Day 2 of the trek.
I had exactly 2.3 seconds warning to get out of my tent at 1 o’clock this morning. There are 2 views to food hygiene. The first, more popular view is to clean hands at every opportunity, using alcohol wash, not eating salad, burn all food and generally worry about hygiene. At 1 minute past 1, I was regretting following the other view. The theory being: get ill now and then be healthy for Base Camp. I managed to get out of the sleeping bag in time, I didn’t get any footwear on and then I made my presence known, violently, to the whole team.
We got the nicely named ‘bed tea’ at 6.30am and set off around 8, I abstained from breakfast, porridge didn’t look very appetizing with my delicate stomach. The route today took us up through various villages, hens and goats everywhere, straight up to the night’s camp site, with fantastic views all down the valleys. The valleys remind me of my mother’s house in Tuscany. Incredibly similar, with terraced valley walls (wheat rather than olive trees), even the shape of the valley is identical.
I lagged behind, it was a lovely day, I felt like I was running on empty. I did muse that if I arrived at Base Camp at 500 kts in a Hawk, I could be over Advanced Base Camp (about 25 km) 2 minutes later, then pull back on the stick, zoom over the North Col before rolling inverted over the summit about 20 seconds later. I have a feeling I will be thinking about that 2:20 seconds quite a lot over the next few months.
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