I was feeling pretty good about day 8's descent. Not only was walking down well past the 5,000m mark great in how much more oxygen there was, but it was a fairly easy, short and non-taxing walk. But like a previous day on the trek, I allowed myself to get lulled into a false sense of easiness.
You see, I had completely forgotten about the immense hike up into Tengboche. Before — I think it was about the third day — I remember flying down the steps out of Tengboche, so happy that I'd finally encountered a part of the trail where I wasn't breathless and needing to stop every 30 feet. But what goes down has to come up, and it wasn't long before yaks, sherpas, my porter-guide and the rest of the mountainfolk were breezing past me.
Speaking of my porter-guide, it got even worse with Patti. He would stop in a village, have tea without telling me (I'd just find my backpack outside, unattended, and figured Patti was in one of the surrounding buildings), and smile and say he just had to say hi to everyone. There was even one instance where he told me to start walking by myself and he'd catch up; I didn't trust this guy as far as I could spit, so I walked up to the top of a hill where I could watch everything below me. When he came walking up, I took a drink of water and acted amazed that he was so strong and could catch up so quickly.
Eventually, we reached the "paved" trail where *Gandhi (not his real name) had spent years working, which meant that we were within spitting distance of Namche. By this point, we had set out a little more than 8 hours ago, and with the skies overcast and windy and spitting rain, I was incredibly relieved to be close to Namche and could almost feel a hot mug of tea in my edematous hands. Once we got into the town limits, I mailed a postcard and returned my sleeping bag. I was lucky I could do the latter, as the receipt was in another's hands and I had to rely on the shopkeeper's memory. Turns out he has a mind like a steel trap and getting my deposit back was no problem at all.
I was letting myself relax at this point and once again, life taught me never to count my chickens before they hatch. I'd stayed at The Nest Hotel on the way up and figured I'd do the same now; the only thing I wanted with my room was a private shower so I could dry off with t-shirts (I didn't have a towel). Patti returned with a key and when I asked how much the room was, a sheepish look came over his face and he went back in the dining room. A few minutes later he returned, saying it was 1,200 rupees. What?! A teahouse room in Manju, a village just below Namche, with a private bathroom was just 500 rupees. I told Patti this was mahango bayo (too expensive) and that I couldn't take it, but instead, all he said was, "They speak English".
At this point, I lost all patience with him and his antics. I felt like he was treating everything like a joke, and like I was paying good wages to him for a subpar performance. So, I returned the key and walked up the hill into "downtown" Namche, and it wasn't long before I found much better digs at the Kala Pattar Lodge. Seriously — for just 350 rupees for the night, I got a private room with two beds, a working overhead light, a wall outlet where I could charge my devices for free, a large window that opened into the Namche bowl, and a bathroom/shower room just outside my room about 6 feet away. And the dining room downstairs — it was in really nice shape, with half of it featuring low couches clustered around a low table that made eating very cozy. The only downside, if you could call it a downside, was the door to the teahouse stayed open until very late and the cold air came in, making bathroom breaks just as chilly as higher up in the mountain. But it was just about on the main street in Namche and I could very easily access souvenir shopping and my favourite bakery where there was free wifi, so I was a very, very happy camper that night.
And when I took a shower that night — my first shower in almost two weeks — and finally got my hair clean after three shampoos, I felt like the most contented and snug bug in a rug in the whole wide world.
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