It happens that you have dreams, but you don't really believe they will ever come true. That's how it was for me on this trek: a dream I never thought would become real.
It was 2019, it was winter and I was working in a bar on the ski slopes. I didn't like it much, I was doing it because I hadn't found anything better at the time. I needed something to give me a burst of energy, new life after a monotonous season. So I started thinking about a trip, I wanted to go as far away as possible, to see things completely different from everything we are used to. The budget was not very high, so I immediately discarded the African and South American dream, and started looking at Asia. Vietnam, India, Indonesia... Then an advertisement hit me in the heart: Nepal. I began to inform myself, and one thing I knew immediately: I would only go to Nepal if I went trekking. It was not a tourist country, not for me. The options were many and juicy, but time was running out, there was only a month left, and almost all the registrations were already closed. I found an agency offering Everest Base Camp.... Just saying it made my skin crawl! I contacted them, they were amazed, everyone else had booked at least 5 months in advance! After a few days they confirmed, they had managed to book me.
It took me a week just to decide what to pack, then finally the day of departure arrived. A train to Milan, then the very long flight to New Deli and the shorter flight to Kathmandu. Here I met up with the rest of the group, we dropped our bags and plunged into the colourful chaos of the capital. The next day a minibus took us on a daring six-hour journey along narrow dirt roads, making us break out in a cold sweat at every Czech turn taken at a thousand miles an hour. From the window we saw the real Nepal flowing by: huts, mud, children in the fields hoeing or pulling weeds by hand. Towards evening we arrived at the temporary airport, the one in Kathmandu was under renovation and had no flights to Lukla. Here many other hikers were waiting like us for good weather to allow flights, and there was no room for our tents. We were housed in a shack by a local farmer. In the evening we showed the amazed children our electronic devices.
The next day we finally flew, on a tiny 20-seater plane, with cotton in our ears to keep our eardrums intact. With our noses pressed to the windows, we watched the Himalayas parade below us. Finally in Lukla, the start of the trek, our adventure begins! It feels like being in another world. Here the only connection to the outside world are planes and helicopters, which unload everything necessary for the life of the Sherpa people in Lukla. From here upwards everything is transported by animal power: horses, donkeys, yaks and... men. There are young boys in slippers carrying huge loads, unloading the weight on their foreheads, each with his own loudspeaker blaring Indian music. There are seven of us in the group, we have a 21-year-old guide and three porters, the youngest of whom is 15 years old and on his first job. Being porters is a stepping stone to becoming guides. Each of them carries two of our luggage, which can weigh a maximum of 15 kg, but despite the weight they always left after us in the morning, overtook us with their slippers and indie music and went to hold our places in the hut. They were always cheerful, they laughed heartily at everything, even though they spoke no English. One evening we all enjoyed jenga together and it was the best. The guide won, rightly so. It may seem ungrateful to make young boys carry the weight of their backpacks, but for them it is work, necessary to one day become guides, and they treated those walkers who did not want to take a carrier with them with contempt.
But back to the path. It took eight days to reach the destination. I cannot recount all the adventures, all the emotions and all the things seen. It would be too many. The first days we passed through lively villages, full of colour, cultivated fields, fruit and children playing. Prayer wheels and stones covered with writing were everywhere. As we climbed higher, the villages got smaller, and the peaks bigger. We saw monasteries perched on rocky spurs, ate delicious meals cooked on tiny stoves fuelled by yak dung, played with school children, communicated by gesture with locals and met walkers from all over the world. Arriving at base camp was an achievement, but never more than now can I say that it was only a small part of the journey. The fatigue of the altitude was a lot, to give you an idea, just changing position in bed I was out of breath! The greatest fatigue was on the last day of the climb, when we started from the highest hut at 5100 m and reached the summit of Kala Pattar at 5568 m. It took us all morning, it was an immense effort of willpower, but what a satisfaction! From the summit a unique spectacle: Everest, Lothse, Ama Dablam....
The descent was much quicker than the ascent, because obviously we no longer had to acclimatise. On the way down the comforts increased, the first night we had a hamburger, the second we had a shower after more than a week. We were preparing to return to civilisation. The return to Kathmandu was traumatic, the heat was stifling. But we enjoyed the last day between monuments, markets and shopping. Then came the sad moment to leave this colourful land, with a promise to return soon....
Comments