Day 8 - Trekking Day 5 (3,600 mtrs)

Up early again for an early start. One of my cuts seems to have become a bit infected (leaking a dark yellow bloody puss) so I have a fun time with my medical kit cleaning it out and then applying iodine (ouch!) and covering it more in hope than expectation with a plaster and some tape. The paths are never wide and branches are continually catching your legs - I am obviously in shorts still but might have to don my trousers if this doesn't clear up. A few months ago we met another mountaineer and one of his many injuries was losing half of his left calf to flesh eating bacteria out here! We do at least have some views now as opposed to a continual screen of wet vegetation.

However things slowed down a bit as the high plateau that we are now on turned into a real marsh with us frequently sinking in - one of mine was particularly unfortunate with me getting stuck in above my knees which lead to a bit of a delay in trying to get out and then trying to empty my boots of the mud, water and vegetation that had poured in.

Otherwise, the day was going smoothly and we were prepared to play our cunning lunch trick but be porters seemed to be wary of this and at an early break told us that one of them was suffering from altitude sickness and that we had to stop well short of our intended campsite.
It is not clear whether she was a good actress or the others are just very unsympathetic, but she really did seem to be in a bad way. So bad that our British guide felt that she should be sent back down and that one of them should accompany here. At this point there seemed to be a change in their tune and now she would be fine to carry on for a bit more - the next camp site was an hour away. Remarkably, having been unable to walk a few minutes ago she was now fine to cope with the next tricky hour to the campsite.

Our Indonesian guide was really apologetic about the various antics and was saying that this was probably the worst group he had had but there wasn't really much that could be done. The trip has a couple of contingency days that have never been used and it turns out that all the flights out are flexible so the delay is not really an issue for us and it is far more important to make sure that she is safe just in case she is not exaggerating her condition.

In any case, poor Gus has been losing his ongoing battle with the spicy tuna we had for breakfast so a shorter day is better for him as well.
We are now getting our first views of the mountain range we are heading for which helps lift spirits.

Quite remarkably the sun has shone for most of the day and continues a while longer so we manage to dry some gear but soon enough it arrives and we retreat to our tents.
Supper arrives and it is an ominous one. I have been discussing the diet in Nepal and it turns out that spam is a big part of it - spam is formed, processed meat and is pretty poor to eat. It was going to be interesting to see if the good cooks here could turn it into something appetising, but unfortunately this seems beyond even then. I will be on Everest for 2.5 months next year and so will be picking the only meat we will have out of my dinner on a regular basis - will have to remember to take some dried meat with me! My plan was to only have one helping tonight but somehow I end up having another and then a third when some very good spicy pork is brought out - there is some spam in this and even that does not taste good!

Food:
Spicy tuna with potatoes and eggs
Fried spam, spicy vegetables and then spicy pork and spam.