Our first rest day! Since leaving Kathmandu only 5 days previous, we had now gained over 3000m in altitude and our bodies needed a little extra rest to keep them from leaking fluids into our lungs and brain. No problem! Who doesn't enjoy a good vacation and sleeping in until n- What? 7:30? Seriously? You call that rest? At least tell me that we get to just lie around all d- Wait. We're going hiking? Is there no Nepali word for "rest" or something? Fine. Let's just get this over with...
We both begrudgingly pealed ourselves out of bed and set out on another acclimatization hike. As we marched up the hill behind Dinboche our guide pointed at nasty, but eerily familiar, looking mountain in the distance. "Island Peak!" he said. It took our oxygen deprived brains a few moments to register the complete ramifications of his statement, but it left quite the dent in our through processes when it finally did. The large jagged snowy slopes rose out of the valley below and, from our then present location, really did look like an Island in a sea of dirt and sand. To make things just that much more intimidating, to the left rose the great Lhotse and in the distance to the right was a faint outline of Makalu, the fourth and fifth highest peaks in the world.
We continued our amble up the dusty rocky slope until reaching an arbitrary altitude of 4700m. The hill continued above us (as did the small stream of people wandering upwards) but for whatever reason, this was our destination for the day. We sat around, took pictures, ate Sharkies (this ended better for some of us than others) and didn't climb on any of the really cool rocks ("No rock climbing!")
As we headed back down the slope the wind and the dust were now blowing directly at us. A few extra layers of clothing (and some cleaver repositioning of other layers) made the trip almost bearable. We took a small detour so that we could gaze down a steep hill at the town of Periche, which is home to the last hospital along the trek to Everest.
We arrived back at the lodge in time for lunch (I mistakenly ordered a meal that contained large amounts of yak cheese, and would be regretting it for some time to come) and then roamed through town to do some shopping and pay extravagantly for use of the internet. We attended a free lecture on altitude sickness, presented by a doctor working over the hill in Periche, before rushing back to the lodge for 3:00 tea.
A lot more people were staying at the lodge that night, replacing the cozy and friendly atmosphere with a much louder and drunken (and British?) one. Most of our new friends had left already anyway, so we huddled in our down jackets and stayed in our little corner during dinner. We were surprisingly tired form all the rest we'd had and headed off to bed to escape the noise.
We both begrudgingly pealed ourselves out of bed and set out on another acclimatization hike. As we marched up the hill behind Dinboche our guide pointed at nasty, but eerily familiar, looking mountain in the distance. "Island Peak!" he said. It took our oxygen deprived brains a few moments to register the complete ramifications of his statement, but it left quite the dent in our through processes when it finally did. The large jagged snowy slopes rose out of the valley below and, from our then present location, really did look like an Island in a sea of dirt and sand. To make things just that much more intimidating, to the left rose the great Lhotse and in the distance to the right was a faint outline of Makalu, the fourth and fifth highest peaks in the world.
We continued our amble up the dusty rocky slope until reaching an arbitrary altitude of 4700m. The hill continued above us (as did the small stream of people wandering upwards) but for whatever reason, this was our destination for the day. We sat around, took pictures, ate Sharkies (this ended better for some of us than others) and didn't climb on any of the really cool rocks ("No rock climbing!")
As we headed back down the slope the wind and the dust were now blowing directly at us. A few extra layers of clothing (and some cleaver repositioning of other layers) made the trip almost bearable. We took a small detour so that we could gaze down a steep hill at the town of Periche, which is home to the last hospital along the trek to Everest.
We arrived back at the lodge in time for lunch (I mistakenly ordered a meal that contained large amounts of yak cheese, and would be regretting it for some time to come) and then roamed through town to do some shopping and pay extravagantly for use of the internet. We attended a free lecture on altitude sickness, presented by a doctor working over the hill in Periche, before rushing back to the lodge for 3:00 tea.
A lot more people were staying at the lodge that night, replacing the cozy and friendly atmosphere with a much louder and drunken (and British?) one. Most of our new friends had left already anyway, so we huddled in our down jackets and stayed in our little corner during dinner. We were surprisingly tired form all the rest we'd had and headed off to bed to escape the noise.
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