ktm

Nepal Apprehensive Nervous Excitement of the Unknown Well we arrived at OR Tambo to meet up with Corlius and Mark as well as Eric who flew up from Cape Town. We ended up just making it to the Gate in time as passport control was quite busy, and security were not happy with my water which I drank and Liz's mouth organ caused a bit of a stir. They ended up letting Liz through with her water! As we took off it was interesting watching the outside temps, they tied in pretty closely to KTM 1400m 24 deg Lukla 2800 5 deg, Namche 3400 -3 deg, 5500 -10 deg....The flight was ok, watched the sunset along with a solo free climber doing some tough Yosemite climbs, some young kid skiing on a slope that his dad died on and a bunch of guys climbing Everest in 1924 gear to see if Mallory could have summited via secomd step or not. Dubai international is massive, we went down then up, and further up.... We met up with Esther who was on our flight, but she had done her hair in dreadlocks so we missed her on the plane. Mark had kip, Liz and I had an expensive 500 ml water , between AED USD and rands, prices were a bit complicated for 1AM. Then bought 1500 ml Evian for less than the 500. Got some pistachios to nibble on and a bottle of Tulamore dew for inspiration. Peet arrived on his flight from CT and we moved to another gate where we found some carpets to sleep on. Not much shuteye in a busy airport that never seems to slow down. We set off to find Terminal 3, interestingly the bus left from where we had been dropped off the night before. We met up with Eric and got confirmation that John had landed. The KTM flight was mostly trekker, one couple of pro climbers who hoped to summit Everest sort of put a damper on our goals but no worries we are still up to it. Sitting in the plane enroute to KTM the reality of what we are doing is actually sinking in. One life- Live it. Work on those bucket lists. Reality Dawns First views of the Himalaya, wow but those snow covered peaks are high. Ok so we had a nepalese meal in our Thamel hotel , the other were less adventurous. We had a few Everest beers, 650ml. Passed out at 23:30 , woke at 9:10!, oh dear late for breakfast. This is included in our 20 USD cost, made it for an omelette and toast, Liz had yoghurt. Went with Corlius to pay our flights , a bit scary handing over all our bucks so early in a trip. We then went shopping, managing to extricate ourselves from the group, albeit unintentionally. Big shopping groups do not work! We found most of what we were looking for. Will I ever trust a label again? Goretex is not goretex unless the price is right. If it is cheap it is fake. The problem is, will it work, Corlius suggested blowing into it. If it leaks in it is not waterproof. If it leaks out it is Goretex ie it breathes.