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Hardest Walk Down
Monday, 10 May 2010
We had been in the amazing Himalaya for 12 days, and it was our last day of trekking. I was feeling stronger, lighter and blissful. Then it hit me.... you never know what to blame. It could have been the food, or the water, or a dirty fork...but I got sick. There are only two other times in my life I have gotten this sick. The first was the day before I started my cross country trip from Virginia to California. The second was a rough day in Thailand. On both prior instances, I had a nice clean bathroom and nowhere to be. On this trip, I was in the Himalaya and still had 4 1/2 miles to go before I got to a guest house. Plus, we had a 7:30am flight to Kathmandu. the following day.
It was difficult. The nausea feeling built up until I finally lost my breakfast on a suspension bridge. Although we were hiking “down” to Lukla, there was still quite a bit of up. On one of my trips to the toilet (a shack with a slat in the floor) Reuben took some of the heavier stuff from my pack and put it in his. After another hour I was walking even slower and taking more breaks. Reuben then took my entire pack for me. I greatly appreciated it. I felt completely depleted, deflated and humiliated. I so wanted to finished strong and even have a little pep in my step, ah well. I was so relieved when we got to our guest house in Lukla. I prayed that I would be OK for the plane ride the next morning.
That evening I spent shivering under two sleeping bags and a heavy comforter. After numerous trips to the bathroom, a cold walk across a courtyard to the shower, a trip up 8 stairs which took 5 whole minutes, listening hours upon hours to dogs barking, morning finally arrived. Even though I still had a fever and a sore throat, I was alright enough to fly to Kathmandu. And so we did.
Kathmandu was quite different then when we had visited it before. The Maoists, along with several other political parties, were on strike. They don’t seem to like the current prime minister. There was one tourist bus running. We hopped on it and found our way to to the hotel. It was easy traveling as everyone was either on a bicycle or on foot. All of the stores were closed, every one of them. However, most hotels were open as well as the restaurants within them. We hunkered down for a few days, rested, and planned out our next adventure.
The stores in Kathmandu opened about 2 hours every day for tourists and it was safe to walk on the streets. There were several peace rallies and marches happening everyday. At first I was a bit scared to be in a place with political unrest. However, with out 5 days traffic and people bugging you to buy things, I found Kathmandu to be a nice, calm, pollution-free city! After a 3 hour wait, we managed to get on a flight to Bali. The day we went to the airport, the strike lifted and everyone went back to work. As we sat in bumper to bumper traffic, listened to the horns blowing, and watched the stray dogs scamper off the road...I dreamed of the white sands and the clear blue waters of Indonesia. Then I smiled.
Posted: 05.10.2010
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