Day 18: Rest Day in Namche Bazaar
Approximate Trekking Time: N/A
Distance: N/A
Overnight Elevation: 3420m / 11,220ft
With a long day of trekking yesterday, and several days before our scheduled flight back to Kathmandu, we decided to spend a second day in Namche Bazaar relaxing and attempting to move up our flight. Despite waking up very early to: loud boots in the rooms above us, clock bells, mice scampering in the ceiling or walls, barking dogs, yak train bells, circular saws, and other construction noises, we managed to roll over and not officially wake up until around 8am. It was another hour before we fully pried ourselves from our warm beds and went to the dining hall for breakfast, nearly empty by 9am, most trekkers and groups either off to their next destination or out on an acclimatization hike.
In the quiet of the room, sun pouring through the windows, we enjoyed our breakfasts with real Americanos made from the café downstairs and caught up on life with the decent Wi-Fi speeds that come with being two of only a very few people using up bandwidth. We sat in the dining room all morning, long enough to see Dan come in from his morning trek from Thame, having finished the full three passes trek beyond Gokyo. Once he was showered and rested up a bit, he rejoined us in the dining room and we all went to grab lunch at Café de 8848, where he told us about the Renjo La Pass, Sunder Peak, and the quiet side of the valley.
After lunch, Shawn and I relaxed a bit before heading to the Irish Pub for the 3pm movie – Into Thin Air. “Based” on John Krakauer’s book, the movie managed to contain many discrepancies from the book and was clearly a low budget film with B-rate acting, though entertaining enough to pass the afternoon in the world’s highest Irish pub. J The bartender quoted several of the most dramatic lines of the movie before the actors delivered them, having likely listened to the movie several times a week for the past many years.
