Blog part 3: Gokyo Lakes Trek

Day 1: Had lunch at Places Restaurant & Bar (vegetarian again) and then met up with the company World Expeditions who are hosting my journey. They gave me a long—and at times tedious—information session. I then transferred to Radisson Hotel to stay for the night and meet my fellow trekkers.  So far I’m finding them all intensely boring don’t particularly like any of them.

Day 2: We flew to Lukla first thing this morning to commence out journey (by the way, Lukla airport is one of the most dangerous airports in the world so it’s a massive relief that we made it this far). Despite obvious poor quality of the plane, it was one of the most enjoyable flights I have ever experienced because of the magnificent views of some of the highest peaks in the world. As we touched down, the majority of us were overcome by the colossal mountains that surrounded the miniscule village around all sides. Wasting no time, we quickly assembled into a group and traversed down to a river named Dudh Kosi. The in the local language this translates to “milk river”. When we reached it I could see why. The river has its origin from enormous glaciers at the summits of various mountains and the nutrients trapped within these glaciers as well as on the mountainsides give the river a distinct creamy hue like milk. We then followed a wide and well-marked track to a permanent camping site owned by World Exhibitions in place called Ghat.

Dudh Kosi

Day 5: We have now been lightly hiking for quite some time and now have a rest day in a delightfull little lodge just above the village of Namche. There are many mountains surrounding us such as Around us are Taweche (6542 m), Thamserku (6808 m), Kantega (6685 m), Ama Dablam (6856 m), Nuptse (7896 m) and Lhotse (8511 m) and, the greatest of all, Mt Everest (8848 m). While many people did the shorter walk over to the village of Khumjung, a fellow adventurer named Daniel and I trekked higher to the Everest View Hotel which, as the name suggests, allows some of the best views of Mt. Everest. The trek was quite straightforward apart from a minor incident with a large, brown and white spotted snake as I was lagging behind to photograph an interesting rock formation on the way back. There didn’t seem to be any wound and I decided to not tell the tour guide anything about this attack as I feared it would simply worry them and they might make me stay behind. I really want to complete this trip as so far it has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. The view from Everest View hotel wasn’t quite all it was cracked up to be and I wish I had gone with most of the others down to Khumjung. I’m feeling quite nauseous now so I think I’ll go to bed early.

Day 5½

It’s the middle of the night and I have just woken up from incredible chest pains. My lungs seemed to have collapsed on themselves and I can’t gather enough air to call out for help beyond my one-man-tent. I’m completely paralysed from the waist down and I’m scared for {notes illegible from here}