Day 3: Rest Day in Namche Bazaar

Approximate Trek Time: Variable, about 3 hours up and around Namche Bazaar

Distance: Variable

Overnight Elevation: 3420m / 11,220ft

In order to properly acclimatize, it’s recommended to spend a second night in Namche. As an acclimatization day, we could do basically whatever we wanted, but with great Himalayan mountain views surrounding the entire village, it would have been foolish not to hike around the area a bit and soak them all in.

We decided to do a bit of a loop up and around Namche – hiking up the mountainside to the west, across the slopes high above to the north of Namche, and dropping back down along the east side of the village.

Leaving our lodge, we took a left, hiking up staircases along the western side of the village, climbing up past the Alpine Lodge and around the Namche Gompa (gompa = monastery). The bright red monastery had yellow awnings and was bordered by prayer wheels, each a golden bronze color, set into the walls and partially covered by more yellow curtain-like shades. A large red and yellow prayer wheel marked the end of the wall along the front of the building, where the trail curved around the edge of the mountainside to the backside of the gompa. Along this trail was a wall of stone tablets with Tibetan mantras (mani wall), some merely engraved on the tablets and other painted with blue, yellow, and other colors to make the mantras pop from the stones. Another long wall of prayer wheels lined the right side of the trail.

Past the gompa, we followed the trail leading upward, climbing steps and rocks toward the top of the ridge to the west of Namche. From here, you could look down into Namche and see the full arc of the settlement tucked into the mountainside. We zigzagged up rocky trails through the boulder strewn ridge, continuing upwards until reaching Shyangboche, which contained little more than a solitary lodge and an unused grassy airstrip, which had apparently been built to service the Everest View Lodge, though was never able to be used for this purpose. Other than the airstrip, the scenic point of the area was a large boulder with mantras painted in white, blue, green, and yellow, protruding high above the trees.

Beyond the airstrip, the trail continued to the north, past a large boulder where yak dung patties were laid out to dry in the sun. Used as fuel for fires throughout the region, the dung chips are worth their wait in gold in the cold mountains. Continuing upwards, the trail emerged in a high pasture with a beautiful white stupa, its all-seeing Buddha eyes gazing out in all directions. Yaks grazed in the open pastures.

From here, we continued heading upward along the grassy hillside, past the yaks and to the east, where we eventually reached a viewpoint near a group of three stone chortens at just under 13,000ft (~3960m). Here, we got our first view of Everest, as well as Nuptse, Lhotse, Ama Dablam, and many of the other Himalayan giants to the north. We sat against the north side of the chortens to block the cold south wind at our backs, enjoying the view for a bit before descending eastward along a narrow trail to rejoin a wider main trail running north/south high above the deep Dudh Kosi valley. We headed southward, passing by the Everest Sherpa Resort, another excellent viewpoint where several trekkers were stopped along the trail admiring and photographing the peaks to the north.

Continuing southeastward we hiked down a long zig-zagging rock stairway into Chhorkung and back toward Namche. Before heading back to our lodge, we continued along the level high trail that skirted along the mountainside above Namche – back to the west side of the village, where we had begun our hike upwards earlier that morning.

Here, we took a trail that diverged into a grove of trees along the mountainside. Surrounded by tall trees, the narrow trail was covered in pine straw and splashes of sunlight stole through the branches, spotlighting the quiet path. In the middle of the mountainside grove, protruding high above the trees, was a huge boulder with a large, beautiful mural painted on its lower reaches, mostly below the treetops. The mural depicted the local protector of the Khumbu – Khumbu Yul-Lha. We climbed up through the trees to get a better look at the gorgeous painting, with brilliant blues, reds, yellows, and whites. The head of the protector poked just above the treetops, looking over Namche.

Just up the trail, another prominent rockface jutted from above the trees, this one with a mantra painted on its lower reaches and a similar sacred protector or deity-type image painted toward the top, perhaps also Khumbu Yul-Lha. Surrounded by prayer flags, a stone bench curved around the area facing the rockface.

Finished with our hike, it was time for lunch. Back in Namche we went to Herman Helmer’s Bakery and ordered pizzas. I asked what was on the “Namche Spicy Pizza”, to which the worker replied, “salami, tuna, a type of pepper… bitter.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by a bitter pepper, but I generally liked peppers and spicy food, so I decided to try it out. This strategy has proven poor for me. The good news is, the pizza came with a lot of delicious toppings he hadn’t mentioned: mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, carrot (could have done without the last one on a pizza, but somehow carrot makes its way into everything here). The bad news is… DAMN, were those peppers BAD. At first taste, I thought… interesting…but soon after, the very bitter taste – which lingered and intensified in its aftertaste – became disgusting and then unbearable. I tried to find the peppers and scrape them off the pizza, but it seemed that their evil nectar had infected the whole pizza. Soon, my tongue, mouth, and the inside of my lips started tingling, as if they were going numb. I drank some water, and the feeling got worse. I hadn’t even eaten half the pizza and couldn’t eat anymore. I hated to waste the food, but even Shawn found it terrible. We rushed back to our lodge so I could quickly eat some granola bars and get the taste out of my mouth. The lesson I learned today was that Nepal has at least one type of pepper that tastes VERY VERY bad. Trying local dishes or specialties on the trekking routes has not worked out well for me.

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