On the Road to Loboche

Another beautiful, sunny day. The terrain today is mostly grasslands. We pass by large stone structures (like one story houses without roofs). Karma tells us that this is where the yak herders come with their herds during the summer months. The land is all brown now, no grass is growing and just a few small flowers blooming here and there, but soon there will be plenty of green grass for the herds to eat.

An area where there are a lot of monuments and memorials for people who have died on mount Everest. We suspect that these stone monuments and plaques have been placed their by family and friends who have made the pilgrimage to say their goodbyes. Its a very quite, somber place, with no birds or yaks bells—only the sound of the wind.

This is around the time that we really start to notice the fact that many of the people around us do not look "good". Many people are walking with shuffling gait, head down and arms moving slowly, no real expression in their face. We dub them the "Everest walking Dead". The exertion and lack of oxygen is taking its toll-turning people into living zombies (and I'm one of them)

This is the first and only time that we notice 2 different sets of trekkers walking with their dogs. One stops running to lick Rick's hand and then take a drink in the mountain stream that is running along side our path.

When we arrive in Loboche, the teahouse is packed. Usually it's just the 2 of us or a few other people. Today there is about 20-30 people in the dining room. We spot Sarah and Nick as we are heading to our room. Both of lie down for quick nap only to find that we are both hit with altitude sickness again so we hit the Diamox and then to bed.

Karma wakes us up a couple of hours later because we are late for dinner (we havn't had an opportunity to recharge the phone so we're without an alarm). I refuse to go-felling to sick, Rick tries to convince me to go but I just crawl back into bed. Rick leaves but is back a few minutes later saying that the room is packed again and very noisy. Since both have raging headaches we decide to skip dinner. Karma won't have nothing of that and promptly returns with our (pre-ordered) dinners, pot of tea, and condiments. We are getting the royal treatment.