Altitude sickness
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| From Nepal : Trekking along EBC and Eastern Himalayas |
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| From Nepal : Trekking along EBC and Eastern Himalayas |
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| From Nepal : Trekking along EBC and Eastern Himalayas |
I've wanted to write down my reflections on EBC for a while now; Part of me has been avoiding it and the other part doesn't even know where to start. The entire experience was transformational and a few times I found myself real close to the edges of my understanding of reality.
I'll start here; I don't think I appreciated what altitude sickness was until I was having breakfast in KhumJung and I started feeling lightheaded and the thought of another day of 8 hours of trekking ahead of me started to sink in; I just wanted to curl up into a fetal position and close my eyes. Was this really happening ? What the heck was I thinking? How does that song go ? Welcome to your life, Jacob ... there is no turning back.
Tea house trekking in the Himalayas taught me lots of thing; Walking too fast makes you kind of miss the point of talking a walk. Actually the pilgrimage (the walk) is the experience; It is primal and encoded deep inside all of us -trust me. Laying on the bluff waiting for clouds to move was just as fun as the moment you lost your breath and realized that Everest was smiling down on you; I looked over at Simmy and the valley around us, the Sherpas, the world suddenly went still . Pure happiness and energy --the rest is difficult to describe -- feels like contentment. It's like when Voltaire said "Man is free at the moment he wishes to be" and that's how that moment felt to me.
I'll start here; I don't think I appreciated what altitude sickness was until I was having breakfast in KhumJung and I started feeling lightheaded and the thought of another day of 8 hours of trekking ahead of me started to sink in; I just wanted to curl up into a fetal position and close my eyes. Was this really happening ? What the heck was I thinking? How does that song go ? Welcome to your life, Jacob ... there is no turning back.
Tea house trekking in the Himalayas taught me lots of thing; Walking too fast makes you kind of miss the point of talking a walk. Actually the pilgrimage (the walk) is the experience; It is primal and encoded deep inside all of us -trust me. Laying on the bluff waiting for clouds to move was just as fun as the moment you lost your breath and realized that Everest was smiling down on you; I looked over at Simmy and the valley around us, the Sherpas, the world suddenly went still . Pure happiness and energy --the rest is difficult to describe -- feels like contentment. It's like when Voltaire said "Man is free at the moment he wishes to be" and that's how that moment felt to me.
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| From Nepal : Trekking along EBC and Eastern Himalayas |
 |
| From Nepal : Trekking along EBC and Eastern Himalayas |
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