EVEREST BASE CAMP – A Zebra at Altitude
5th October 2019, Snippets from my EBC diary:
🇳🇵Namaste. Arriving in Nepal was a sensory overload. Cars and cows everywhere. Not sure which one stayed in their lane best. I arrived a day early to acclimatise and met some of our guides. Nepalese people as so amazing, they will offer you the best they have with a smile, and they are very proud of their culture and country. Kathmandu is like no city I’ve ever been to. Being raised in a 3rd world country, and having visited other African countries, nothing compares. The overwhelming smell of spices, incense and dust is crazy. It's strange how I thought about buying a mask in Kathmandu to keep dust out of my lungs, and less than 7 months later, masks were required in many places, even where there wasn't any dust, because of COVID. Mind-blowing.
I arrived during the Dashain Festival. One of Nepal’s most famous festivals. Flowers, children and Daishan swings everywhere. The swings are made from bent bamboo and coconut ropes. It makes for a uniquely graceful swing set and the goal of the suspended swing, which sometimes dangles from a height of 6m / 20ft, is to swing as high as possible. Tradition says that it will make you forget your troubles and may even take you to heaven; - let's just leave it at that, because at times heaven came too close. I met my 6 teammates - an all-women’s team. Our dinner consisted of traditional Nepalese dances, a man in a yak suit and my first introduction to my staple food for the next 15 days - Dal Bhat. Let the adventure begin!
... to be continued
Snippets from my EBC diary - Janettie Wucherpfennig