Our first camp

We‚re finally headed to what we came here for, the trekking. We left the other group in Shigatse and headed for Shegar, a tortuous journey of only 165 miles which took 8 hours to do even though the first 55 miles were paved. It left me nauseous and thankful when we finally arrived. In spite of that it was magnificently beautiful as has been all the trip so far. I can’t believe just how desolate things can be here. There doesn’t look like there’s any way people can survive on the land, but up crops a village here, a few tents there, and everywhere, people appear out of nowhere with that great Tibetan smile when you pass or make eye contact. Children shout “Hallo,” at you and just giggle with delight when you respond.
We were slowed by “Road” construction, which is certainly different from anything we can conceive of at home. It is almost entirely done by hand. The Tibetan plateau is just rocks: big rocks, small rocks, and everything in between. They all get picked up by hand, actually hands, thousands of them. and moved to a machine that looks like a rototiller with a seat on it and a small pick-up bed maybe 4 feet long, three feet wide, and a couple of feet deep. The rocks then get moved to a place where they put the rocks, again by hand, into square piles. There are piles everywhere!!! Thousands of them, literally.
I’ve never seen a landscape this rocky.. They make walls with them to separate their plots of ground, they make stockades for their animals, they build houses with them build canals for water diversion and a myriad of other uses. It is the building material of both choice and necessity.
Along the drive we stopped at a highlight for Carol, a barley mill, which she got to see in operation. Just as seeing animals in every locale, it is her mission to check up on the milling process everywhere as well. Naturally, she was the expert explaining to everybody, even our guides, how the whole process works, how it is different from mills in other places, and.. well a whole litany of information.
Carol continues to prosper on the trip. No illness, she sleeps well, eats all the different things at which everybody else turns up their collective noses, and is just full of energy for everything day in and day out. Not so with me, I’m fighting the cold which has gone around the group, am not sleeping well, I’m just delighted when the wake-up call comes so that I can get up without disturbing her, and am generally low on energy, but certainly not in spirit. I, like Carol, am just loving everything we’re doing.
When we finally arrived at Shegar, it was the COLDEST hotel we’ve ever stayed at, and it was the best in town. Actually, the places we’ve stayed have been quite nice, but this one, we just walked into the room and looked at each other. The temp indicator in the lobby said that it would be 24 degrees Fahrenheit at night with a high of 50, but that’s before anybody starts calculating the wind chill factor. Adding to the coldness was that all outside doors are left open and it was cold!! They showed us that there were comforters in the room, and they were indeed warm, but weighed a ton, and I felt as if I was sleeping under a stack of quilts where moving was difficult. The 5 a.m. wake up (door knocking) came none too early for me.
We left early so that we could get to the top of a pass where you can see a magnificent line of high peaks, including Everest. There was a cloud cover, so we didn’t see the entire line, but Everest did appear just as were leaving, and was a treat, knowing that it’s up ahead in a few days.
On the way up there was a series of maybe 30 or more switchbacks to reach the top.
After viewing the mountain peaks we started down the switchbacks, and our driver looked at Manoj and asked: “Short cut?” Manoj answered “sure” so we took the short way down, STRAIGHT DOWN!! He was right, it was shorter. I looked at Carol and said: “You wouldn’t let me do that.” “No way,” she replied, “He knows what he’s doing.” Another vote of confidence from my best friend.
We stopped for lunch in a small village where we actually ate our own food, but paid a small price to eat at tables in a guest house, a euphemism for really cheap, really dirty hotel for locals and travelers traveling on the tightest of possible budgets.
It was another time warp for us. The village seems so far from anywhere, so removed from everything, so limited in prospects and where everything is pretty much done as it has been for hundreds of years.
The last part of the journey was a precipitous drive on a one-way road that is actually two ways with a sheer drop 300-400 feet down into the Kharta River gorge. Truly spectacular scenery. Lots more rocks, really big ones here. Incredible formations that geologic forces had shaped. And finally we arrived here at “Camp.”
Carol and I have our own tent, an 8x8 two-person affair. We were given our down sleeping bags, mummy type, down jackets, and what are being referred to as our “Dog blankets.” They are wool inserts for our sleeping bags to provide extra warmth. Inside the tents they lay down mats for padding and on top of that we put our “Thermarest” blow-up pads. These old bones need as much padding as they can get. We’ve moved our pads together to sleep side by side and put the “Kit” bags, in which all our gear is contained, off to the side. So this will be home for the next 10 days. We don’t like mummy bags, too claustrophobic, but that’s what we’ve got.
Dinner was surprisingly good tonight: good, hot, and about 5 different options.
Since Kathleen and Tony are vegetarians, and Dave has decided that he’s not touching meat in this atmosphere, we’re in for a veggie trip it seems. Fine with Carol, and okay with me.
Jimmi has gone off to get the yaks. When we arrived there was another group in camp. A disappointment to Manoj. He doesn’t like sharing facilities. They are a group of 7 family members from Denver, so that seems very different. Haven’t seen gringos very much at all. They were supposed to leave yesterday, but their yaks didn’t arrive so they seem to have the same itinerary as us. We’ll see how that works out. So tomorrow when our yaks hopefully arrive, we start trekking for the next ten days. It seems that we’ll be walking for a minimum of 3-4 hours, and a maximum of 7 each day to reach Everest base camp, and the Kangshung face of the world’s highest peak. It’s finally started. We’re excited.
Love to all,
Carol and Jim