Day 20 - Lukla

The next morning at breakfast a rather portly but smiling and moustachioed man arrived asking for us. There was quite a bit of confusion as he did not speak much English but it turned out that he was our Liaison Officer. Every trekking / climbing group in Nepal has to pay for a Liaison Officer who is meant to help and look after them - the ongoing joke being that you have the meeting with them in Kathmandu and never see or hear from them again. 

He seemed to be in contact with our guide and eventually after a few phone conversations he arrived - and did so in a wonderful display of confusion. Firstly he did not have any money, or credit agreements in place with the teahouse so we now had to pay for everything and could ask for reimbursement when we got to Kathmandu. The teahouse owner did not want to be paid in USD and so we head off to find a money changer - unfortunately it turns out that today is a public holiday and so all the official money changing locations are closed - but luckily some others (with discounted rates obviously) have sprung up. We now just need to make sure we get reimbursed in USD as we don't want to end up with a fistful of Nepali Rupiah just before we leave the country. 

Secondly, he wasn't sure where the yaks were, but they had been very late setting off from Base Camp and so would probably not make it to Lukla today - as such our bags would probably need to go on a later flight to us and he might or might not be on that flight so who knows where or when they will end up. Things have a habit of working out of chaos here but just as frequently going completely wrong!

Anyway, we set off at about 10 and are accompanied by our Liaison officer who is wearing four heavy layers compared to my one thin shirt! This could be tricky as we were planing a fairly quick descent given the inability to set off promptly. In fact he seems to be able to move pretty decently and, although we naturally spread out quite a bit, we make pretty good time on the way down. We have a long wait for lunch and it is of pretty mixed quality except for the chips, some of which come with a form of hot (temperature as opposed to spicy) but rather good salsa. This is not the best preparation for a fairly long uphill slog into Lukla and my stomach is ominously uncomfortable for much of the rest of the trek.

It has been quite a tough day and towards the end I seem to be relapsing a bit - ears, cough and cold all vying to make a bit of a comeback - not helped by the fact that my pack is really rather heavy for the speed at which we are going! Quite a few days of not eating properly mean that I run out of energy towards the end combined with having an oddly full stomach!

Once there, I head to the hotel (prior to joining the others in the local Starbucks) and meet our guide (who had gone on ahead) to discuss the arrangements - more amusement (although I am getting a bit tired of this type of amusement now) ensues. Firstly I am told that 4 of us are sharing a room. However it turns out that the room only has two beds!! I look at our guide who smiles inanely. I tell him as politely as possible, in terms of the tone of my voice although not necessarily the language, 'Don't be silly. Go and sort it out!' He grins again and says that the hotel is full; less than impressed I point back down the stairs and repeat 'Don't be silly. Go and sort it out!' He potters off and meets one of the ladies running the place who says (something along the lines of) 'ok, I'll get them rooms in the hotel over the road' and does so in about 2 mins!

Secondly, flights. We have had to change these as we are flying out early and have previously been told that we are flying at 8am. Apparently, this has now changed to 9. There is no problem with that, it is just that it doesn't seem clear what or why this has changed and therefore how much faith we can have in the new time. So we agree that he will let us know if there any further changes that day but provisionally will have an 8am breakfast for a 9 am flight - seems tight but it is only a 5 min walk to the airport which is tiny. During supper we double check on the flights and are told that nothing has changed and that we have plenty of time in our schedule. One of the waitresses overhears our discussion and says 'No, 11am'. So our guide corrects himself and says 'Yes, flight at 11am'. Quite where this has come from, and why our waitress seems to know more about out flights than our guide just isn't clear. 

Realising that there is little more we can do now we head for a few beers in the Irish bar - albeit there is a real difference in spirit between those who have completed their trip (various trekkers) and those who have not made their objective (us climbers). I am still in less than tip top shape so it is a bit of a struggle to stay enthused.