TracyFood

Nepal Trip 2007: Day 3: Kathmandu-Rumjatar Camp at Aaderi 14 October 2007 12:30 am

Posted by Tracy in : Kathmandu, nepal, pictures, travel , trackback

First and foremost, I uploaded a few pictures to my Flickr pages today. Not many, because internet cafes have sporadic connection speeds and also we were about to get on a plane flight, about which I will provide a little more information below. Yes, I probably need a Flickr pro account just for this trip alone.

Fun fact! Please note that my spellings of place names are generally based on the itinerary I was emailed, but that doesn’t mean they’re spelled correctly (not that anything can be transliterated correctly considering I’m not using the right freaking alphabet). What that means is that this trip can be very hard to follow along on Nepal websites or library books like I tried to figure stuff out with all last month. Anyway. Like I said before, today is another air travel day, but within Nepal this time, I believe on the national airline, Yeti Air. Awesome! We’re flying from Kathmandu to Rumjatar, on a tiny little 12- or maybe 16-seat puddle-jumper airplane so small it has very strict baggage weight limits (except if your trekking party is so big that they take over an entire flight, as is our case; we’ll still have to be careful on the way back). The last time I flew on a plane like this it was between Vieques and Culebra, little islands southeast of Puerto Rico (and it may have been from Culebra to Vieques — I’m not entirely sure anymore). On that flight they actually arranged passengers by weight, to make sure the plane was evenly balanced. Whee!

Also today I’d like everybody reading this to think good thoughts for my mom, who isn’t coming on trek with us for another few days. She fractured her ankle mid-September, and is on strict doctor’s orders to do no walking for another two weeks at least. So she’s brought her crutches and aircast and suchforth on this adventure, but taking a few extra days in and around Kathmandu, which should hopefully be a little more negotiable than mountain trails, for which our Sherpa porters are making her a special carrying basket, just like they do for anybody who can’t walk up in those hills, because it’s not like there’s ever any getting a cab. Originally the plan was to rent her a pony until somebody pointed out that the little mountain horses from these parts have a tendency to go downhill in leaps and bounds — not exactly fun and easy to hang on to one-legged. So later automated posts may still mention the horse plan, but remember: it’s actually two more Sherpas at this point. The excitement, it never stops.

Mom, if you read this while using the extra days in Kathmandu to catch up on email and internet stuff, I hope you’re not too angry at me for telling the 20-odd people who read TracyFood about your ankle, but please, look on the bright side: they should all be thinking healing thoughts for you now. Also, according to Google Analytics, I’ve only gotten 2 hits from the Netherlands in the last month, and both of them stayed on the site for literally 0 seconds, which is almost certainly not long enough to relay any information to your mother. Enjoy Kathmandu, and we’ll see you at Phaplu in three days.

Love,
-Tracy

* * * * *

This post was written and scheduled for automagical posting in the week before I left on this crazy adventure, and updated from Kathmandu on October 13 and 14. I hope to write many more posts about the trip — you know, with more actual details and pictures and stuff — but for now this is all we’ve got while my intergoogle access is all kinds of sporadic during my travels from October 9 until November 6.