Vasta poissa olen viimein perillä: Mera Peak, part 1: "In one week we'll all be up there!"

It was a brisk and clear morning. Cold enough for the tent door to have frozen completely: it opened like a barn door. The village of Kote was still in the shadow of the valley but the sun made Mera Peak shine golden in the distance. It was the first time we actually saw where we were going! The seventh day of trekking towards the snowy peak was about to begin.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Briefly: we were on an 18ish days trekking trip to the highest trekking peak in Nepal called Mera with a local company Mountain Monarch. The trek was organised so that we'd be sleeping in tents but often close to teahouses where we could spend the evenings and dine. The itinerary was built in such way that we'd hike multiple days before summiting, gradually getting higher and acclimatising carefully. Climb high, sleep low was the motto. The company provided us with porters, kitchen crew and all the meals, climbing guides and all necessary climbing gear. It was pretty much all inclusive. Great!

So. On a beautiful Monday morning we got up early and headed towards the airport to fly to Lukla. Our team was already eager to go but the flight was late. This apparently happens more often than not - the tiny Twin Otters can only fly in very good weather conditions and can carry only about 15 pax at one go. When we were finally bussed to the plane we found the pilot under it with a mechanic: they were taking the plane apart. Not the most convincing start for the trip. Especially when you know that Lukla airport belongs to the 10 most dangerous airports in the world. The short airstrip is built diagonally on a slope of a mountain so that when the plane is landing, it is actually gradually sliding up the mountain. And towards a mountain face. Breaking has to happen fast.

Pilot, under the plane

Ngima and the tiny Twin Otter

Lukla airstrip: the end of the strip is the end of the mountain

In Lukla we enjoyed one of the many delicious lunches to come before packing our daypacks and heading out through the village towards our first night's camp. Together with our team of 8 was another group of 8 people who were going to Island peak in addition to Mera.

The trek of the first day was quite easy, first downdowndown and then back up to around 2800 meters. However, very quickly I noticed that my knee did not enjoy going down. Not at all. I was silently praying that the pain would go away in the next few days. Fortunately ibuprofein helped.

We arrived at the campsite when it was already dark and while having a crazy amount of great food we got to know our Nepalese team as well as our "foreigner team" better.

Kiddos of Lukla

First priority pedestrians

Blooming trees

Crossing one of the many rivers

More first priority pedestrians (no, not you Rhys)

With those horns, they are first priority everything

Arrival selfie 1

Here's a few things about the first days and what we learned during them:

- Many Nepalese phrases like "Thank you" and "How are you?" of course but more importantly food related things like "Enough, ENOUGH!" and "Just a little bit please!" since the food was plenty and our guides would try to stuff us sick if we didn't stop them :D

- Snickers bars were a common nominator in our group and the bars would pass as a valid mountain currency. The higher we got, the more a snickers was worth. Later we would be known as team Snickers.

- Our group, Team Snickers that is, was absolutely great. We got along extremely well, perhaps quite surprisingly, since we all came from such different backgrounds. And we were very compatible with our walking speeds. Franziska and Rhys, the friendly and good humoured newlyweds from Germany and New Zealand were usually in the front leading the pack, followed by Zamir, astonishingly fit 59-year-old Israeli with a warm smile and a great encouraging attitude. Chris and I would usually walk in the front lines too and were closely followed by Klavs, our 59-year-old doctor and an enthusiastic birdwatcher from Denmark who'd kindly share his vast knowledge on both subjects with us. Then there was of course also Louie, the adorable and funny 35-year-old from Hong Kong who was always in a good mood despite all the mishaps. Trust me, there were a few ;) Last but certainly not least there was Yap, our oldest and wisest 61-year-old from Singapore, who would come in his own consistent pace. He was always joking around and smiling in spite of how hard the day was. What could be better than that? A group full of warm and happy people? Well of course also having the fantastic Nepalese crew helping us out. Ngima Sherpa was leading the way with the assistance of his brother Nuru and Pasang who were our climbing guides and of course the brilliant PD, who worked as an assistant guide. Not to mention the whole kitchen crew and porters who were always smiling and helpful. Diamonds, all of them.

Lunch break

Beautiful Franziska

Namaste :D

Delicious dinner

Dog watch during the night

Some days we walked together in a bigger pack with the other group that was heading to Island Peak after Mera. We dubbed this group jokingly as Team Diamox since almost all of them were using this medication to relieve the symptoms of altitude sickness. Our Team Snickers was aided only by the sugar high.

Every evening Ngima would use a funky device to check our oxygen saturation levels as well as our heart rate. This was to make sure none of us was suffering from altitude sickness although it seemed more like a technicality. It was anyhow quite an entertaining activity after dinner.

All my respect to all the porters in the world

A happy camper

Somewhere behind PD is Mera. But not yet quite visible.

Rhys, Franziska and Zamir

Yap and Team Diamox

One of the sturdier bridges

On the first days we hiked a lot up and down in the jungle. Approximately between the altitudes around 2000-3500 meters. On the 3rd day we climbed up to 3140m and then dropped down all the way to around 2000m. Quite heavy for the knees, I can tell. The walking and the route got nicer by day and the weather was great, no rain and hardly any drizzle. The food was plenty and tasty and there were always sooo many options ranging from fried potatoes and pasta to local veggies, meat and beans. We even had pizza and momos! And cinnamon rolls and pancakes for breakfast. Insane.

Kukur on the roof

Intense

Hard working these Nepalese!

Arrival selfie 3

Playing hackysack with a leaf ball :D

More cute kiddos (and not so cute adults)

Zamir, Chris, Rhys, Franziska, Louie and Yap

Brekkie

Pull up training

Come on, almost there!!

Still could manage some

up on a hill selfie

and the steep way down

Lunch chilax

Best pants ever

Crazy rhododendron forest

Arrival selfie 4

During the days we passed through small villages with the cutest little kids and most welcoming people. The nature was beautiful: huge rhododendron forests, waterfalls, rivers and valleys. But I was craving for mountains, you know, the snow peaked ones. And finally on the 4th day it started getting colder as we climbed higher. The snowy peaks started slowly filling the landscape around us.

Crow making some noise

Hinku valley

Yap!

Pass, first over 4000 meters

Delicious packed lunch

Patch Pokhari, the five holy lakes

Arrival selfie 5

Evening games around the heater

And yet again, delicious dinner

Morning tea

Crispy weather

Brushing teeth in the sun

Upupup!

Yammee

"That's where we came from"

Collecting trash on the way

Lunch in the forest. Our amazing cook Sainla!

Foggy stuff

PD :D

Arrival selfie 6

The craziest Little My!

Such a cutie

Yogasesh

And games

Camping and more specifically tenting in higher and higher (aka colder and colder) altitudes required some getting used to and we were not recommended to use a fleece liner or hot water bottles in the sleeping bags during the first nights but to save these tricks for colder temps. Gladly we had excellent mats and tents and most of the time teahouses for eating inside.

We had to constantly be drinking because of the altitude which also meant that the nights were riddled with toilet breaks. This and the cold were somewhat disturbing the quality of sleep but at least the quantity of it was enormous. The evenings got quickly dark and cold so after dinner we'd usually drink tea, play a dice game called Farkel, do yoga or stretching, read and write. Or just call it an early night.

On the sixth day we arrived to a little foggy village called Kote. The evening was the coldest so far as was the night. But in the morning the fog had disappeared and there it stood: Mera, awaiting.