take the next bus at 8am which meant I had to report back to the travel clinic for my second round of IV antibiotics at 4:30am.


Sleep deprived but feeling better I made my way back to the clinic the next morning again via nurse-motorcycle-uber. After a quick session of drugs I was handed 4 different medicines to keep taking for the next 2 weeks and a "good luck on the bus ride!".

Row of orange and white buses parked in a large concrete lot with text overlay about recovery.

I'm happy to say that I caught a lucky break and had an incident free bus trip back to Kathmandu. It was a nervewacking bus ride I dared not risk eating anything the whole time.


Now an expert at navigating the streets of Kathmandu, I was able to find my way back to the homestay with about 4 hours to collect myself before starting travel to Everest. I quickly said hi to the host family and packed my full expedition bag. My backpack was now bursting with fleeces, glove liners, camera equipment, and a HUGE down jacket.


All packed I was able to sleep from 9:30 to 11:45 PM before I was woken up to start the journey to Everest...

Messy bed covered with scattered clothes and personal items in a long panoramic view.

The first leg of the trip started at midnight when Shiva, my trip organizer and host of the homestay, drove me via motorcycle to the start point for the trek in the center of Kathmandu, about 25-30 minutes drive away. Driving through the outskirts of the town in the middle of the night can only be described as an "out of body experience". Woken up from my "sleep" I was still groggy and the streets that were once packed with life were now pitch black... except for the dogs. The street dogs are usually fairly cute and harmless in the day time where its common to see people tossing scraps of food to the docile dogs. But at night they morph into the rulers of a post apocalyptic wasteland where your presence is an invasion of their territory. The road through their territories is a slapdash mix of potholes, dirt, and occasional asphalt. The necessary slow speeds on our bike meant that the aggressive nightmare dogs were able to keep pace with us. A pack of curious dogs would approach and I could could only see the glow from their eyes before they start to bark and growl and chase our lone (very exposed feeling) motorcycle.

Group of black cats gathered at night under street lights casting long shadows.

here's a stock image i found online which someone what reflects my memory

As we cleared the outskirts of the cities we could drive fast enough to leave the terrifying dogs behind, and our new company on the road became the massive, neon lit trucks of Nepal. We raced between the trucks picking up enough speed for the dust and wind to whip at my eyes so that I could only squint at my surroundings. Only having been awake for 25-30 minutes, my world was a loud overstimulating, neon whirlwind with a dash of obnoxious truck horns thrown in for good measure.


We finally arrived at our dropoff site where I caught the sight of some other bewildered and tired looking trekkers. I was able to sit on the dusty curb listening to a flurry of Nepali negotiations . It was translated to me that the busses (just sprinter vans) were leaving late and so we'd have to hang around for another 45 minutes before they arrive around 1:30am. Our group of Everest bound trekkers wait on the side of the road before we are joined by some unexpected guests...


In one of the most fun bouts of people watching I've had in my life, our pick up location was shared by Kathmandu's "Ladies of the night". While courtesans are not allowed to loiter on the popular street, their entrepreneurial spirits could not be stifled and they instead drove around on motorbikes so that they are always "moving". I use the quotes because the end result is about 5 or 6 roaming mopeds going up and down the same 150 feet of street so incredibly slowly they may as well be walking. If they stop for too long trying to entice a client, a police officer will come up and they'll take off at about 2 miles per hour before looping back around. They made a few passes on our side of the street which resulted in some amazingly awkward moments of our buttoned up guides pretending they were not being stared at by these women just a few feet away.

Dog sitting in car passenger seat looking out window during drive.

A dog recreation of said staring

While courtesans were still circling the street like vultures, I got to finally meet my guide for the hike: Kharga. He was a small, wiry Nepali man standing a few inches shorter than me with thin glasses and dark leathery skin. He looked to me about late 50's with a heavily accented English and a rambunctious attitude.

Snow-covered Himalayan mountain peaks under bright blue sky with climbers in distance.

Kharga

I had mixed feelings at first, the other guides were much closer in age to their clients and many of them spoke a lot more English. But I figured I would just have to get to know him and see how it goes.


Shiva then said his goodbye and drove off leaving us to pick out one of the 5 vans and take off for Ramechap. Our roughly 5 hour drive was horrendous. I was stuck in the back between two guides, Kharga and one of his friends who promptly fell asleep (sometimes on me at points in the drive). In our van was a particularly adventurous father and son, aged about 13. The thirteen year old did not fare well with long drive and was throwing up for the whole first half of the drive. As expected, these conditions were not conducive to sleep, and the same time I was also trying to not think about my food poisoning recovery. I needed to re hydrate, but not too much because there was only one bathroom stop. I also needed to eat but I couldn't because my stomach was still highly sensitive.

The World's Most Dangerous Airport


We arrived at Ramechap airport at about 6am where we stripped our packs from the top of the van and were herded to the outdoor airport counters. This was the first time in which I was glad for Kharga's presence. There were 3 different airlines that all seemed to be identical and a huge scrum of confused hikers and guides. I was able to sit back while Kharga went to work, his small frame perfect for ignoring anything resembling a line and cutting to the front or even behind the counters. After 15 minutes of his wheeling and dealing, he told me we have tickets for Summit Air's 3rd flight out that morning and we can go in to the airport. We drop off our bags to be weighed (there was a strict weight limit of 30 lbs) and we go through security (if you could call it that) to go wait for our plane.


Our destination, Lukla airport, is considered the world's most dangerous airport. Located in the mountains at 10,000 feet high with a extremely short runaway, the flight is notorious as a nail biter. The aircraft for the flight are small two engine planes which only seat about 20 people at a time. The airport does not run a regular schedule because any cloud cover will cancel a flight. Flights can be grounded for days followed by a rush with an open weather window. Everyone at the airport knows the unpredictable nature and so we were all feeling the pressure to get the earliest flights when cloud cover is typicaly at its lowest. Every flight could be the last for the day, none of us know.

Small aircraft parked on runway with lush green mountains in background.

A returning flight (and a sign of confindence for me that its in one piece)

Ground crew and passengers near small aircraft on tarmac preparing for boarding.

I though it was really funny when our pilot got out and immediately started flirting with the ground staff

The weather was perfect for our flight with no delays. I was quite nervous getting on the plane which was so small I could see the pilot's cockpit all the way from the back. Despite having only 20 passengers on board we still get the whole safety talk from the flight attendant. Like cmon lady, if this plane goes down we are ALL dying in it. The flight out was a little bumpy but beautiful and we ended up landing in Lukla ready to start our hike...

The next blog should cover the actual trek!