EVEREST TREK : DAY 2

Day 2. Bhandar to Sete

Monday 11 March

Yesterday the state of the trail with litter was dreadful. Tins, packets, paper, even old shoes lay strewn about. We didn't remember the Annapurna tracks being spoiled like this. In contrast this morning the children from all the houses of the village were out with brooms brushing in front of their houses and the village square. It was spotless when they had finished.

Keeping the village clean

For breakfast today it was a hard boiled egg, pancakes with honey and a flask of milky coffee. It was a nice day after the cold and the storm of last night and it wasn't long on the trail before our fleeces were off as the sun came shining down. It was an easy walk of 3 hours to Kenja mostly gentle downhill or along the contours of the hill. As we dropped down to we could see the river far below us with Kinja at the top of the valley. The hills on the other side were criss-crossed with paths leading to houses perched high up on the steep slopes. All along the way the route was scattered with little farms with their plots growing vegetables and a few animals. At one of these small holdings a woman was spreading out corn on a blanket to dry before manually grinding it for flour. 

The drop to the river and Kinja

When we were down to the level of the river a few house appeared but Brin said it was still 10 minutes walking to the city centre. This involved crossing and re-crossing the river by narrow suspension bridges before coming to a police control point for our permits to be checked before entering Kinja proper. There we found a restaurant for a break and a welcomed cup of coffee.

For those not familiar with the term, a Munro, this is a mountain in Scotland over 3000 feet or 905 metres. So this afternoon to Sete we had a Munro to climb and another one tomorrow morning first thing to take us to Lamjura La at 3530 metres the highest point before reaching Namche Bazaar and the climb towards Everest. The start of the climb was steep and we took it slowly now being more affected by the altitude and the thinning air. As we climbed we could see Kinja below getting smaller and smaller and the path running downing the hillside from Bhandar where we had begun earlier. On the trail we met a group of Sherpas with enormous loads on their backs and only flip flops on their feet. The group from France we met yesterday caught up with us, they had lunched in Kinja, they hadn't walked that far last night. We stopped at a restaurant halfway up the hill to Sete and had a bowl of noodle soup and a coffee. This revived us for the final assault on today's ascent.

Gateway to Kinja

 It eased off a little when we started off again and the Canadian duo were just appearing. They pushed on as did the Italian pair who passed us later. We could see further up and the snow on top of the ridge running to Lamjura La, but that was for tomorrow as Sete was now in sight. It was a boost to us seeing our destination for the night and it put a spring in our steps. We were soon at the lodge and settling down in our room.

There wasn't any hot water in the shower so the owner gave us a huge bucket of hot water which we poured over ourselves with a ladle. We got into our sleeping bags to keep warm until dinner, it became very cold again when the sun went down. I got cramp in my calf muscle and was screaming until it eased, I don't know what a Danish couple who were next door thought about the noise.

We just had soup for dinner tonight, mushroom from a packet, it was all right and had some Tibetan bread and jam for a sweet. It was cold in the dining room so we went to bed and read for an hour before getting to sleep.