Island Peak Trek Day 1

After only a few days spent doing... not very much actually, the start of our adventure was upon us! The day began at 4:30 with hasty showers and a small pharmacy worth of drugs. We were met in the lobby of our hotel at 5:15 by a representative from Asian Trekking who had arrived in a large (and very shiny!) pickup truck, ready to whisk us away to the airport. At least this time we had seat-belts... not to mention doors we couldn't see through.

We were feeling a little apprehensive by the time we arrived at the airport, but it was all for not as our travel agent extraordinaire grabbed us a luggage cart and motioned for us to simply follow him. He stood with us in every line, did most of the heavy lifting, told us exactly what to do (which, for the most part, consisted of us just standing there), and waited ever so patiently for us while we fumbled with our packs or tried desperately to release the break on our luggage cart. At one point we actually lost sight of him, and all we could do was stand there like two idiot lost children, waiting until he reappeared waving us over to the next counter. Our bags ended up weighing in 13kg over the limit, but not a problem for us! A few words and bills were exchanged and we were off once again. As we reached the final check point, he handed us our plane tickets (the first time we'd so much as seen them, let alone been allowed to hold them!), and a large yellow sack. “Give this to your guide. He'll be waiting in the 'Paradise Lodge'” he said rather slowly, pointing at the large block letters on the bag that read “PARADISE LODGE.” We gave each other a sideways glance before shaking his had and passing through security to the lobby on the other side. It took a little over 12 seconds, standing alone in the crowd of people, for us to start wishing our new friend had been allowed to stay with us.

After a short wait we were ushered outside and onto an even shorter bus. As the bus drove down the tarmac, we watched the planes get smaller and smaller before finally coming to a stop next to a cute miniature model plane. Wait. What? That's our plane? We're going to fly somewhere in that? I guess we could do worse. It has seat-belts, right? We exited what now seemed like our very large bus and rushed to the plane so we could grab a window seat. As it turns out, there were only two rows, and thus every seat was a window seat. It took only a few minutes for the luggage to be loaded and the plane to fill up with all of its 14 passengers, 2 pilots and a lone flight attendant (who's real purpose still remains somewhat of a mystery.)

Take off was a breeze (or perhaps it was a light breeze that propelled our plane to take off) and we were off on our scenic 40 minute flight. The sky was a little cloudy but we still managed to gaze down at the smoggy city of Kathmandu, watch as the buildings gave way to farm land, and finally as the farmland gave way to mountains.

Our landing in the Himalayan village of Lukla was rather abrupt. You see, one doesn't so much as land at the Lukla airport as one flies directly into it and hope one comes to a stop before reaching the large stone wall at the end on the runway. You'll have to excuse me if I haven't mentioned the airport before this point, as that was more or less... on purpose. The Lukla airport has obtained... shall we say, a “reputation” in the aviation world. It was once featured on a National Geographics special entitle “The Worlds Most Extreme Airports.” I'll have to see if I can find a link to that somewhere...

Now that we had safely landed (See, we're safe! Calm down a little! No need to worry!) we were once again ushered along the path as they prepared for our planes immediate departure. After making it 6 steps through the first security gate we were greeted by a smiling local asking us “Asian Trekking?” Total time elapsed without a guide: 1:15.

Our luggage was retrieved, and carried to the Paradise Lodge (neither by us, of course) where we sat down and drank a quick cup of tea. All of this travelling can be stressful you know! A few minutes later, after donning our massive 2kg day packs, we stood watching as our porter hoisted our three duffel bags (weighing a total of 50 something kilograms) onto his back and our guide motioned for us to follow. The trek began now.

We followed the small stream of people (and our guide; for the love of God don't loose the guide!) out of Lukla and began descending a long series of stone steps (yes descending! We're allowed to walk down!) As our minds slowly relaxed and unwound from our somehow hectic morning, we began to take in our lush surroundings. Perfectly crafted stone steps, pine trees all around us, a beautiful sky, no more traffic or honking horns, the clean mountain air, the majest- whoops, Jennie tripped and fell over. That's almost a half hour we made it! Not bad!

The trail continued lazily downward and by 11:00 we'd reached the town of Phakding, lunch, and our home for the evening. 3 hours of walking down hill carrying a water bottle and a note pad? I could get used to this mountaineering thing!

Our lodge looked more like a summer resort, with several rows of connected cabin like rooms, and a spacious well trimmed lawn. After being served lunch at a table in the sun, we were shown to our rooms and (as the story always goes) passed out for several hours. We awoke to find our bags waiting for us outside our room, and went to the main lodge for our 3:00 tea time. From our padded seat by the window, we drank our tea and talked with a British couple from South Africa. The sun had been replaced by clouds and as we chatted it began to rain heavily. Then even heavier, and finally heavier still. Around this time a large group of 20 or so trekkers began to filter in to the lodge from the torrent outside. They were followed shortly by an escort of a half dozen yaks that began to wander and chew absently at the grass (so that's how they kept it so short).

We ate dinner with our new friends, trying to glean as mush information out of them as we could (they were finished their trek and were returning home). We later watched as the large group of still dripping trekkers marched outside in the still dripping rain and crawled into their nice cozy dripping tents. We then, of course, walking to our fully furnished cabin complete with full bathroom and electric lights. Remind me, what's so hard about this camping thing again?