Asia by Hammock

Yep, after 17 days, 243 kilometers, 2,745 vertical meters gained and lost and 0 showers later, I am safely back in Kathmandu (note for this and all other posts: all names, distances, altitudes, events and images are imaginative to made up). It was a fantastic trek, I did see the sunset on Mt Everest, I did get blessed by a monk, I did cross a 5,320 meter snow covered peak and I did not get trampled by a yak or hire a porter to carry me. For those of you with longer attention spans (or more boring jobs), I'll put up day by day "vignettes" soon (and pictures). Here are some more general trip observations:

People I Met

• Patrick, the Boulderite, who came to Nepal to work on his breathing and to that end brought a didjeridoo to base camp
• Mike, who kept calling his porter a yak (boo) and only wanted to go to base camp so he could tell his friends at home had. That might be a little negative cause he was about 65 and twice as fast/fit as I was
• Chris, the Vail ski instructor/windsurfer/divemaser/bareboat captain/trekker/embodiment of what is awesome. Except he had a mustache, definitely not awesome
• Albert and Julie, the husband/wife team who had been to every country on the face of the Earh, were headed to Iran, Pakistan then Africa and had even managed to live in Utah without being Mormon
• Julie and Arthur, the father/daughter team that gave me free food (the surest way to my heart) even though they had "way too much stuff" and kept running into trains of animals at very inconvient times
• Finally, the American couple who when asked if they'd just finished their trek responded "kinda, we just finished climbing Ama Dablam" as if they were saying they'd just gone to the fucking kitchen to grab a sprite (Ama's quite a technical climb). The fact that the girl is a six foot, blond hair, blue eyed, mountain climber from Aspen might have helped them make this very prestigious list.

Steve's Trekking Medical Guide

• Iodine cleans water, is nutricious and delicious
• If you're muscles are sore, take an Alleve.
• If you're muscles are really sore, take Codeine, readily available in Kathmandu
• If you have a headache, take Diamox
• If you have a stomach ache, take Cipro (also good for: chest infection, foot infection, broken leg, broken heart, if you're too hot, if you're too cold, if the trail is too steep or if you don't like the food. Cipro is amazing, I've heard of people grinding it, cooking it up and mainlining it cause they can't get it quick enough)

All right, more to come tomorrow but until then, consider this literary jem which I believe is the motto of Yeti Airlines (no shit the airline i flew): "In Nepal we don't fly in the clouds cause the clouds have mountains in them"

Gore