Back in Kathmandu

5 am wakeup today with packed bags by 545. As usual, RamKaji and Sila (photo) gave the wakeup knock on the door with our morning tea. Our big duffels headed across the street to the Lukla Airport and we had porridge and toast for breakfast. Our team was on the first flight out on Tara Air at 7am. At Lukla departures, you wait in a tiny room until the guard calls your flight and everyone piles out on to the tarmac. As the flight unloads from Kathmandu, the bags are hauled away and our group is told to hurry onto the plane. The turnaround time for the landing flight, exiting, and then us boarding the same plane for takeoff was less than ten minutes. The reason this is done is that there are many many flights rolling in every few minutes bringing trekkers to the region. The window is short because the weather tends to cloud up by 1pm or so. It is an amazing feat to see passengers and baggage haulers moving so fast. The plane literally rolls off the hillside to take flight. 35 minutes later we were back to the noise of Kathmandu. We have not seen vehicles the entire time we were trekking--because there are none. Everything is done on foot. There are no roads. It is not even 8am yet and the streets are flooded with people. It is a festival week here and so many shops are open early selling strung marigold necklaces, sweets, figs, noisemakers, etc. for the celebration. We arrive back at the Yak and Yeti hotel alert but exhausted. We find some coffee and lychee juice and wait for our rooms for 2 hours. Afterall, no one has checked out yet because its so early. When we finally get our assigned rooms, we shower with all of the hot water in Kathmandu! I think I spent 30 minutes showering, shaving my legs, conditioning my hair, moisturizing my face, and putting on makeup. It's about 80 here today with a nice breeze so its a great feeling not to have a hat and fleece on in the room. And to have a western toilet in the room too! We are all obsessed with the bathroom situation at this point, every meal's conversation revolves around squat toilets and rating how bad each of the lodges' facilities were. I root around for a clean short sleeved shirt and some lighter pants. At noon, we head into the lively tourist district of Thamel, which is akin to a bustling Chinatown type environment. Curiously we eat at a place called Roadhouse which serves woodfired pizza and NO yak cheese. The group is happy to pig out, even getting dessert and drinks. Abby and Andy are with us again which is exciting. He is doing well after the helicopter evacuation. He looks thin, but rested now. He has been going to the clinic everyday for a checkup and his sats are back to normal. His diagnosis was a combination of HAPE and HACE. High Altitude Pulmonary Edema/Cerebral Edema. We split up after lunch for some shopping and wandering. Some of us even took a personalized interactive tour of the US embassy security area. Apparently videoing the traffic jam near the embassy is frowned upon. In fact, it actually buys you an hour with Embassy officials who review your camera photos and videos and take down personal information about you. There are even two way mirrors. Let's just say I wasn't the only one involved and in the end we are all fine and didnt lose our cameras or photos of Everest. Never a dull moment....