The morning started well, the sun shone bright and no clouds were to be seen in the sky. Great!
Sadly, it went downhill from there: metaphorically because the iPhone died during charge overnight and would not start at all, and literally because the route took us further downhill, when we knew we had to ascend quite a bit; Namche Bazaar is at 3450m elevation and Phakding is at 2650m.
Without the iPhone, geotagging was down the pan. The backup plan was to run the app on the iPad, but I have not done that before. In any case I walked with the solar panel strapped to my back, I worried before about what I would look like, but compared to some of the weirdos we met - no-one gave me a second glance.
So we got to Jorsale at 2750m, which was the last village before Namche; we still had 3 hours to go and 700m to climb. We had lunch - heeded the warnings on the side of the restaurant (saying that it was the last eating place before Namche Bazaar) - and how glad were we that we did! - and started on the second part of the journey.
I now know why I can't remember this part of the trail from the last time, 14 years ago - because the mind has a wonderful coping mechanism that is forgetting! Let's just say that whoever wants to claim that it is easy should try it first!
This kid is about 13 and carries 7 pieces of 8ft long planks, 12in wide and 1in thick!
In the end we climbed a total of 1400m elevation and descended 600m. Needless to say, the acclimatisation day tomorrow will be most welcome.
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