Unlimited Potential, Up to 8000m

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!

Finally we are off to the Tibet border, leaving Kathmandu to Kodari in about 30 min. The trip in a small bus is going to take us 4 to 5 hours depending on the traffic. We are spending the night in a crappy guesthouse and we’ll wake up very early with the intention of being the first team crossing the border.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodari

We’ve just got the official numbers, and this year we are 7 teams climbing from North side, while 47 are attemting from the easy South route. We’ll be about 200 including climbers, sherpas and Base Camp crew, and 1200 in the South… One Ice Doctor Sherpa has already died in the Western Cwm, along with a trekker on the way to South BC. Now I know I’ve taken the right decission going on the cold and windy North route!

As off today our plan is to spend one night at Kodari, and after that we have decided to drive straight to Nyalam and skipping dirty Zhangmu who was our second stop in the initial plan. We’ll spend two nights in Nyalam and two more at Tingri before we get to our beautiful and quiet Base Camp. We are planning to relax for seven days more at Base Camp before we start moving up that big mountain.

I will be sending satellite updates before I get to Base Camp and from there we’ll work out some solutions to have a decent internet connection.

A million thanks to all my family, friends and sponsors for cheering me up from the distance all these days of standby at Kathmandu. The real adventure is about to begin!

Today I finalized all shopping: spare expedition mittens and headlamp, camping pillow, five different NF expedition bags, and snacks for the trip to BC. I’ve also managed to print out Marc’s photo I’ve got from Mikel yesterday 🙂

I’ve closed the day having dinner with Nelson, my climbing partner for Miami, and Markus the Camera Man from NY. The story about this two guys is very interesting.

Nelson is a top guy who already climbed Everest from South side in 2011 but had to turn back few meters below the summit due to a failure on his oxygen mask. Before starting the expedition only three of us shared emails, and one of the was Nelson. He has a Spanish girlfriend and is extremely friendly. The most interesting thing about Nelson is that he is the Memory Champion in USA. Yes, our memory man! Give him two bricks of poker cards and he will memorize them in less than a minute. There is a Memory World Championship and he is very close to its best mark. He started playing memory games as a hobby, and after he became the USA Memory Champion he decided to make this hobby a way of living. He is currently a “Memory Consultant”. He works with people and corporations delivering workshops on his techniques to store information. He also works for be biggest manufacturer of memory systems for mainframes. He runs demonstrations worldwide and participates in all sort of TV shows in the States. For this expedition he has some sponsors, and he will run an experiment to see how his ability to memorize things gets affected by the high altitude at Mt Everest. And the most exciting thing is that his experiment will be filmed and a documentary produced by a company in New York.

And this is where our Markus from NY comes into the story. Markus is such a cool guy! I wish he could make it with us all the way to the Top, but I’m not sure he has the required level of fitness 😛 Markus is a talented photographer and camera man, and he runs a company back home specialized in producing documentaries all around the world, and filming advertisements for top firms. Markus is happily married and we had so much fun when we asked him about his experience shooting for the top models of Victoria Secret, LOL. I won’t give any details since we were all under the effects of the Everest beer, and I have to respect the so called “professional secret”. His wife must be very proud though, since he always behaves and keeps a very professional attitude while at work 🙂

The initial plan for the documentary was to have a professional camera man joining us on the climb, accompanying Nelson all the way to the top. But due to late notice, Phil could not get another American in the Chinese group visa. Therefore the final plan is to have Markus training Nelson and two Sherpas that have just been hired for the specifics of the filming. Getting visa for two additional Sherpas was an easy task, and that brings a huge benefit to the whole Altitude Junkies Team. Phil has set a condition for these Sherpas to be treated as regular ones, meaning when they are not filming they will have to work on regular tasks with the rest of the crew. AND something very cool is the we’ll be have full disclosure of the footage for private use. I hope they film me when I’m about to reach the summit and while on the Top! This is such a great deal, Phil is a genius 😉

After we finished dinner we grabbed some drinks from a grocery shop, and headed back to the hotel to enjoy the last night Kathmandu. Nelson purchased a set of giant singing bowls that morning and he was so excited, like a kid with a new toy. Few hours after we illicitly occupied the bar at the hotel and switched from beers into all other forms of alcoholic beverages. Now we are proudly called the Altitude Drunkies 😀

I hope the Gods of the mountains protect us from all sort of dangers including the abuse of alcoholic drinks at the Chinese Everest Base Camp 😛

This is a test from the satellite laptop