Our Trek - Day 2

7 April 2008 - Today we set off from Monjo at 8.00am, after having apple pancakes for breakfast - mmmmmmm stodgy! This trek proved to be a lot harder even though it was to be a shorter distance of approximately 4 hours. We had to deal with some pretty grueling slopes whilst ascending to an altitude of 3400m, finally reaching our destination of Namche Bazaar at approx 12.30pm. It was half way to Namche Bazaar that we saw our first view of Everest - what a beautiful sight it was.... We were in oar of its greatness. Our lodgings for the next 2 evenings was a place called "The Holiday Inn" - it sounds good doesn't it? Well it was another simple tea house which suited us fine, as we were able to interact with the local Sherpa people and have some fun. We were to use tea-houses as our accommodation for the duration of our trek.

Brad and I both had slight headaches on reaching Namche and I had slight shortness of breath, which is quite a normal given the altitude we were at. We were advised that if symptoms arise just to treat the symptom with panadol or something similar and wait to see if things settle down. Apparently if you still have a headache in the morning you don't go any higher. The saying goes - Dont take a headache higher! Anyway for us it was good news, after a good nights sleep we were both fine, also we were to have a rest day in Namche to help with the acclimatization. We spent our rest day buying up some more warm clothing, as everyone we met was telling us how cold it gets from here on in - good advice as we were to find out down the track.