Monjo: 2853 m
Namche: 3472 m
Distance: 6.3 km (19.5 km total)
It was just as well we had a wander around Monjo yesterday, because today was claggy with persistent light rain all day. Breakfast was at 7 – cereal or porridge, roti, omelettes, hot drinks. We were walking by 8 am, passing through the gate to Sagarmatha National Park and dropping down quite steeply to follow the river. We crossed over a couple of swing bridges in quick succession, passing through the village of Jorsalle on the way. The rain was now becoming quite persistent. Most of the porters we passed had ponchos or plastic sheets over their loads. Some had umbrellas.
As we approached the confluence of the Dudh Koshi and the Bhote Koshi (which we follow down after crossing Renjo La), it was a stiff climb up to the swing bridge, then continuing to climb another 400 m or so. I could feel a headache coming on so was drinking a lot of water to try to stave it off. Finally we arrived at the permit checkpoint just before Namche. It was getting cold and we could see snow settling on the hills maybe 200 m above us. According to the GPS we still had another 150 m altitude to gain...
At our first view of Namche, it was amazing to think how all these buildings were built, especially considering that all the roofing iron, plywood, windows etc. were carried here. My headache was pretty constant by this point, although when I stopped moving it seemed to dissipate after a couple of minutes. Raewyn seemed to be struggling.
We continued up, up, up, through the town. Our campsite finally came into view, right at the top. The cloud obscured Kongde Ri on the other side of the valley. We had time to change into some warm, dry clothes before lunch. We made good time today – only taking 4 hours, although it felt much longer.
After lunch the rain had stopped, so we hung out our wet gear. The camp had laundry services available (for a fee of course), so since we were going to be staying two nights we decided to make use of it and get the clothes we had been wearing for the last three days washed. We headed back down to the town to look around and buy some more toilet paper – at the rate we were going, we would run out in the middle of nowhere.
Just before dinner Raewyn and I went for a walk up the hill behind the camp, the rationale being that if we went up a bit, we would feel better when we came down.
1. Refrain from taking life
2. Refrain from anger
3. Refrain from jealousy
4. Refrain from offending others
5. Refrain from taking excessive intoxicants
Next day
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