Unlimited Potential, Up to 8000m

This morning we had our delicious breakfast, and 62 yaks with their Tibetan porters invaded our Base Camp. So cool! I love animals and these hairy cows look like the’ve be taken out of a Star Wars movie. They seem to be submissive and patient with their owners who load them with 30-40kg each. There will be 30 more joining us on our way to Advance Base Camp, a total of 92 going up. Dorje, our Sherpa Sirdar, told me only 72 will make their way down… I hope I’m lost in translation!

These yaks will carry 140 bottles oxygen. Each 4l bottle contains 960l of compressed oxygen. They weight 3.5kg full and 1.9 empty meaning that the yaks will carry a total load of 490kg of O2 up and 266kg down. Climbers and Sherpas will have a total of 134400l of oxygen, which at 2l/m rate makes a total of 1120h of O2 for all of us, 50h each.

They will carry our gear, gas, tents, food, propane, and a long list of items required at high camps. A total of 3600kg from the Base Camp. These strong animals also need a program to acclimatize. They need to take some rest at Interim Camp (5800m), as we do before moving any higher, all the way to Advance Base Camp (6400m). Both yaks and climbers will make a jump of 1200m in about 24h, so we all expect the man with the hammer to visit us tomorrow night.

The amount of things we carried in trucks to Base Camp from Nepal and other places is Tibet is massive. 72 three man tents, 9 mess tents, 4 domes, 12 reclinable and 22 normal chairs, 30kg of fresh meat in 6 coolers, 45 propane cylinders, 15kg each, 120 gas canisters, 24 cases of beer, 34 boxes of wine…

11 out of our 16 Sherpas are following the Yaks today, and tomorrow they’ll start provisioning high camps.

You only realize about the complexity of an expedition like this when you are part of it and you get to know the people and numbers that will make the dream come true…

Today I woke up feeling a bit better. My back and neck are soar but I managed to get good sleep and I didn’t wake up every hour as the last few days. I changed the position of my sleeping bag and I think it helped, but I’ll change it again tonight since I’m still feeling uncomfortable in the tent. I’m acclimatizing well, but I still need few more days to feel strong at this altitude.

This morning during breakfast we spent good time looking at the oxygen mask and talking about the climbing strategy, that we have not developed completely yet, but is good to start talking about the options now so that we build awareness on what might happen in the next few weeks. This is very important, specially to prepare our gear, since we are leaving Base Camp in four days and everything we need higher up must get ready now. A group of 60 yaks and some sherpas are leaving tomorrow morning to start preparing the route. All the required personal stuff on higher camps will be cashed at Advance Base Camp, so that’s why now we have to think on what to send with the Yaks and what to leave here. From Advance Base Camp we’ll move up and down in one or two rotations, depending on how strong we feel and weather conditions. Ideally we should tag Camp 1 (North Col) twice before coming down for a good long rest at our palace in Base Camp, but the plan is tag it at least once, a very relaxed schedule.

Right after breakfast we packed for the Yaks to carry our gear up to Advance Base Camp where we’ll stay five to seven days. I spent few hours reviewing all my gear and splitting it in different compression bags. I want to get everything extremely organized for the different phases of the climb, since I don’t want to do any mistake with the gear when I’m ready for summit push and brain fried. I have prepared all gear I’m using exclusively on summit push in a separate compression bag. High altitude globes, liners, mittens, googles, buffs and some other stuff to be used from ABC higher up goes in a separate bag. My two pieces down suit in separate bag as well. Then climbing hardware, high altitude boots, and the -20C sleeping bag is packed separately. It took me quite a while to figure out what food and toiletries to send with the Yaks, and to pack then in small separate zip bags so that I can just grab one per climbing day.

All the gear and stuff I’m using from Base Camp to Camp 1 I’m taking it with me, and I’m leaving some spares at BC that I will need during the time we’ll spend here resting before the summit push. I’s all about making the right decisions not to send too many things tomorrow up to ABC that I might need before getting there, and leaving some stuff here so that I don’t need to take it down before or after summit push. A good example is the decision I’ve taken to leave the -40C sleeping bag at Base Camp and taking the -20C with me. We are spending a night at what we call Interim Camp right after leaving BC and reaching ABC. It’s going to be a cold night but the -40C is way to heavy and and it does not worth taking it in my back pack to high camps, since I will sleep from Camp 1 in my down suit.

I’ve also spend a good time setting up the crampons with the metallic toe belt, since on Khan Tengri I fit them on the cold Scarpa Phanton 8000 boots using the the plastic strap, and now that I have a brand now pair of Sportiva Mons Evo I feel they fit better without it, and the metallic toe belt. I’m not too happy with these Petzl Lynx modular crampons that I used in Kyrgyzstan and Iran last year. They are very versatile, and aggressive on ice, but not easy to set up when the conditions are harsh, and they feel a bit fragile on mixed terrain. I will write a review on these once I finish the expedition, and I will find a new set from another brand that are more appropriate for my next expedition.

I’ve also tested the settings of both high altitude boots and climbing harness with my new two piece down suite. The boots feel so warm and comfy, I’m happy that I finally bought size 44. My street shoe number in 41-42, and I spent hours in a shop in Paris trying to make up my mind in between sizes 43 and 44 for these new high altitude boots.

The down suit is awesome, and Phil is impressed with the new design of the down saloppettes (the bottom part) and decided to acquired his own. The new model includes a large piece of soft and warm windstopper fabric covering from waist all the way to the chest and back. It’s not impossible for the wind or snow to go underneath these pants, which was a big caveat on two pieces down suit and the reason why many guides do recommend using only a full down suit for 8000m peaks.

For this expedition I have spares of the most important gear, which I’ll take with me on summit push: Glacier glasses, googles, globe liners and down mittens, all x2.

Knowing that I have the right gear is for me the most important point to feel mentally strong in expeditions like this.

Of course all these tests I’ve done it back home, but now I’m just testing again and changing some of the settings. I’ve just realized my Black Diamond Colouir alpine harness is a bit small and it’s going to be hard to set it over the down suit with cold hands 😦 Not the end of the world though, since I’ll have the help from sherpas and climbing partners up there.

After checking gear and packing I’ve decided to have warm shower and now I feel like reborn. I’ve not shaved though since I’ve decided not to do it before I get back home, hehehe. I’m also thinking on using my razor before summit push and make some fanny with my hair. I haven’t asked my girlfriend though 😛

The girl who got bitten by the dog made it safe to BC, and I wish she makes it safe all the way to the Top. Not surprisingly another girl from another team got bitten in Tingri as well, and she has decided to continue with the expedition without rabies treatment…

Very busy and productive day. My brother and girlfriend are sending me emails and sms and it feel so good. The team is awesome and Phil has the best sense of humor, so for now I’m not feeling sad but instead I’m happy to have so many people supporting me. So far I have received two emails from followers in this blog sending me good vibrations. One of them said he is my fan.I think he is the first fan I’ve ever had in my live! 😀 Thank you so much to everybody, for now I just can send updates but not checking comments and FB stuff but once I’m back from the expedition I’ll use few days to go through every single of them.

Today we woke up very excited, since the our Sherpas and the Lamas were ready to start the Puja. We’ve had an amazing day, abusing a bit of the alcohol but I’m sure tonight I’ll have very good sleep. I will never forget this beautiful experience and its’s difficult to describe all feelings…

I have plenty of photos and videos, and my climbing partner Edita has beautifully described the day in her blog post:

“We got up this morning before 8 AM Nepalese time. Today is a Puja day. We had breakfast – some yummy omelet, fried tomato and chapati (Nepalese bead). I always add porrage with honey. So, it is a good breakfast to stay strong on the mountain! Da Pasang, our chief cook, always makes amazing meals. It is hard to have an appetite at high altitude and good cooking helps a lot!

After breakfast, we all went to get our gear ready for Puja.Puja is a Buddhist religious ceremony when we ask gods for safe passage to Chomolungma.

No Sherpa would climb without Puja as they would consider it a bad luck without asking gods for blessing. Three monks from the Rongbuk Monastery arrived early this morning. As they were in no rush (only few groups this year on the Everest North side), they were ordering our Sherpa how to create the altar for the ceremony.The weather was perfect, no wind, so we did the Puja outside. The ceremony started with the Monks chanting for an hour or so. The Sherpa sat all heads bowed. We also sat around and observed the ceremony. Many of us ended up taking photos and videos. The mood was perfect, maybe because it was such a perfect day! After some chanting, the Sherpa raised the prayer flag pole over the Puja altar that the Sherpa built this morning. Dorje, our Sidhar Sherpa, kept burning Juniper twigs, in a small furnace on the side of the Puja altar. Then, we are given handful of flour (called tsampa) to trow into the air. It got a little messy here as the wind picked up the flour and scattered all over us.

Then, we all stand in line and are offered pendant with Buddha picture. I got my zee stone pendant blessed again (first time on Cho Oyu, then Manaslu). Lamas smile as I gave my zee to them for blessing. They smile wide again when they put it on my neck after the blessing is done. Zee is a mystical Tibetan stone, supposed to protect from bad spirits and bring good luck. First time I submitted an 8,000′er, many Sherpa and Tibetans said it was zee who helped me. Let’s hope the stone will protect me again on the ridges of Chomolungma.

After that, we all stood in line for three shots of rum. They all had a good laugh when I choked on my third shot.

After that, the Sherpa dance came… I was dancing with few other non-Sherpas… just to almost pass out at the end of the second dance. I feel the altitude when I do any kind of physical activity.

Targi Sherpa and Edita (Beers)

This is when the real altitude junkies and Sherpa drinking began. We all went to our comms tent and everyone relaxed, opened up, telling jokes and stories. It was hilarious. Phil as always, shared a few great stories with us from the what he knew about groups on the south side of Everest. The lunch was served around 1 pm and I retreated to the privacy of my tent not too long afterwards. I needed a nap after all that Puja drinking… It is not polite and insulting not to drink during the ceremony… Only one member in our group who never drank in his life remained sober but seemed to enjoy the celebration no less than his drinking mates. As I am writing this a few hours later, I still hear voices of Sherpa and some of my group mates who are still celebrating…:-) They all deserve to relax and enjoy this day as we will begin our climbing and “suffering” in few days. It will be really hard, the hardest thing most of us have ever done, of course, except Sherpa! However, the Sherpa are working so hard and they deserve more than anyone on this mountain to relax for a day! They will be carrying load from ABC (Advanced Base Camp) prettty soon and begin setting up out camp. They are the true heroes, without them, most of us would not even dream of coming here to climb these beautiful ridges of Chomolungma.”

Last night was quite cold and I could not rest well again. I’ve been fighting with the pillow (plastic piece of crap I purchased in Kathmandu) and my neck still hurts. I also filled a one little pee bottle and since it was -4C in the tent I stopped drinking, thus I woke up dehydrated. I had little headache and my skin is dry now. My SPO2 and heart rate are not good, but I’m not too concerned for now. The pain on my neck really bothers me, but I don’t want to take any medication yet. Headache on forefront is normally associated with dehydration, which I fixed in about one hour after I woke up. Pain on the base of the skull or the neck can be altitude related, and if I take ibuprofen now I won’t be able to understand if I already have issues to acclimatize. I’ve walked for about an hour and stretched for thirty minutes, but still the pain does not go away. Today is very cold, it was snowing for few hours, and my muscles are contracting and bothering me everywhere. I need better sleep and more stretching or I’ll have issues on back and knees during the climb. It’s a pity my friend and sponsor Fabien Rabeau from International Sport Expertise is not here to help me out with physio. He did a fantastic job getting me acclimatized with hipoxic sessions before I left Dubai. He would be priceless here, we are all sore. My ITV on my bad leg (left) is really tight and I already hear clicks in that knee. I must work hard these days on recovering elasticity there and fixing my neck.

Before going to sleep I managed to call my girlfriend using my spanish SIM card which fortunately roams here. I can not use it much and I must keep it for emergencies, otherwise I’ll get disconnected by Vodafone. She is OK but she has pain everywhere after taking a bad fall in a wadi while doing hiking and via ferrata in Oman with some friends. I hope you heal soon Preciosa, you have lots of people that love you and your friends will take care of you while I’m away.

The lack of wind and snow today after our warm weather yesterday is a good sign. Phil (our expedition leader) is very optimistic about the possibility of an early summit this season. The snow will make the ascent easier and safe. Today that black giant wall on the North Face is covered in white, and it’s very cloudy up there. No windy at all though. We’ll get weather reports weekly before May the 1st, when these will be delivered on a daily basis. We are so lucky that we managed to get the internet connection to work! All the other teams must be freaking out by seeing our two Wi-Fi networks, Altitude Junkies & The Boss. For now we’re going to keep the secret on how we managed to get this to work, but once again all friends Phil have in china, after expending seven year in Lasha as resident teacher for the climbing school, are priceless.

The guys from the team who got stuck in Tingri are still missing. I feel sorry for them… having to spend more nights in hell is not a good start for their expedition. On the positive side of the things, the girl who got bitten by the dog finally managed to get the shots without crossing the border, and shell be able to join her team with all the remaining shots that she can self-administer considering she is a doctor.

On the large Chinese camp there is a small group of Yaks leaving to the glacier, meaning they are starting to provision high camps.

Our Base Camp set up is awesome. Almost everything is brand new, and it feels very luxurious. We have 18 three man tents, each climber and Sherpa has his/her own, with a comfy green carpet, a large foam mattress and led lamp. There are two big domes filled with reclinable chairs, one for chatting and socializing and the other one for relaxing and being quiet. One more dome is Phil’s office and he is sleeping there. Then we have two tents with separate toilet and solar-gas propelled shower. They feel quite clean and luxurious , with sit toilet and warm water in a bucket at all times of the day, towel, soap, sanitizer, and a even air freshener. One big tent with all this commodities for boys and a separate one for the three girls in the expedition. And they have flushable toilet! The rest of the large tents are double the size, huge. One dinning room for us, and one for the Sherpas. One kitchen for us and one for the Sherpas. One storage tent where we can leave anything we don’t need to have at hand, making our personal tent super spacious. We also have a comms/entertainment tent with large projector, four laptops, two wireless high speed internet connections, and charging station for our personal appliances. Everything is powered both with a solar panel system, and two small Honda generators that have been tweaked for good performance at high altitude.

For dinner we’ve had delicious steak and the cooks and Tibetan assistants deliver top class service, so it feel like we are eating in a restaurant rated in the Michelin guide 😛

Tomorrow we have our Puja. We have three Lamas coming from the Rongbuk monastery, the one with the highest elevation in the World, to start around 8am. Phil want us to be very focused on it, since this is a extremely important religious ritual for the Sherpas, and if they don’t feel OK with the Puja there will be no success for any of us.

We left Tingri this morning very early, 3:45 Nepal time, and after four and a half hours of driving in our comfortable bus, we arrived to our desired destination, our wonderful Base Camp. We did half of the drive in complete darkness but the other half was very scenic and we enjoyed amazing views of Mt Everest from different angles. I remember when I did the trek to Everest Base Camp in the Khumbu Valley. I will never forget the views from Kala Pathar, but other than that I could barely see the mountain. When climbing the Normal Route on the South you don’t get to see the top of Everest almost before summit day.

Climbing from the North I think is more demanding but much more rewarding. Is not only the amazing views you have of Qomolangma from virtually everywhere, but also the quietness of the route. The Base Camp is practically empty, with 8 different teams distributed across a giant flat area. Is quite windy and a bit dusty, but other than that you don’t see rubbish or yak’s poo whatsoever. We are seven foreign teams plus the Chinese one climbing the North Route at different times. We estimate a maximum of 90 climbers this season, and more than 500 from the South… When I visited EBC few yeas back the place was empty since it was mid March, too early for the climbing season, and it looked such a small camp with chaotic orography beautifully sculpted by the Khumbu Glacier. It is impossible for me to imagine 1200+ people fitting there today… is total madness, like a heavy metal concert where the viruses camp all around and the main challenge becomes being healthy. Once the survivors get to climb the Normal Route, they have to queue most of the time, and I think that makes the experience a bit plastic. How the hell do 500 climbers plus their sherpas fit in those tiny high camps? And there is a single line for around 1200 people to clip to… It’s going to be interesting to hear from my friends Maria, Mirza, Moe and Ali who are all climbing South this year.

The situation in the North Camp today is not normal I should say, since the political situation these days force many teams to go climbing from Nepal side, where once the climbing permit is issued there are no major challenges other than those I’ve just mentioned. North however is risky and we suffered few days in Kathmandu, Nyalam and Tingri before getting to our safe zone, our gorgeous Base Camp. Now is only the mountain and us, and we are not longer concerned about the logistics. The other team is not that fortunate. They are still stuck in hell, AKA Tingri. They have not managed to get transport for the 20 of them and although their sherpas and BC crew are setting up their tents and domes, I have not seen any climber yet. I’ve also heard the girl who was bitten by the dog, could not get the rabies shots at the Chinese military station at the border, meaning she’ll need to make her way back to Kathmandu.

The setup of or BC is almost completed. When we arrived, the Sherpas were finalizing the installation of three cozy domes and we have plenty of mess tents for different purposes. I will describe our camp tomorrow in great detail once everything is finalized. For now it looks like we just need to set up the showers, comms tent, and getting power sources plus Internet connectivity up and running. What I can say now is that our camp looks like a palace compared with the others here. It is extraordinarily luxurious and although the cooks are not up to speed with setting up the kitchens yet, we had a delicious lunch and the famous Altitude Junkies Happy Hour (4pm) with red wine, cheese, black olives and other appetizers.

I’ve had a very bad night with almost no sleep, and my neck is aching a lot from a hard bed with crappy pillows. I’m also worried because early in the morning I’ve got three sms from my girlfriend who had an accident while hiking in Oman. Last message says she is OK now, but I could not get every text she sent me, so I don’t really know what happened.. I don’t have signal in my Dubai cellphone anymore, and I’ll try later with the sat phone if Phil manages to find me a spare Thuraya card.

Other than that I feel strong, and although both my O2 saturation and rest pulse are around 82 I think I’m doing well with acclimatization. I had plenty of time to set up my huge three men tent, with three mattresses, a minus 40 sleeping bag, and the pics my girl printed out for me. Weather was awesome most of the day. Boiling in the tent by noon, I decided to take a “cat style” shower with plenty of baby wipes. Then I’ve had a nap in the chill out dome on a reclinable chair.

Tomorrow I’ll exercise a bit and we’ll try to sort out the Internet.

Today I woke up pretty strong an optimistic. I had a small breakfast, purchased some soft drinks and snacks for the Puja at Base Camp, and set off to hike a beautiful hill I spotted yesterday about 10k away from the place where we contemplated Everest and the Himalayan Range. It took me about two hours to get there, since I was fooling around and taking photos. There is a very nice Tibetan village at the bottom of that hill, with an small monastery and some ruins at the top. It was very pleasant sitting there, munching at some crisps, and looking how the White Plume on the summit of Everest was growing by the minute. The White Plume is the snow coming from the summit when the Jet Stream (winds blowing up to 250km/h) vaporizes it into the sky. It’s a beautiful yet scary natural phenomenon that remind us how vulnerable we are in the mountains.

The North Face of Qomolangma looks awesome from the top of that hill. Is like a giant pyramid with a vertical black wall facing the Tibetan Plateau. It’s difficult to believe some routes have been set up there. I keep studying our route by looking at pictures and navigating it with Google Earth in my iPad. I try to visualize every section we have to climb and getting ready for the steepest sections by imagining myself facing every single problem we’ll find in our way up to the Top. Phil is incredibly optimistic and helps us keeping a positive attitude towards our chances of getting to the Summit and down.

Once I finished my trek I had small lunch, shaved and washed a bit, and I learned about the first bad news, not for us but for one of the members in the team which bus broke down yesterday. One Danish girl went for a walk in the morning and was bitten by a dog quite badly on her leg. She has just been evacuated to get vaccination in Kathmandu, and her chances to make it back and continue with her Everest Dream are almost cero, since she needs about two weeks of continuous treatment. What would I do if I’d be on her shoes? Treating the incident as a normal injury and continue the climb to risk my life if I’m infected by rabies? That dog most probably carries the disease… You have to see this place… Yesterday we spotted three dead dogs in the street, and is just few meters long. This morning when I went to the grocery shop I was disgusted by observing a huge dog lying almost dead in front of a big hole filled with yellow water. The smell coming from there was horrendous and the dog was drinking that liquid slowly. It reminded me to the Walking Dead, and I think this is the sort of place that would come into my nightmares one day. During all my hike I was very concerned about the dogs, since we were warned by Phil about these sort of incidents that have happened a few times before. In 2011 one climber got sick after getting infected by one dog in the same place, and there is another incident reported few years ago. I had a bit of traumatic experience with dogs when I was a pizza delivery boy in my sixteens, and another in Jordan while visiting the ruins of a castle in the middle of the desert. So today I was worried about these walking dead dogs, trying to keep a good distance from them while looking for stones and sticks to defend myself from them. Now I think I’ve been a bit stupid going alone for that long hike in the middle of nowhere…

The girl is a doctor and was attached to her mobile phone for a long time before leaving the place in a Land Cruiser. Quite a sad scene watching some of her climbing partners saying goodbye while she was getting in the car with some tears in her eyes. Now these climbers have another problem to face, and is getting transport from this horrible town to Base Camp, since their bus remains inoperative on the road from Nyalam. We are considering taking some of them with us, but we won’t have enough space for twenty which is the size of that team without Sherpas. I’m happy again to be with Phil in this adventure. Eleven climbers (although we were initially eight) is a good size to handle in situations like this. Phil is trying to help, but obviously without jeopardizing the safety of our team.

Two of our team members are sick. Bad diarrhea which is something common in places like this. The rest of the team is now paranoid about hygiene, hehehe.

We spent the whole afternoon chatting, reading and watching movies inside our luxurious bus. Can you imagine how terrible this place is? The bus seemed to be safe and comfortable compared with the hostel and anywhere else in this town…

Today we arrived at Tingri after few hours of very pleasant drive through the Tibetan Plateau. The scenery here is beautiful with all these giant peaks around us, and the deserted tundra covered by thin snow. We climbed up from 3780m at Nyalam to around 5100m at the highest point on the Friendship Highway, the Kuti pass, to descend down to 4350m where we first spotted Everest and her little brothers around. So exciting! Then we “checked in the hostel” and I must say we’ve been very lucky to have the best available rooms. Another team left Nyalam about 20 mins before us in a small old bus, and we passed them with our luxurious Chinese bus half the way to our destination when their vehicle broke down. They had to wait for four hours before our transport could take them safe to the hostel. By that time lunch was finished and most of the new rooms were taken by us. They look somewhat unhappy and I hope they manage to get a reliable transport to Base Camp.

The hotel at Tingri is fine but there’s no current water most of the time, and it’s yellow like piss. The town is very authentic and I’m planning to take loads of pics tomorrow, hopefully from some of the locals who look very nice with their traditional way of making their hair and their golden teeth. The streets are again dirty and smelly, but so far all people I found in Tibet are extraordinarily nice, smiling all the time and it seems they like to see us around, probably because we help developing the local economy with our expeditions.

After leaving our stuff in the rooms we went for a nice walk around and visited what it looks like the ruins of an ancient monastery, probably devastated during the difficult years when china occupied the Tibetan lands. The views from there are incredible with Everest and Cho Oyu dominating the skyline. We took loads of photos and head back to the hotel for another Chinese lunch. After few days eating all the same, we are desperate for reaching our base camp where we’ll enjoy all these delicatessen Phil has prepared for us.

I felt vey tired after lunch and went to my room to take a nap. My breading and heart rate was not normal and I started to feel weak. Yesterday I run down that peak fast and I felt very well acclimatized, but today I was feeling totally the opposite. After dinner I feel much better, and I think is the food and lack of exercising what is affecting my health right now. I’m sharing room with Phil. He feels a bit sick and decided to skip dinner and sleep as much as he can. We have other team member with diarrhea, so now is time to take hygiene very serious so that we don’t spread the bug. It is interesting how in this part of the world we feel so exposed in our way to Base Camp, which we consider our place of safety and comfort where we’ll build up the strength required to climb the Highest mountain on Earth. Anywhere after Kathmandu and before Base Camp is just a source of illness…

For now I feel my body is deteriorating fast, so my plan for tomorrow is to go for a long walk, doing some core and upper body exercise, long stretching session, washing and shaving, grabbing extra food from the supermarket and stay positive at all time.

One day more in this town and we’ll leave to our desired destination, Chomolungma Base Camp!

Today we are resting at Nyalam at an altitude of 3780m. We woke up pretty late, not sure when since I’m totally messed up with the time zones. At the moment of writing this post it’s 23:00 Tibet time, 20:45 Nepal, 19:00 Dubai and 15:00 Spain. I was quite excited with my plans for today: Breakfast followed by a nice hike in a nearby peak, hot shower, lunch, visit to the Internet cafe, and dinner with some beers and good laugh.

I finally skipped the lunch and the Internet cafe, since I finished my hike late, the internet connection was quite bad and the place full of cigarettes and smoke. The hike was awesome! Difficult start since I’ve not exercised much in the last few weeks, but I ended up going up to 4300m and running down fast like hell. My new Salomon trail running shoes are amazing, they give me very good support and grip, even in snow. I could not get any higher since a snow storm was threatening and I had not gear to take any risk. I decided to have a warm super long shower and watching a couple of old climbing movies with Nelson in the comfort of our sleeping bags. Dinner was horrendous. Chinese food is not bad, but it normally comes with a surprise that will ruin the whole dinner. Today I’ve found in one of the dishes a nasty spice which tastes like ginger but ten times stronger and it burns your mouth and lips. The taste remains there for hours. My clothes smell like greasy food and cigarettes, but I’m glad to say today I feel quite optimistic and strong. I need to exercise regularly or my mood gets grey like the Tibetan sky.

We’ve also got good news for breakfast. Phil managed to recover the confiscated generators and medical kits. He knows some people and many tricks 😉

Our Sherpas left this morning to Base Camp, since they don’t need to acclimatize and they have to start setting up the Camp.

Tomorrow we leave this horrible town to spend two more days in one that is even worse, Tingri. At least I hope we have an internet connection to send this updates and some emails. I miss being connected to my family and friends…

After spending a night at Kodari, we crossed the Chinese border with not too many difficulties. Such an unique experience…

We arrived at Kodari right before sunset after a hectic drive through an old Nepali bus. The road is really messy and dangerous. The bus was noisy and all short of crap was blowing from outside into our lungs. Our duffle bags left Kathmandu very early in the morning in two trucks with all the cargo that won’t be acquired at Tibet. I’m so stupid that I forgot all three buffs I’m bringing from Dubai inside one of these bags. The whole day I was very paranoid about what I was breathing since I left Kathmandu, and so I was this morning when queuing in the border surrounded by Nepali porters and their children. The first time I visited Nepal I was so amazing by the beauty of these kids, that I spend quite a lot of time playing with them. This morning however I was surrounded by a dozen of Nepali kids and terrified, imagining them as carriers of all sort of diseases, hehehe. On the way back from Everest I will play and give them candy as usual 🙂

We spent not too long forming a perfect line on the middle of the Friendship Bridge. We had to take our position in the line according to our designated number in the group visa. Our passports where numbered and apparently the official staring at us right after opening the border get mad at foreigners not respecting that order. One line for climbers, one line for Sherpas, and another for porters. The porters take our cargo from the trucks parked right at Nepali side of the border, and move it to other trucks at Zhangmu, few hundred meters away from the Tibet side of the border. They were all relaxed walking around the Chinese immigration office, and they look so poor and dirty, but always smiling. After crossing the imaginary middle line on the bridge we all had to wait for about an hour for the officials in the immigration office to inspect our belongings and stamp our passports. They first crossed checked our passport with the data provided in the group visa. Then our bags got scanned and three twelve years old officials carried a manual inspection of our belongings, putting special attention to books and cameras. They were extraordinarily nice, not to bushy and quite respectful. They basically look for religious related items, such us pics of the Lama in our cameras or iPads, political books or tibetan flags. They do not inspect our clothes as you’d expect today to be done at any airport, and so you can potentially hide stuff in your pockets, but as I learned this morning Chinese people is quite respectful and reluctant to make physical contact. After the inspecting of our bags we had to form another line to get our passports stamped. The official in that check point was very nice, and they have an electronic system to survey you on the quality of the service provided, pretty impressive.

Right after getting the stamp, we walked up the hilly main road in Zhangmu to reach the bus that is going to take us all the way to Chinese Everest Base Camp. At that point we learned that our power generators and medical kits have been confiscated after our cargo passed inspection 😦 Very bad news, but Phil has a plan 🙂

Our Chinese bus is quite luxurious considering the condition of the Nepali one. Few minutes driving on a basic road still under construction, and we stopped for or first Chinese meal and beer Lasha, “the Beer from the Roof of the World”. Very yummy food and delicious beverage.

A couple of hours drive, and we arrived at Nyalam, a grey dirty town where we are to spend the next two nights to get acclimatized, since we just jumped from around 2500m to 3780, which is a big gradient.

I’ve managed to buy a scarf, two medical masks and a buff to protect me from all stuff suspended on the dirty air. The smell everywhere is so disgusting… But the people looks extraordinarily nice everywhere. I’ve purchased the scarf and bottled water from one grocery shop, and the owner gave me complimentary chewing gum. Probably he felt guilty for ripping me off, but I don’t mind since the smiles in such an ugly place are priceless 😛

The hotel looks so funny, it reminds me to the Bruce Lee movies. The rooms are cold, humid and basic, but we have warm communal showers on each floor. I’m sharing with Ole and Nelson, I’m so happy!

It’s snowing now and the ambience is quite depressive, so we decided to visit the most popular restaurant here to continue building up our Altitude Drunkies spirit. Local brandy kills all known and genetically modified forms of viruses, bacteria and protozoa . The restaurant is made of eight pieces of wood and is covered with a thick layer of grease that melts and drips from the ceiling as we warm up the ambience with the help of that brandy.

We’ll have dinner here later, and tomorrow I’ll walk everywhere to take photos of such unique town and its people. Good night to all my followers and please help me raising founds toward investigating a cure for cancer!

Finally today, after five long yet relaxing days at Kathmandu, we are leaving in a small bus to spend a night at Kodari, our entry point to Tibet.

“Kodari is a border crossing on the Nepal-China border. It’s located in Sindhupalchok District in the Bagmati Zone of central Nepal. The other side of the border is variously referred to as Zhangmu, Dram or Khasa.

In ancient times, it was the starting point of a trans-Himalayan caravan route. Newar traders headed north from Kodari and after crossing Kuti pass turned east to continue their journey across the Tibetan Plateau to Lhasa.

China built the 115 kilometres (71 mi) Kathmandu-Kodari Road, since named Araniko Highway, during the 1963-67 period. As of 2011, Nepal is planning to convert the two lane highway to a six lane metalled highway.It connects across the Sino-Nepal Friendship Bridge at the border to Friendshp Highway in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.

China started building a railway in 2008 connecting Lhasa with Zhangmu on the Nepal-China border. It is an extension of the 1,956 kilometres (1,215 mi) Qinghai-Tibet Railway.”

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodari

My initial understanding is that we’ll be transferred from Kathmandu to the border early in the morning, getting our visa stamped, and spending our first night at Zhangmu. But the plan now is to have a more relaxed schedule so that we can deal with all formalities in the border, which this years seem to be a pain on the butt. We are leaving around 10am, sleeping at a guest house in Kodari, and waking up early to be the second team crossing the border this year. The first team is crossing this morning. Lets see what happens to them and if we can make it through with no more delays :S

We are meeting all of our Sherpas tonight. Very exciting getting to know the True Heroes of this Adventure!