Everest Base Camp Trek 2023

During our orientation, over dinner, I mentioned to Maria that the most important thing to remember during any trips in Nepal was to be flexible on any given situation. But, little did I know, as we got on the bus from Kathmandu a little over an hour after midnight to get to the airport in Ramechap for our flight to Lukla, that with the first rays of light the previously mentioned statement would manifest itself. The airport was crowded with people who were still waiting for their flights as the weather gods hadn’t been kind since a few days, ‘flexibility is the key’.

It was time for plan B or C (I’m not entirely confident on which one?!) and instead of trying our luck and waiting for the clouds to clear, along with a few other travelers, we took a jeep and then another to reach Khari Khola, our new trailhead. This sudden change in plans added a couple days to our initial itinerary which was changed by now but the trip was about to get a lot more interesting. The first few days added more twists in the series of unfortunate events from scorching heat to muddy trails to list a few. However, the hospitality of the people on the trails less travelled more than made up for our misery.

The first glimpse of ‘Thamserku’, the first mountain that revealed itself, welcomed us into the land of Sherpas, as we traversed along the main trail following the mighty ‘Dudh Koshi’ river. Colors die a long slow death on October evenings in this c/old Khumbu valley and the more we gained in altitude, the more the landscapes had to offer which were straight out of a painting. I don’t want to go into details about the entire trek as much of the hardships didn’t survive captivity in the zoo of words buzzing in my head all that month with only the pleasing sights and warm faces living there now.

What I do remember and would like to remember for the longest time is the purity in Maria’s tears. The tears she shed on our first sighting of Everest which was her birthday and managing to find a piece of cake later that night, ‘everyone deserves a piece of cake on their birthday!’. The tears she shed at the hardships of people, at the young girl who managed to make it to the basecamp despite her family struggling while forgetting her own struggles fighting the cold, and her tears of joy standing tall on the landmark stone of the basecamp.

As we were descending, somewhere around the memorial grounds, she told me she couldn’t believe she made it all the way to 5364m and I gently reminded her that ‘good things happen to good people’. She has moulded her life towards giving, be it donations, volunteering or directly taking care of people. She could have easily hired a helicopter like the many ‘travelers’ visiting the roof of the world but she believed that to truly experience the mountains your body needs to pay the toll. I will remember all these lessons. Even though I was the guide, this trip was an experience of a lifetime for me and I do hope it was for her too.