According to our guide, today was one of the roughest days of the trek so we needed to get going early and trek for 7 to 8 hours!! I woke up really weak and feeling terrible, add to that a blister I had in my right big toe, I was literally doubting my trip and reaching my goal of EBC... I had nightmares at night that I fell from one of the many suspended bridges!! The nightmare came from my first day experience of crossing the first bridge, it was rough!! The bridge was swaying in the wind and high above the river so I was shaken up by that... the blister developed due to the rough rocky trekking path... I explained to my guide my fear of the swaying bridges and he told me he would take care on me during the crossings by crossing together as a pair... after breakfast we hit the trekking path at around 8:00 am... at first it was easy trekking along the Dudhi Kashi Nadi river or the "milk river" because the water was milky in color... very quickly the river crossings on the suspended bridges started and the plan worked like a charm!! No problem at all... I just needed something to hold onto and I was holding the guide's backpack who was ahead of me... also looking far away and not down did the trick!!! We trekked until noon then took a lunch break! The hard part of the trail was yet to come!! We will climb 600 meters or ~1800 ft from the river to Namche Bazaar at 11,200 ft. I have decided like everyone of my trips to just stick to boiled foods so I had more Nepalese food again... once the lunch was over, we crossed several bridges before crossing the highest suspended bridge in Nepal at 900 ft above the river bed!!! The bridge is known as the Tenzing-Hillary bridge, in memory of the two pioneers who were the first to summit Everest; Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmand Hillary !!! After that bridge, it was a grueling up and up trek all the way to Namche... it was the hardest I ever worked physically... the leadership of the group kept changing as the trek went on... i waited until the end, when everyone was tired to finally jump ahead and be in the lead into Namche Bazaar, but I had nothing left in the tank when we reached the Sherpa house where we were scheduled to spend two nights!! After dinner I fell asleep like a rock... the first big test was done and i was still holding up fine, even better, i did not have any blister problems today. I had better wool socks and worked around rocks smartly... it was a successful day all around ...
Trekking trail before Namche
View of Namche as one enters from the lower trail
Prayer flags along the many suspended bridges: now I know you need a prayer on those bridges!!
Yaks and tourists come face to face on the trails
Crossing the Tensing-Hillary bridge was nerve racking!
The Tensing-Hillary bridge: top one is new, the bottom one is old!
