Ghorepani (2785m)

Did I say best day yet? Well, for most it was the worst night ever.

In the morning, I woke up with a strange feeling – I wasn’t nauseous but I felt like I just wanted to puke. I puked a little. Eric felt fine. As we got ready for the day, we found out that 4 others in our group spent most of the night in the bathroom with diarrhea or vomiting. Thank goodness for attached bathrooms that day! We suspected food poisoning. The 4 all had chocolate cake and thought that might have been the culprit. But then we find out that other people had chocolate cake and felt fine. I didn’t even have the chocolate cake. By the time I went for breakfast, I puked 2 more times.

The group split in two since half of us were feeling pretty crappy and needed to take it much slower. Eric joined the sickos to keep me company. I puked a couple of little pukes along the way, but a few hours into our hike, I emptied my guts. I saw last night’s dinner with surprising clarity. I felt much better but was pretty weak since I didn’t eat much, and whatever I did eat was now sitting on the trail. Every once in a while I’d get a wave of nausea but for the most part I was feeling okay. The others weren’t doing so well and just felt like shiza for most of the walk.

Perhaps the most horrendous part of the whole ordeal was that today’s hike was the steepest yet – we ascended over 1.6 km! It was uphill the whole way, and although it was tiring and we required a lot of breaks, stopping was almost worse because our stomachs would start to turn. Fortunately, Eric was feeling healthier and stronger than ever and wasn’t even bothered by the never-ending stairs. After lunch, he carried my day pack which really helped since I was running on low and feeling even worse after eating.

We climbed for about 9 hours and just reached the top of a huge hill when Prem pointed into the distance and said we can see Ghorepani. He was trying to be encouraging, but what we saw was another huge uphill battle, which took us another hour to climb! When we reached the teahouse, the sickos immediately collapsed into their sleeping bags. That’s the thing about our trip – when you’re feeling like absolute sh!t, you just keep on trekking. This is what we fondly refer to as “Nepalese medicine”!

After a short nap, I felt much better and joined the healthy folks in the dining hall. The teahouse had more trekkers than I had ever seen before – there were probably 10 new faces! The dog from Marpha was there too, taking head rubs and food from anybody and everybody. There was a huge oil drum contraption in the middle of the room that was giving off wonderful heat. I wasn’t able to eat my fried rice with egg, but the porters happily helped me finish it.
From the windows we could see that we were surrounded by an amazing view of the mountains. So that’s why it was worth climbing uphill again when we were supposed to be going downhill! It was beautiful outside. The scene inside, however, was surreal. Avril Lavigne and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were blaring from the sound system. It was the first western music I’ve heard in weeks and it just seemed wrong to be surrounded by majestic mountains in the Himalayas and listen to top 40 hits! The porters and guides were enjoying hot roxy (homemade rice wine warmed up) which Eric tried and seemed to like. Soon, Nepali music was blaring and Eric and I were forced to get up and dance. It was a lot of fun watching them going nuts with roxy, music, and dancing. However, there was a blackout and the lights and music shut off – I can’t say I was too upset since I was exhausted and it provided us with a great opportunity to slip out of the dining hall and back into our rooms. About ½ an hour later when we were tucked into our sleeping backs, we could hear an eruption of cheers as the music and lights turned back on.