30th March
Have now met my group, they are all from New Zealand. Everyone seems to be nice, so it looks like I could have another good trip, but a different one.

1st April
Today we fly to Lukla. As you come into land all you can see in front of you is a mountain and a very short runway. We have to walk for about 3 hrs today to get to our first tea house for the night. The scenery is breathtaking. We arrive in time for tea. Afterwards everyone sits around the stove as by now it's cold. Ended up in bed by 9pm and slept till 6am (and that's the last good sleep I had).

The rest of my Everest trip
My trip to Everest is something I will never forget. It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done.We slept in tea houses. Some were good, some very basic. The good ones had a loo inside and if we were lucky a blanket. The bad ones had an outside loo, which would be in a shed with a hole in the ground. By the end of my trip I could squat as good as the locals. You had to be quick as the cold air that came through the hole could give you frost bite on your bum.
Sometimes we had no lights in our rooms. Most of the tea houses did not have showers. At one stage I think I had the same clothes on for 4 days and nights as it was too cold to take anything off. In those 4 days the only way to wash was by using wet wipes, so it was hands, face under our arms and that was that.
The altitude is something thats hard to prepare for. There were times when you just could not get enough air in your lungs. Each step was crippling. Your sleep pattern has gone. If you are lucky you will get about 3 to 4 hrs sleep a night.
After dinner most people huddled around the fire and exchanged stories about their day, sometimes we would play cards. Altogether we climbed from 2840m to 5300m. Once we got to Dingboche it started to snow. They hadn't had hardly any snow this winter, I think they saved it for us. At night it went down to -12. I am glad we are now down at Namche Bazar which is only 3440m. We have 2 more days till we get to Lukla for our 6.30am flight to Kathmandu.
If someone asked me now would I do it again I think I would say no. But who knows after a long hot shower, a real loo and a bed things may not look so bad!