6:45am. We had a great sleep last night. The pillows were rock hard, but that didn't deter anyone. There was no rush to get going this morning, as we knew we had a relatively short walk with plenty of elevation gain.
Abby was not impressed with the breakfast - plain, watery muesli with cut up mushy apples.... Beth and I were quite happy with our chappati and smuggled peanut butter!
During breakfast, a couple told us that the helicopter the other day was actually some rich douche that flew up to ABC and proposed to his girlfriend (who was wearing six inch high heels) then without even looking around, got back in the helicopter and took off. Perhaps she declined?
8:25am. The sky was spectacularly clear and as Argen bid us farewell, he told us that in thirty minutes we would have quite the view of Fishtail.
The road up was a gradual slope mixed with shirt technical section of climbing up rock paths. After about thirty minutes, we saw the sun streaming over the peak of one of the lower mountains on our right side and it was just gorgeous. You really have to force yourself to stop and take it in as the landscape and view changes dramatically every ten minutes or so.
We were now hiking on the same level as the upper Modi Khola, now smaller but just as powerful and cold looking up there. We passed the French couple we'd met two nights ago who were just coming down from a sunrise morning at ABC and they practically shouted "welcome to paradise!!!". I reminded Beth that this couple ran a B&B in the French alps, so I'm guessing we are headed for some spectacular scenery.
The way got tougher. The last hour or so was pretty tough - it was much steeper uphill over more technical, steeper rock sections. The breathing was laboured and I had to drop back with Robin and work strategy with her a bit.
Ahead, Abby was getting a headache, so that was also something to worry about a bit, though so far when I'd seen Abby get a headache is was at times when I was at a point of high exertion, so I wasn't that worried that it was altitude sickness. Beth had put us all on Diamax at lunch as a preventive measure against the onset of altitude sickness, though other than at point where we were climbing, I felt pretty good and recovered easy breathing very quickly.
We saw the first building that indicated we'd arrived close to Machhapuchchhre Base Camp, but we were not there yet. It was another twenty minutes of hiking up to, then sweeping in front of that building in search of the main MBC camp which was a few hundred meters above that first hotel.
10:50am. We arrived in MBC after two hours twenty five minutes of trekking. Our plan to go to Dovan then Deurali had given us a short, though not overly easy day. The exertions had perhaps caught up with us, along with getting less oxygen - we all looked pretty wiped.
We unpacked and rearranged the four little beds in our room to line up right next to each other. It was cosy! When the sun was out at MBC, it was quite nice, but soon the clouds rolled in from the valley below. The kids went out with the boys and played with the lambs and sheep.[Editor's note: we just noticed the lambs humping... Go figure Robin caught that on video]
By lunchtime, we were all hunkered down in the dining hall, in various stages of relaxation. We were joined by two Korean sisters who we'd met the day before. They were travelling for a year and were very engaging. Robin often shouts how she loves Koreans, and it was no surprise that after lunch, the two older sisters were reading, Beth and I were relaxing, and the two chatter box younger siblings were exchanging card games - Robin's mouth was going a mile a minute.
I looked out the panoramic windows surrounding the mess hall after lunch and we were completely immersed in thick white clouds. It was magical.
Mid afternoon, an Israeli father-son duo came in for a snack and break with their old porter/guide who had hundreds of years of character in his face. The guys were really nice and the guide was hilarious. He even pulled out a harmonica at the request (demand :-)) of the father and played a cool little song that I caught on video.
We played cards with Suresh and Keshab until dinner. We are loving these guys - so nice. We learned that they are both high caste Hindu, and faced the same marriage constraints that we learned about in India. At just twenty two, you could see the struggle between new and old world. We insisted on purchasing the small bottle of XXX Rum that they drank mixed with hot water. They told us that if their mothers caught them drinking alcohol that they would get a beating, so they saved it just for the middle of a trek.
8:00pm. We were all tucked into our gigantic 4x single bed, wearing most of what we would be wearing in the morning... It was up early to make a push for ABC and to try and catch the sunrise. I put on the back half of the Foo Fighters' In Your Honor on my iPad and we lay in the dark listening to the chill songs of the quieter side of the album. It was a great moment.
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