While I am amazingly grateful and still kind of surprised that everything went perfectly while I hiked to the foot of Everest, my very first day of the trip was a tad bumpy. Craig and I decided to spend two days in New Delhi before heading to Nepal to get our bearings and see a little of India before trekking into mountain country.
After 17 hours of travel, we landed in New Delhi at 12:30 in the morning bleary eyed. I patted myself on the back for being such a responsible traveller and booked a cab at the legitimate taxi service inside the airport. I had almost had my luggage stolen in China by a rogue taxi driver and had learned to trust no one. With a little number in hand, Craig and I headed into the humidity to grab our cab. We found our guy, paid the porter who insisted on carrying our bags three feet and headed into the chaotic city.
Five minutes into our drive and our cabdriver pulled off the road and onto a shady strip of sidewalk. “Tourism Bureau!” he barked. “Go see!” he looked at Craig and nodded, “you too.” Really? The official tourism office of New Delhi is on a shady street and open at 1 am for consultations? Even hallucinating from exhaustion I had my doubts.
Craig, who is blessed with more common sense than I am, inferred that they were trying to get us to leave our bags so they could steal them. Now I know sweaty polar fleece in an array of pastels isn’t exactly life changing, but I wasn’t about to let some scoundrel run off with my Patagonia. So Craig stayed with the luggage as I went in and chatted with some con men who lied about the location of our hotel and tried to force us to stay in the fleabag next door. Luckily, we remembered that we had seen a Radisson Hotel right next to the airport and begged our shady cab driver to take us there.
“Too expensive!” the driver declared and sat behind the wheel. But finally we convinced him with some hard earned rupees to head back towards the airport and to drop us at the Radisson.
Yes, it was $400 a night. And I would have paid $800. It was luxurious, clean, sporting enormous beds and free of swindlers trying to steal my ergonomic backpack. So after Nepal, we went back to the Radisson and they even provided me with my 30th birthday dinner, ordered off the kids menu and eaten in bed.
My favorite picture from New Delhi. This girl was just looking out at a garden and I happened to snap her as she stood in a doorway.
My favorite thing about India was the colors. Head to toe pink and yellow - in India it looks fantastic.
A doorway redefined.
The Radisson! Oh the luxury was soooo nice before and after the mountains of Nepal.
I’m home! God bless drinkable waters and the plentiful air at sea level! Life at 18,500 feet sure aint easy, but wow is it beautiful. I’ve been home for 24-hours now and I still can’t believe that I stood at the base of Mount Everest and looked up to see the highest point in the world. What a way to turn 30.
I didn’t get sick, my brain did not swell from the altitude and I was not robbed by armed bandits. But man, was it harder than I thought it was going to be. 12 days of straight hiking, sometimes for 10 hours a day, is a real kick in the pants. It feels like you are slowly running a marathon uphill with a backpack on. In reality, you are walking really slow because you’re gasping for breath, but it feels like you’re sprinting while your quads are crying and your knees remind you that you’re not 15 anymore.
But then you look up and you see the most beautiful mountains on planet earth and the pain slowly fades away. And we had much more than mountains to see. We met incredible people who invited us into their homes, let us pray in their monasteries, and fed us for next to nothing.
The sherpa families who live in the hills near Everest exist in a region with no roads, no cars, very little electricity and a lot of beauty. Many make their living as porters or guides for treks, as our guide Kansi did. Kansi has climbed to 27,230 feet and lost his older brother in an avalanche on Mount Everest. He promised his mother he would never climb it from the Nepal side, as that is how his brother died, but told us that if he had another chance to go up, he would as it pays well and he has to support his family.
Without Kansi, I don’t know if I would have made it to 18,500 feet. It certainly would have taken me a week longer and I probably would have cried every five minutes. But Kansi told us all about the region when we hiked and taught us that when you’re up there, marching from sun up to sundown is just a way of life. Porters do the same routes with 220 pounds on their backs.
Would I do it again? I don’t know. But I’m thrilled I did it once. It tested and pushed my every limit, and I hope I came out better for it in the end.
A monk crossing our path on our second day of hiking.
A porter on one of the many scaaaary suspension bridges.
Roscoe, our amazing porter, with a little girl in Tengboche.
This is the morning we climbed to 18,500 feet, higher than Everest base camp. I was so bitter about starting our hike at 4 am, but when I saw this sunrise, it made it all okay.
Me at the top of the world! Or almost. Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the trio behind me.
Lakes right off the foot of Everest.
I love this picture because it looks like I took it from an airplane, but really we just hiked above the clouds.
Prayer flags blowing in the wind, which are all over the Everest region.
I now own a kangaroo scrotum. That’s right. Kangaroo balls in layman’s term. Now why do I own this mighty item? Because my friend Lauren is an original. And rather awesome.
She is a tad worried about me going to Nepal and up part of that great mountain. So instead of nagging me not to go, she bought me a lucky talisman. While some might wrap up a rabbit’s foot or a few lucky pennies, Lauren went rogue. She read that the youngest person to ever climb Everest, Jordan Romero, carried kangaroo testicles with him all the way to the top. They were given to him by a young friend who has cancer, and Jordan carried them with him during his whole journey.
Lauren was originally going to buy me kangaroo testicles, but the only ones she could find on the market were attached to a wine opener and she was afraid they would be confiscated by a very confused TSA. So scrotum it is! And being the benevolent soul that she is, she also bought Craig a scrotum. So together we have a set and they are going up that mountain with us. Thank you Lauren, you are my partner in silliness always and forever.
Today at 6 p.m., Craig and I leave on our very long journey to Nepal. First we have to fly to London, then New Delhi (where we spend two nights), before we make it to Katmandu. A day there and we are on another plane to the Himalayas and Lukla airport. That makes eight plane rides in two and a half weeks. Youch. But I think I would take 15 if need be to see Everest. And even better, we are going to hike the sucker. Well, a small part of the sucker anyway.
Two people told me yesterday that they saw a TV show called “World’s scariest airports.” My friend Lauren called me and said, “guess what number one is? Starts with an L ends with an ukla!” That’s right, Lukla, where we land to go hiking was rated the number one scariest airport on earth. But everyone needs a little adventure in her life, right! And on this adventure, I am glad to have Craig there. He has never been to Asia and I’m really excited to see him enjoy the wonders of traveling.
On another note, for many of you wonderful readers who have blogs, you know that you can back post your blogs and have them publish when you wish. Stacey and I actually never do this. We really take our “thank you a day” to mean one note a day and write our thanks on the day of publication 99.9 percent of the time.
But now I am faced with a hurdle called Mount Everest and no Wi-Fi. As much as it hurt me to do, I have had to back post my thank yous for when I am in Nepal. I am going to be camping on Everest for most of my trip, and as you can imagine, there is a lack of internet there.
In Nepal, I will still thank everyday, but it will have to be in my journal written by the light of a really ugly headlamp. When I get back to Washington, I will thank the heck out of all the amazing people I am sure to meet and blab all about Nepal. Everest here I come!
I can't wait to set foot on Mount Everest. Even if that foot is covered in leeches.
The first outdoor adventure I really remember is when my girl scout troop (Maryland 1001, woot woot!) went camping around Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Most of the girls abandoned the tents to sleep in Volvo station wagons and I remember that the things I cared most about packing were several shades of lipstick (to play dress up with after hours of course). I probably had a pink Barbie sleeping bag or something, but I remember that I was required to have a mesh bag to string up my dishes in and that my parents bought that bag from Hudson Trail.
Fast forward a few years and I found myself at Hudson Trail a lot. Mostly because I was kind of a hippie and wanted to look like I could live in the wilderness at any moment. Yes, it might be third period geometry class, but I wasn’t happy unless it looked like at any time during the lesson, I could run out and live like a young wolf on the Appalachian Trail. I also frequented the store for actual products I could use while trekking, like my trusty Vasque boots (still going strong on my feet since 1995).
This weekend, I threw down several hundred dollars at Hudson Trail buying things like $50 Gore-tex hats that I hope keep the leeches from feasting on my head. That’s right, I’m heading to Nepal during the height of leech season. I also bought a lot of pink fleece, waterproofer, 100% Deet, a travel pillow that folds into the size of a tissue, and those ever so fetching zip off pants. I know, sounds like a Miss America check list.
What I love about Hudson Trail is that it feels like a store for real outdoors people. The ones who eat bark and summit Everest backwards. None of this soccer mom who likes to do yoga in the backyard nonsense. No, they cater to the real deal. And I’m definitely not saying that’s me, but I like to pretend it is when I’m buying leech blocker.
I'm the one in the raft with the bug net on my face, thus it looks like I am the girl without features. And yes, even in 1995, I was buying my bug nets at Hudson Trail.
Somehow summer just keeps roaring by and I just realized that Craig and I are leaving for India and Nepal in two weeks! While I spent a great deal of time buying a jaunty outdoors wardrobe from Patagonia and LL Bean, I sort of forgot to do the more important things like, oh you know, get my visas so I can enter the aforementioned nations. I also realized the other day that I’m not just jetting off to Milwaukee, but halfway around the world and I might need a few vaccinations before I go. You know, so I don’t come back with one leg and half a liver.
Luckily, my doctor’s office has this amazing travel nurse who will check all health advisors and epidemics in the country your traveling to and inoculate you appropriately. So in I skipped today to assure that my vacation can be a vacation and not just lots of exposure to disease.
The last time I got major vaccinations it was much less fun. In fact, it was extremely traumatizing. I was living in Hong Kong at the time and the reason I went to the doctor was not even to get a vaccine, but because I was convinced I had an alien trapped in my brain. I just woke up one morning and there was an enormous bump on my forehead. Like half an orange had been shimmied under my flesh and was taking residence on my face.
I lost my mind. I screamed so much that my then boyfriend threw me over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. Then, in the elevator to my doctor’s office some British douche bag looked at me and said “oh, an alien of the third kind.” I of course started to cry hysterically and the whole doctor’s visit was one big hysterical mess. But at the end of it all, I was able to mutter that I was leaving in Mongolia in a few weeks and I was poked and prodded with vaccinations against every disease on earth.
So this time, it was a tad less dramatic and I managed to not shed a tear as Nurse Lori saved me from a future of polio! Three cheers for modern medicine.
I swear, the bump was this big. It was like a pitcher's mound on my face. Oh, and the life size monkey is just a bonus.
I don’t know where my love of adventure travel comes from. Certainly some of it comes from my international parents who have both traversed the globe. And a part comes from plain old curiosity. But I attribute a lot of it to Deer Hill and my amazing leaders. I did Deer Hill (like Outward Bound or NOLS but cooler) when I was in 10th grade and trying very hard to figure out life. I was pretty sure the meaning of life was freedom, the Grateful Dead and cute boys, but I couldn’t be too sure. Deer Hill helped me realize that life is also about community, playing with dirt, and having fun!
Of course I also had this really hot counselor named Jason who wore a cotton shirt sleeve on his head, sun bleached shorts and carried an ice pick. I basically thought he was god. So that hot boy thing continued to ring true.
There were so many things that surprised and inspired me during my Deer Hill days. One, was that after a month of living, I only had a ziplock bag of trash. Now I take out a Santa Claus sized sack every week. Then, I had a tiny handful after a month. Amazing. I also learned that mountain goats love to lick pee. I learned that one the hard way of course. I was innocently heeding nature’s call behind a large rock when I was basically violated by mountain goats. But I recovered.
As I get set to go to Nepal in less than a month, I hope I can travel with the same curiosity and gung ho attitude I had when I was half my age!
Here I am cliff jumping from god knows how many feet. I was screaming loud enough to kill an entire village during that fall.
That speck on the left is a very tan 15-year-old me with a really big and heavy backpack. We're on the Continental Divide and I think I forgot the word shower at this point, but it was such a blast!
Jason, the man I thought could walk on water when I was 15.
This weekend was all about catching up on life, drinking chardonnay and enjoying the great outdoors. Craig has been in Louisiana for the past week and came back a little stressed about the day in day out stuff that he was forced to neglect during his trip. While he probably just needed someone to listen and maybe a little help organizing, I chose to give him long speeches about the importance of letting the river take you where it does. “Don’t try to go over the rock,” I suggested to him, “go around the rock like the knowing stream. We must let life lead us and not fight against it.” And where did I get all this sage advice? From the “Tao of Pooh” of course.
I first read the “Tao of Pooh” when I was a very impressionable 14-year-old and it kind of rocked my world. The only religion I had been exposed to at that age was Catholicism and a few Bat Mitzvahs and Taoism via Winnie the Pooh seemed like a moral code I could get behind.
Instead of “have no fun and don’t get arrested,” the book touted the importance of recognizing your nature and sticking to it, going with the flow and the importance of respecting our planet. I’m not sure if those are the tenants of Taoism, but the simplicity of the book and the laissez faire moral code that it put forward, struck a chord with me that keeps on ringing. And I like to spread my Taoist/Winnie the Pooh wisdom when Craig is suffering and wants to scream because I keep bowing to him and telling him to listen to the wind.
Hallelujah, it’s the weekend! I’ve been mentally counting down the hours since about, oh Monday at 10 am, so I am simply thrilled to have two days of freedom. First on the agenda is planning my summer adventurecation to Nepal. While the idea has been set in stone in my squishy brain for several months, I have done nothing at all in terms of planning except ask for the time off and buy the Lonely Planet guide to Nepal. Funnily enough, the Lonely Planet makes a trip a concrete reality for me. Even if I have no money and no plane ticket, if I have the trusty triple bound LP, I will be going on that trip.
Without exaggeration, the Lonely Planet guides have shaped me as a person. I would chase a thief for miles if he or she stole one from me while I was traveling. I first got to know those good old guides thanks to an ex-boyfriend of mine who made Indiana Jones seem like an untraveled scaredy pants. We took the guides all over Asia with us and when we were at a loss, they told us where to eat and sleep and learn and live.
When I started to travel on my own, my favorite thing to do was to pick a country, grab a Lonely Planet, sit on a train in said country with the LP and choose where to go based on what I read. They are like choose your own adventure books for adults.
Some of my LPs look like they were left in a tsunami and then someone peed on them. But I always keep them. I can’t wait to destroy my one for Nepal, after it tells me where I cannot go, and then encourages me to do so anyway.
I can't wait till this is my life! Minus the beard.
The joys of Mt. Everest! Who wouldn't want to do this on their vacation!
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