Nepal: Celebration Ice Creams All Around!

For April 15

And finally we made it to our last day on the trail.  We had a lot of miles before us…again.  11.5 miles would get us back to Lukla.  The first nearly 7 miles were mostly down, but then we’d spend the last 4.5 going back up.  Why couldn’t they make this easy?

As we left Namche Bazaar, we headed down through the village since we were staying at the top of the town in the same tea house we had stayed in on the way up.  On our way out of town, Anil wanted to take us to the local market to see it.  When we were in Namche before, Renee, Amy, and I had wandered through the area on our journey looking for apples, though at that time there were really only the folks who had shops left in that area.  Instead, this morning there were goods on the many layers of stone terraces.  And up at the top was a meat market.  Amy and I were not going to spend any of our little energy we had going up to the top where the meat market was, but Renee went up.

Market in Namche Bazaar

After we left town, Anil took us on a path that was not frequented by the hoards of travelers so we didn’t have to worry about people or animals in our way for a while.  Instead we could just focus on heading down through the forest.  Eventually we reached a rest area where we could catch our last view of Everest before it was gone.  We headed down and crossed the double decker suspension bridge again.  The funny thing was on the way up, that part seemed intense, but on the way down I kept waiting for the worse part to hit, but it never did.

The last view of Mount Everest

We continued down, passing through Monjo where we had lunch on our way up.  The plan was to eat in Phakding at the place where we stayed on our way up.  That last mile or two before lunch seemed so long.  We were starving again just wishing we could stop for food, but no…we had to keep going down.  It was around 1:30 pm by the time we stopped for lunch, which ended up being a long affair for some unknown reason.  I had a delicious grilled yak cheese sandwich (hahaha yak cheese!  That is a bit of a joke because they call the males yak, so it would be like saying bull cheese).  I had found these grilled cheese sandwiches to not only be delicious, but something I could eat, so I had a few of them the last few days.

Locals working on a new home or tea house.

After lunch we traversed some small ups and downs, before starting the last long uphill portion to Lukla.  That uphill part would end up taking us around an hour and a half.  And the last part was especially painful because you could see how close you were, but it didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

Three adorable boys heading home from school.

At one point I found myself desperately needing a bathroom.  We passed a house that seemed to be vacant.  It had an outhouse out back which made me a bit glad that I was up-to-date on my tetanus shots.  It was really just some old boards with a hole and a shed to hide you.  I had to hold the door closed while going and cleaning up so I didn’t show myself off to those on the trail.

When we were on our first day of hiking, someone passing us said “Oh look!  Fresh faces.”  It made us laugh at the time.  I think by now, day 11 on the trail, we totally understood them.  For the past week and a half we had seen the same people over and over.  The Costa Ricans, Kai and Ian, the Indian doctors, and others.  And by now we looked very worn out and those passing us were bright-eyed and excited.

The Pasang Lhamu Gate at Lukla

Finally we passed through the Pasang Lhamu Gate at the edge of Lukla.  We were so excited to be back in Lukla that we forgot to take an end of journey photo there.  As we walked through town on our way to our tea house we passed an ice cream shop.  Amy and I looked at it and said we need ice cream.  After cleaning up a bit, all of us, Renee, Amy, Louie, Anil, Pemba, our two porters, and I headed over for a scoop of ice cream.  Celebration complete!  And it was delicious and what we needed!  And journey complete…almost.  All we had left was to get back to Kathmandu the next day.  And then we had to get Covid tests before we could head off to spend a few days in Doha…dun dun duuuuuunnnnnn.