Never Confuse Having a Life with Having a Career: Base Camp holy hell

So I'm back in Kathmandu after completing the Everest Base camp trek, and wow that was exhausting!

I last left you folks in Namche Bazaar, which is a resting point that has some decent high speed internet, but after that there was no Net available and my computer died, now I'm with Dave and the Kiwis at the Shisha lounge next door to our hotel. We are having some Shisha, enjoying a cigar, and of course Dave and I are having some beers...no surprise eh.

So when I last left we were just getting into the crazy hard part of our trek...we left Namche and moved on to the next village where we got to some of the more rustic parts of the trip....no more flushing toilets, just holes in the ground...squatting...he he. Also, no shower boooo...we went about 6 days without a shower which is pretty awful and starts to really smell.....without a doubt this was the most exhausting endeavour I've ever taken up...in total I think we walked around 120 km throughout our trek....There's definitely a lot of different emotions going through ones head. The cold wasn't too bad, since I'm a Canadian and all, but it still takes it's toll on you....it was also interesting to go without eating meat ( due to Dave's sickness we avoided all meat until on our way down ha ha). Eating meals the vegetarian way, and not drinking was a good thing for one's body I suppose. Every day was around 5 or 6 hours of trekking with the obligatory stopping points every few days for a rest. Not much sleep, and wild dreams really ruled the evenings. Every morning over breakfast we would recount our crazy dreams that were a result of the lack of oxygen, and the cold environment. One of Dave's dreams consisted of me being shot at his doorstep in Australia, and in the process of dying I cock blocked him from getting it on with some hot lass...hilarious except for the part of me dying! Another dream of his consisted of us randomly going to Pakistan for a few days so we started looking into flights to Pakistan from Kathmandu, but unfortunately it's looking like it will cost 3000 US for a return flight so I guess that's a no go...this also lead to us investigating random flights to other destinations such as Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Dubai, etc....we still haven't decided on a locale to go visit although Dubai does sound awfully tempting, but of of course our Gov't and the UAE gov't are squabbling over airline carriers or some sillyness like that, so it might actually be difficult to obtain a visa for entry whereas Dave, being Aussie, can get a visa at the airport upon arrival...damn you Canadian gov't...first time I've been a bit chapped at our gov't but oh well.

So anyways with regards to trekking, every day we just basically walked numerous KMs uphill which is really good for the cardio...I think I've lost about 5 or 6 pounds since the beginning of the trek...and for me thats quite a bit considering I'm a fairly skinny dude to begin with...I haven't been this thin since probably my Europe trip, so now I'm focusing on eating as much meat and meals as I can to try and regain some of that weight so that I'm not confused with being a malnourished individual ha ha. Every day was a pretty early start, getting up at 7 am at the latest, eating breakfast, and then trekking on....there was some amazing views and some really challenging climbs...fortunately our group made it to Base Camp with only headaches to complain about and the lack of sleep.....I would say the worst day was probably the first day when we started our trek down as it was super windy for several hours (I hate the wind) so this really wore on my spirit and made me pretty stressed out...I don't get stressed out too often, but in this case I did.....fortunately we made it all the way back down, and had some pretty fun nights in the process.....when we got back to Lukla (our arrival/departure point) we had a pretty big night out, and met some cool Danish folks....I'm going to go meet up with them in Denmark this summer when I go to Roskilde which is a music festival....throughout our trek our porters kept awkwardly staring at me, I think they might have contemplated killing me so I was always on edge lol.....fortunately they didn't! :) I ended up playing cards with the guys a fair bit and learning some Nepalese card games which was pretty fun...Dave just usually slept in the afternoons while I made friends with our guide and the porters...or at least tried to keep my wits about me and try and make sure they weren't in fact going to kill me ha ha. We made pretty good friends with our one younger guide and we nicknamed him Mogly (from the Jungle Book) cause we didn't know his actual name....he actually ended up responding to that nickname which was pretty sweet.....it's a tough life being a Nepalese guide as they only make about 9000 rupees for the 12 day trek which amounts to about $120 CAD...not the best job...but they were all friendly enough and a good time.

So I don't know what else to really say about the trek other than it was exhausting and I've realized I wasn't cut out to be a mountain climber......anyways we're back now and I'll just upload a few pics to give you guys an idea of what we saw and encountered.

We're probably going to go to Pokhara next.

Dave just reminded me to tell one funny story of the trek, and that involves this morning at the Lukla airport...we rolled into the hotel around 12 last night and were a bit intoxicated..we woke up the whole hotel by wrestling with Mogly ha ha...oops. So we go to the airport this morning at 6 am and we get through security and say our goodbyes to our porters and our guide....so the waiting area has a VIP area which we go down into and there's not many ppl...In my wise state of mind I decide to act as a security guard and begin asking any person that attempts to come down the stairs into the area for their VIP pass....about 10 minutes of this goes on where ppl are in shock that they're being asked for their vip card...several ppl actually reach into their pockets and pull out their airline pass to present to me....absolute hilariousness for the Kiwis and Dave....great times. Anyways...I'll just add pictures and hopefully get a chance to tell some of the more funny stories from the trek in person.

Cheers!