05 May 2014 – Descend Down To Pheriche

5th May, 2014: – REPORT BY MRIDULA SWAMINATHAN

Beautiful Oxygen Rich Air – The descend to the Valley of Periche.

We got up early at Gorakshep ready to descend down. We all had a good breakfast, and started descending. All of us were very enthusiastic, happy and most importantly, we had achieved our goal, Everest Base Camp, something we had been training for. In addition the prospect of heading home to meet our mom and dad’s was extremely exciting. We reached Lebouche from Gorakshep in two hours, but when we were ascending the same path, it took us 3-4 hours. We took our personal belongings, we had left at Lebouche and headed to the Thukla Pass. After descending the pass, we reached Thukla Dukla Tea house in 20-30 minutes, a journey that took us to more than an hour to ascend. When we were leaving for Periche, it began snowing and the wind picked up. We reached Periche very fast, and as soon as we entered we felt like we had just come back to civilization. The hotel was extremely beautiful and comfortable as compared to Lebouche and Gorakshep. We then went for a lecture to the Himalaya Rescue Centre, which was very interesting. Today’s day was amazing and this trek somehow, every day keeps getting awesome. Can’t wait for what lies ahead.