Day 8

Day 8 – Steffi and Ingrid

Today we were woken up at 7am by the sherpas; who offered us hot tea and washing water.
We did last minute packing and then went for breakfast out in the open, as the dining tent had already been packed.
It was really cold; we could see our breath and the tables were covered in frost. We finished breakfast and started on one of our most difficult treks during the trip at 9am.

The beginning of the trek was relatively flat. We had our first stop at the bottom of the valley at 10:30am for an early lunch. We spend some time in this valley, taking photos, eating and relaxing before ascending on our very tough trek. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery while eating lunch that the sherpas provided for us.

Afterwards, we continued the trek which took about 3 hours, from the valley to Namche. The entire trek was uphill and did not have many flat areas, we took fewer breaks in between in hopes of reaching Namche faster.
Even though the trek did hold some spectacular views, we focused mainly on the paths that we took as we were very tired but eager to reach Namche. We were finally able to see the top of Mt. Everest clearly. From our location, it didn’t look that big.

We finally reached our campsite at 3pm, all very exhausted but proud we made it from the long day. We were welcomed with a great view of Namche and our favourite ‘shaka laka boom’ instant noodles as a late snack. We then remained warm indoors with a cup of hot chocolate and tea.

After relaxing for some time, we were then given an unexpected surprise. We were accompanied by Sohee, Krystal, Carlo and Judy who had trekked all the way from Phakding and were able to reach Namche within one day. The fascinating aspect was that it took us 2 days to get here, whereas it took them only a day. That was true determination.

The group was updated of Kristen and Prateek’s situation. After this, we had dinner. Some of us were full from the breakfast noodles and were not as hungry as when we first reached the campsite.

Several of the group members went to bed as early as 7pm, and some of the others went down to the warm lodge to relax for a few hours as it was extremely cold in Namche.