Mount Everest Journal: My Trek From Lukla to Everest Base Camp: Day Three
After breakfast, we set out for a morning hike of about three hours to Namche Bazaar. The morning hike was extremely steep and very challenging. It challenged everyone in my group, and made me so grateful that I had quit smoking. I kept focusing on how my lungs felt as I took very deep breaths in and out. As I made my way up the steep and curving incline I couldn’t help but think about how my lungs and body would be reacting to this climb if I still smoked. Here’s what I know: I wouldn’t have made it to this point. It wouldn’t have been possible. I could barely walk a city block without wheezing. I wouldn’t have been here enjoying the beautiful vistas, breathing in the fresh mountain air and physically challenging myself on this difficult trek. If I tried this trek while smoking, an air ambulance would be needed to come and take me to the hospital in Lukla.
The morning hike also brought me once again face-to-face with my biggest fear: A suspension-bridge to Namche. It’s the highest suspension bridge on the trek and I was not looking forward to crossing it.
We came to two smaller bridges earlier which helped give me the confidence I needed as a build up to this bridge. When we finally arrived, my fellow trekkers gave me lots of encouragement as we were about to head across. That really made me feel great and it reinforced just how important it is to have sangha or a community of people to support one another. At various times even this early into the hike, I’d encouraged others and tried to keep their spirits up when they were struggling. Now it was my turn to get encouragement and boy did I need it.
I started out across the bridge, I took the advice of one of my fellow trekkers and focused on the prayer flags. I kept looking at the prayer flags, hoping my higher power was paying attention and kept telling myself “fear is not a fact and doesn’t rule my life”. I made it into a mantra and kept repeating it and it helped a lot. I had a sense of support from my fellow trekker, the Sherpa’s who placed the prayer flags on the bridge and their prayers blowing in the wind to give me strength, and all that my higher power has allowed me to accomplish in the last eight years. There was no way I was I turning back! I walked through the renunciation gate in Lumbini and am committed to my new lifestyle, the Spiritual Adrenaline lifestyle, no matter what. With all that in mind, I successfully crossed that bridge and believe I have the tools necessary to continue crossing whatever bridge or barrier that gets in my way.
The hike continued to an amazing town at 11,000 feet, Namche Bazaar, To reach Namche, you must climb for about two hours through a beautiful but dense forest with steep inclines almost the whole way.
When you arrive at Namche, you cannot miss the Stupa, prayer flags and seven prayer wheels that greet you as you enter. It’s a testament to the strength of the Buddhist faith that even at 11,000 feet, large stone monuments have been constructed to act as a “gate” or entry way into the village. Namche has tiny ancient roads, alleys and lots of other places to explore. I was really careful walking around as people share the steers with donkeys and yaks. In fact, a renegade yak was running through one of the narrow streets chased by a Sherpa during our short visit. Women wash clothes and gather water for their families at the public fountains near the entrance to town. The water comes from the glaciers high above. It’s the easy access to plentiful and clean glacier water that makes Namche’s existence possible. Everyone in the group wished we had more time to spend in Namche. However, we had to keep climbing.
Past Namche we walked along a narrow mountain ledge that winded it’s way to the village of Tashinga. All along the narrow pass was one stupa after another and prayers carved into the rock situated along the trail. The prayer rocks are the Buddhist way of communicating with trekkers, Sherpa’s and anyone else passing through. This gave the ancient trail a feel of being a sacred place. We finally arrived at our tea house for a total trekking time for day was six hours and our altitude is 11,500 feet. We’ll all sleep very well.