Nov 16-Blast Off…Literally!

Well, I managed to sleep until 4:00 this morning. Making progress! We met for breakfast at 7:30. I had an omelet, chapati, a bowl of porridge, and a hot chocolate. My O2 sats were 98% this morning. They had been 96% last night. We check our sats with the pulse oximeter both morning and night. If the sats go down overnight, then we have to evaluate whether we can go higher. 

The porters sorting out who is carrying what. 

We started walking just after 9:00. 

Here we go!

Jeff and Bhola. 

Sights as we were leaving town…

We ask if we can take their photo. They always say yes. 

This one wasn’t so sure. 

We didn’t get too far before we were stopped by the police. No, no, no…it’s not what you think. They were blasting, so we had to wait for that to happen. Safety first! Pretty soon, we heard the siren. Then this…
BLAST OFF!!!

We walked down to the bridge. 

Even in Nepal I’m trespassing!

Oh well…

The Langtang River from the bridge. 

We walked for some time along the new road. 

We didn’t go across this bridge, but it looked cool. 



First glimpse of snow covered peak. 

It looked like they were possibly building a hydroelectric dam.  

This little girl and her brother were very excited to get markers and a coloring book. 



This was the beginning of a rather steep climb. Lots of stairs…took me back to the AT. 

Sean going up. 

The cows utilize the trail too. I named this cow Barnacle Bill because there were burrs stuck all over it. 



Notice the bells. 

Heading toward that tea house. 

We got to the tea house. 

Here come the porters! That’s my bag (the blue one with the print). It’s being carried by Tukman.

We were going to have lunch at the Bamboo teahouse, but we decided to eat here instead. I had fried rice with veg and egg. It was good and filling. 

After lunch, we continued on, planning to just go through Bamboo on our way to Llama Hotel. It was more climbing up rock stairs, then down, then up again, with the river always to our left. 

Moving up the trail.

BB carrying my yellow bag. 

Those are bee hives up on the rock. 

Pretty good trail (I mean…the cows seem to like it…cow dung everywhere).

Little bridge across a creek. 

Yeah…the trail goes there…

We arrived at the Bamboo Teahouse at about 6500 feet (we had started at around 4400). It was between 5 and 6 miles. 

All the tea houses sell various items. I bought a roll of toilet paper (I brought some, but I didn’t realize that there would be so little…problem solved). 

Bamboo…and plastic. 

Jeff decided we would stay here instead of going on to Lama Hotel. Some of our party were feeling the climbing (not so much the elevation, but the elevation gain). We managed to get the necessary number of rooms. 

Rm number 2!

Notice the rock floor?

The view from our room. Notice to the right, “Gas Shower”. Yes, there is a hot shower! It was a bucket shower, but delightful nonetheless. 

Porters conversing in the teahouse. 

John, Jenny, and Sean waiting for dinner. 

Wood fired oven in the kitchen. 

Kanji chopping veggies. 

Our first day trekking was pretty successful, in my opinion. So far, so good!