17 NOVEMBER 2013 - BACK TO LUKLA

Sunday (17th November) – the last big push today. For Dave it was a push too far – he made the wise decision to save his knees and fly out from Namche Bazaar early this morning. News came through a little later that he had arrived safely in KTM (accompanied by Ganesh – who had family and office matters to attend to). The A team (Jon, Jake, Richard and Andrew) raced off from Namche with the sole intention (it seems to me (Steve)) of humiliating their leader by arriving at Lukla 7 hours ahead of him (okay, I exaggerate – 6 hours) AND at a canter. When Steve made it across the finishing line (having died twice en-route) the boys were showered and raring to hit the town. Steve barely managed to find his bedroom, let alone the shower-room, and when he did guess what? The solar- generated hot water supply was well and truly depleted – oh joy! Anyhow, the last leg of this extraordinarily long trek, lived up to expectation (pun intended). Only in Nepal will you find a trail which decends from 3440m (Namche) to 2800m (Lukla) actually having whole sections of UPHILL trekking! How does that work? We are now sitting around a warm dining table chatting over our experiences and wallowing in the glow of self-congratulation (well, the A team is, anyhow). Steve has enjoyed writing this blog and he thanks you for reading it. Our remaining Nepalese sojourn will involve 3 very hard days slumming it in Kathmandu’s premier hotel……. Bring on the HOT showers, massage and cuisine! We truly deserve it. Now onto new business, anyone up for a trek around Annapurna in November 2014?