Last Three Days in Kathmandu

From Keith: 8:00am Wednesday Aug 29.

We have been in Kathmandu for three days now. We have been franticaly running about buying and haggeling and drinking beer. All of our team has showed up and are getting on fine. Gonzalo's lost bag showed up yesterday and he is quite a bit more relaxed than Monday. We have a new member joining us at the last minute, Mike Parker from Australia. Mike has just returned from Gasherbrum II in Pakistan and hasn't had enough suffering for one season so wants another 8000er this year. Good thing he did come along as our new friend Waz has a serious family emergency to take care of in Ecuador. Waz will be missed from our adventure...this time. The rest of the group is ready to go and all are very healthy.

We have all of our gear assembled and it will be getting on a truck for Pokhara this morning. Turns out our plans of flying from KTM to Sama won't happen as there is only one chopper running right now and it is stationed in Pokhara whick is a 5 hour drive or a 45 minute flight away. We will be on a twin otter this afternoon at 2:00 pm to fly to Pokhara. The thought of seeing the country on a truck is tempting, but not for 5 hours. We will spend the night in Pokhara drinking more beer and eating as much fresh food as possible, then tomorrow it's off to Sama Village. We plan on staying for two to three days in Sama to start the long acclimatization process. David and Mike are already acclimatized so maybe we can get them to carry our stuff to base camp...right.

Yesterday I had the privalege to go to the ministry of tourism to get our permits. It was a government holiday but they agreed to meet with us anyway. I was given two very nice books by the gov representative along with our permit and some yummy milk tea. It was very formal and a lot easier than I expected.

Last night we had a dinner in an old palace with local entertainment in the form of ethnic dancers and musicians. The food was fantastic with all kinds of unknown dishes and strange and powerful elixers. We were with seven other climbers who left for Cho Oyu this morning. They will be back shortly before us but I hope to hear how they fair on the sixth highest peak.

My thoughts on KTM are that it is a little caotic and very busy. I thought Mendoza was a moving violation but this place is undescribable. There are all forms of transportation crammed onto the smallest streets ever. The urban planning department should be named after Picaso.

Gear is not cheap here!! In fact new gear is more than in Canada and sometimes a lot more. Knock offs are everywhere and hard to tell from the real thing. It's a buyer beware place.

Keith