Date: 2018-10-28
From: PembaÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs House

To: Namche Bazaar
Miles today: 6.0
Weather: clear sky

Scout: Early in the morning Pemba makes a point of showing us the prayer room in his home. This cosmopolitan man who leads this crew of more than a dozen staff as well as the seven of us with gentle nudges on the tiller, who spends most summers in Bend, Oregon, is also deeply religious. The room is easily the size of two of the ¢guest¢ bedrooms, its appointments could pass for a mini version of the Buddhist monasteries we have seen. The first thing we do after breakfast is visit the 12-monk monastery this tiny, mountain-clinging village manages to support. It has been entirely rebuilt since the 2015 earthquake¢a near-Herculean effort.Once hiking, we quickly drop down to the river, all the while staring us in face on the other side is the last big climb we will have on this trip. I am going to treat myself. For the first time this trek I am going to pop in the earbuds in my postage-stamp-size iPod shuffle and listen to that 70-song power mix that so often sustained me on the Appalachian Trail. And with my chest cold waning like the moon in the last quarter of the month, I am going to go uphill with the lead-dog group. My late sixties hits, songs from Les Miserables, and all the rest lift my feet up the big irregular steps. We go into a higher gear to pass a string of four yaks. That tested each of the five of us. It felt like an all-out sprint that was yards too long. But let me tell you, the euphoria of reaching the top¢and the view¢and especially seeing we were so close to where we had been just over two weeks before. It was a reward better than a full page of gold stars or a room full of trophies. The final two hours to Namche Bazaar was almost entirely downhill and there we were in the same room we¢d been in just over two weeks ago. Deja Vu. We were so innocent back then. Our lungs were clear. We have two more hiking days left.  Frodo: Sorry I haven¢t written more in the past week or so. My energy level has been really low. Of the seven in our group, six of us have had colds, but mine and Scout¢s has been the worst by far. (The only one of us not to get sick is Lisa the anesthesiologist. She uses hand sanitizer religiously and it has wooed.). At home, a cold like this would have had me napping and taking it very easy. At the elevations we¢ve been at, it¢s really knocked me for a loop. All the places I had looked forward to being - Everest Base Camp, the top of Kala Patar, and the top of Gokyo Ri - I have not been to. I had to rest each of those days, for fear I wouldn¢t be able to do the non-optional hiking from village to village. But what I really came here for was to see huge, gorgeous mountains, and that I have most certainly done.We are not alone in thinking the trails and routes here are tough. Two young German couples - probably mid 20¢s and athletic looking - told us in Gokyo that they had planed to hike the thee Passes route. They had gone over Renjo Pass - reputed to be the easiest of the three - and felt they shouldn¢t attempt Cho-La Pass, as they barely got over Renjo. Granted, they were humping their own gear, and that makes a big difference. Our Sherpas and porters were invaluable when we did Cho-La.Jomba has been varying my daypack for me since he started doing so over a week ago, at Pemba¢s request. My cold is a bit better now and I could certainly carry my own light pack, but Pemba prefers this arrangement and I¢m not going to second-guess him. I feel Ike I have my own personal Sherpa watching out for me. We do intend to give Jomba a nice tip at the end.We have been blessed with really good weather. Typically, the morning is clear and crisp with stunning views of the mountains. In the afternoon some clouds start to play peek-a-boo with the peaks and it often becomes quite cloudy. We¢re told this is the normal pattern for late October, and we¢re grateful we haven¢t had to deal with any rain. It¢s nice now to be in Namche where the high temperature should be above freezing, for the first time in a while.