Day 19 - Namche Bazarr

Similarly relaxed day - until lunchtime. I am having dinner on the 'terrace' (dirt ground area outside the teahouse but with a superb view of the mountains surrounding Namche) when a local cow (?) decides it wants some of my lunch. The salad I can understand, but less so the chicken with rice. Unfortunately I am sitting on a rather weak white plastic chair and am holding my tray with my right hand just leaving my left free to fend off the cow. There is clearly a power imbalance here and, much to everyone else's delight, my chair doesn't last long and soon I am sprawled on the ground with the cow licking the remnants of my lunch off my legs - as usual I am wearing shorts and the cow's rasping tongue is not that pleasant although fairly ticklish which makes it rather difficult to mount any serious defence. Things get a little more serious when it spies some of the larger chunks on the far side of me and I am concerned about being trampled and so quite roughly force myself up. At this point one of the Nepalis come  out of the kitchen and heads towards us shouting 'bad' and there is a rather comical moment when the cow and I look at each other to see who the chap is saying bad to (this a strong Buddhist area and you are not meant to harm animals) causing another round of laughter amongst the other guests. The cow is lead away but not very far and comes back a few minutes later so everyone starts laughing again - this is doubled when one of the local crows lazily flies overhead and manages to land some guano on the cows head - perhaps there is such a thing as Kama and rather instantaneous Kama at that!

I have been trying to contact our base camp manager who will apparently be accompanying us out - there is only one route so it is more as the logistics man than a guide really - but have not been able to get through to him all day. Eventually I give up and decide to head to the bakery as the sun sets for some warmth and web time. Quite amazingly I find 2/3 of the rest of the group having cake there having just finished their walk down from base camp - and with quite a story!

Their plan on heading up the mountain was to walk up to camp 1, possible staying at the intermediate Yak camp if the group was too tired to carry on and then head up to camp 2 and see if they could get much further before coming back to base camp and then down to NB. Somehow, a mixture of the rather varied speeds in the group and some rather hungover Sherpas meant the slowest two ended up alone at Yak Camp by themselves - luckily there was a spare tent from another group there but they had no fuel or stoves to make any hot water (for hot drinks and for the freeze dried mountain food) and so had a rather chilly night and a supper of their lunchtime snack bars. The next day there was a bit of a retreat to base camp whilst a couple of the others went a bit further up the mountain before coming back to camp 1 and then back to BC the next day. 

Back at BC most prepared to come down to Namche whilst one of those who had only got to Yak Camp decided to have another go up the mountain. At which point out super Sherpas excelled themselves with two of them flatly refusing to go up with her - which was what they were being paid to do - again they had been drinking and were hungover again which contributed to their own laziness. Eventually one of them was told he was jolly well going to do it and eventually set off an hour or so later. 

The others in the meantime were waiting to head down, save for Paddy who was going to wait up at base camp, whilst the yaks were being loaded up but eventually set off as there was little sign of them starting.  Now at Namche there was little idea when or if the bags and our 'guide' would arrive. Anyhow, I showed them to the teahouse and introduced them to the lovely lady running the place where we had some supper and then bed.