We arrived back into Kathmandu on Tuesday morning. I'm sure as we got off the bus and walked through the garden restaurant where everyone was having breakfast, they were recoiling in horror at the state and smell of us. We were greeted by Danielle who had come out of hospital a few days earlier. She was looking so well compared to the last time we'd seen her. We dumped our bags in the room (5th floor - have I not had enough of climbing?) and Karen and I headed ou...

Now, before I start, following my last blog, a number of people have asked if I am planning to go to the summit. Now, maybe you were joking and I'm just a bit hypersensitive at the moment but just to set the record straight: - Have you any idea what I've just done and how hard it was? - You need to train for 5 years to prepare for the summit. - You need to be a technical climber. - People die every year attempting it. If they don't die, they lose their hands,...

Actually it's not the bottom as Everest is 8848m and Base Camp is 5360m but more on that later. Here's how we got there...... Trek Day 4 - Phortse Gaon I woke up in the middle of the night with a stinking cold which didn't bode well for the days ahead. I found this day harder than the one leading up to Namche Bazaar. The views, however, were breathtaking (literally). This is one of those occasions I can bring myself to use the word awesome! We were blessed with...

Trek Day 2 After a hearty breakfast of porridge, we set off at 8am for what is pitched as one of the hardest days of the whole trek as we were climbing 800m in altitude. The group quickly split into hares and tortoises. I was a definite tortoise and I'm proud of it. I'm not in a competition and have no interest in walking so fast that I miss the spectacular views and, more importantly, make myself sick. As the day progressed, a number of hares slowed down and I ...

Well, I didn't win the race but more on that later. Got up on Wednesday morning and had a leisurely breakfast while watching a lot of people just setting out to and returning from Base Camp. It was all very exciting. I then set out on my mini tour of Kathmandu, following the Lonely Planet walking tour to Durbar Square. I didn't achieve my objective of avoiding being spat on and got 2 lots on my bare foot from an upstairs window and another lot on my leg from a m...