Well Damo won. It's our "rest day" and I'm exhausted after a five hour hike, in which we ascended 400 meters in less than an hour. Straight up hill, and STEEP! But I felt awesome and practically ran to the top since I was only carrying about 1.5kg. When we got to our first intended destination, Everest View Hotel, we were excited about the (mostly) blue sky so we could finally glimpse Mount Everest. I took a photo of what we thought was Everest (see pointing picture) but a Sherpa passing said it wasn't. It was Taboche, which, at 6400m, was an embarrassing mistake! (Everest is 8850m.)

We enjoyed a tea at the fancy hotel (which costs $180/night), basking in the sun and, politely asked the gods to part the clouds so that we could get a good view. Unfortunately the gods did not comply, we left after an hour, and still have not seen Everest yet. No worries, many opportunities as we ascend.

By the way, Everest is actually named Sagarmatha in Nepali or Chomolungma in Tibetan but, both locals and foreigners mostly call it Everest nowadays.

After our tea, we continued to a beautiful village, Khumjung, where the Sir Edmund Hilliary school is. All the buildings looked the same with stone walls and blue metal roofs. It is also where the "major" area hospital is, run by local a local Sherpa doctor. There, uncomplicated deliveries take place and minor procedures. It is essentially a GP practice in one room. They have an ultrasound machine and an x-ray. It costs about 50 rupees (50 cents) to see the doctor and medications are included. There is also a dentist nearby that charges roughly the same for tooth extractions. Our tea house owner says she only goes to the local dentist and even though she spends a lot of time in the big city of Kathmandu, she waits until she gets back to the Khumbu region as it is good and cheap. She also told us it is not a problem for the people here to afford medications, it is completely subsidised and affordable by all.

After our massive hike we had lunch and tea at our tea house and got to talking to an American couple who are here as tour guides and have traveled to this region over thirty times! They gave us good advice as to where to go and where to stay and we were really grateful. They also said a pass we were going to attempt was knee deep in snow and over 15 hours long with no accomodation in between. Don't worry Mother, I will not be doing that! So once we get to EBC we will probably drop altitude then go up again somewhere else.

And...big news...drumroll please...today, we took a SHOWER!!!

Tomorrow we have a big day, heading to Tengboche. It's about five hours and dips down 150 meters then UP 650 meters. Feeling a bit of nervous anticipation, not going to lie!

After we leave Namche Bazaar I am not sure about Internet. I'll definitely keep writing we'll see whether I'll be able to post along the way. Our plan is to reach EBC in about six days, come back down in elevation then back up to another beautiful spot called Gokyo. Though, if we are sick of trekking and being dirty we may stop early and head back to Kathmandu, then to India.

Till then.