Mt. Everest - Acclimatization Day (day 3)

Mt. Everest –  Acclimatization Day and a Pattern Emerges

(Day 3)

We reached 11,000 feet when we arrived in Namche Bazaar.   In an effort to avoid altitude sickness, we spent an extra day just walking around the town at that altitude.  The day started with tremendous clarity, crystal clear vistas, and a picture-perfect portrait of the town.  However, as quickly as the mountains became visible, they disappeared into a thick fog soup.  In fact, the entire town disappeared from sight in just a few moments. This should not have been surprising, a number of airports, including Lukla, were still fogged in.

We didn’t mind.  It gave us some down time to catch up with our lives.  A good part of the day was devoted to email and Facebook – letting folks know about our adventures.  We also were well aware of the fact that this might be the last time the Internet was available for some time. (As many of you who have been following this travelogue already know – it was the last time we were able to connect until we returned to this village.) We were entering a pretty remote part of the country. Nevertheless, it was important to keep moving around. It wouldn’t do us any good to just sit around the hotel emailing and posting.  Acclimatization preparation was pretty important, if we did not want to fall over, especially while trekking by steep ledges or negotiating an almost infinite number of stone steps up the mountain. 

We walked up to the Namche Bazaar museum and park to see if we might catch a glimpse of Mt. Everest itself, but it was obviously too foggy.  Instead, we saw a heart-warming much larger than life statute of Tenzing Norgay (the Sherpa who accompanied Edmund Hillary). 

We also stumbled upon another monument.  This one commemorated the bond between Nepal and Israel.  The statue celebrated one of the two nations claims to fame:  Nepal has Mt. Everest (the highest point in the world) and Israel has claim to the Dead Sea (the lowest point on earth).  Both natural wonders are also at peril, because of global warming and the resultant climate changes. 

A pattern seemed to be emerging.  I had befriended an Israeli who shared the same harrowing helicopter experience - Andree (an Israeli).  We had celebrating Rosh Hashonah in Kathmandu. We saw a Star of David carved on the walls while visiting the Monkey Temple in Kathmandu.  

(You find this symbol everywhere in Nepal including the hotel desks._

The star actually is a symbol of education that many school children wear on their sweaters, not a Star of David.  It is like the Hindu/Buddhist swastika (positive) which David understandably interpreted as a Nazi swastika, which is distinguished by its 45-degree angle tilt and, of course, its abhorrent intent and association.  Don’t worry we explained what the symbols meant in both cases, but David doesn’t miss a thing.  Ironically, although these were coincidences, here was in fact a strong bond between these two nations.

In any case, we learned a great deal about the ascent to the top of Mt. Everest at the museum.  When we were finished, we walked down town to get some lunch – partially for some food, but primarily to ensure that we continued to acclimatize by get some additional exercise at this altitude.  The day proved to be invaluable preparing us for the next leg of the journey.