Today we didn’t move at all for the first time. Few of us took a stroll up the surrounding hills, most visited the pricey bakeries (piece of cake $4-5, coffee $3-4) and some the Himalayan Cafe showing the Everest movie every day at 3pm. Probably the most exciting trip of the day had Billy and Tim though for an unpleasant reason. Billy still has trouble breathing despite a full course of antibiotics (cipro’s I believe) and went to see a doctor at the charity clinic in nearby village Pheriche. He will stay a few more days in Dingboche until be feels better and skip the camping.
After our 8am breakfast and briefing on what we need for the three days of camping ahead, Rory, Michael, Jon and I headed out for a game of frisby golf – the stupa challenge as we named it. We played a round of 6 ‘holes’ starting from upper Dingboche down to the french bakery and the stupa. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the sport, its trying to get a frisby over a hiking pole with least tries possible. Rocket won on the day followed closely by Michael (though rocket is still waiting for the winner’s coffee that was promised ;o). Revenge for last night’s snooker defeat to Michael was accomplished.
After lunch I tried to read, but it didn’t flow. The audiobook was a little better but still it was the first time I really struggled as to what I should with myself. Looking at the same moutain, as nice as it is (say Ama Dablam), just doesn’t cut it for me. In retrospect I’d have preferred to move on rather than rest. That constant movement, which I have done on numerous long distance hikes, always brings excitement and some feeeling of accomplishment each day. But then acclimatiation commands such breaks. Just suck it up I guess. Base camp down days will be hard (and there will be many)!
Eventually Mo and Sami came to my rescue and we wandered off to the french bakery, which was quite busy by now. Neither of them overly liked the day off either. There we met a presumably french solo hiker and shared a few stories. Nice chat for an hour and back to the tea house where the long ordered dinner would be served some stage.
After dinner we enjoyed a game of Kniffel (Luka took the honours this time) followed by the increasingly popular Monopoly deal, which Jon decided in his favour relatively quickly. Then all retired or finished off the preparations for camping. Nite, nite …
