Final Entry :

Well, the Nepal trip is over, and I am home.

It was certainly eventful.... the diary accounts below tell the tale from week to week, of the unusually cold weather, of the encounters with the altitude sickness, of the amazing rock musicians who trekked up the valley in parallel with us and who serenaded us at Base Camp with extracts from Monty Python...

It was, overall, a marvellous experience. We believe we were the youngest ever school party to make this trip, in the history of the world. Of course there may be someone out there who can prove us wrong, but I'm not so sure. Our youngest trekker was eight years old on the day before she walked to base camp.

We certainly stretched ourselves to the limit. The cold was probably the hardest thing to deal with - the nights were very, very cold and in all it has been the coldest October the Khumbu has seen for many years, certainly colder than I remember from past treks and colder than the people of Namche recall. There was a weather system over Bangladesh which was said to be responsible both for this and the late Monsoon. It also almost certainly lowered barometric pressures even below their usual lows, making for a higher than usual level of serious altitude sickness in the valley, and causing the deaths of three young French trekkers on the Annapurna circuit around the time of our trek. They were no higher than us - but they were possibly trekking alone.

We had the group to support us, and what a group it was. The children kept our spirits up when were cold and hungry, and their fortitude and spirit was admired by everyone who met them. We had, in the end, one trekker evacuated with serious altitude illness. Three more descended early with altitude symptoms and one; one of my children, had to suddenly descend in advance of the rest of the party on the day we were due to descend anyway. Altitude sickness is unpredictable and potentially dangerous, and our group suffered a little more than we would have expected - but the weather may well account for it.

Nepal truly welcomed us. It is, as I have probably said elsewhere, one of the poorest countries in the world and yet one of the most generous. The children have, we hoped, gained immeasurably from their experience, and despite a few of the gang having upset stomachs in Kathmandu the day before we came home we managed to shop till we dropped too!

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about the trip. I am now back at the surgery, reflecting on how far away yet how very near the Everest valley actually is. Just a flight and a few days very hard walking. We feel that it was, overall, a success. Nobody got struck by lightening (as fourteen of us did on a previous trip). We only got stopped by one Maoist terrorist, and he was unarmed (as opposed to thirty heavily armed last time) and nobody even nearly got mauled by an elephant (usually that would be me). We feel we are almost ready for next time.

So I'll finish with the poem I wrote in a tent one night and read out to the group at our final meal together.....

28th October 2007
Greetings from Kathmandu...

Hello everyone,
We are finally back in Kathmandu after our flight from Lukla (the world's shortest runway, it's rather like taking off a very short ski jump...). As soon as we got back we all rushed to eat the things we had been craving for three weeks - in my case 12 tomatoes on toast - and most of the women rushed for tape measures to see how many inches they had lost. It is a very effective diet, trekking to Everest Base Camp, particularly with the added whammy of a gastric infection at the crucial point! Kathmandu is bustling and hot, although they have all heard that Namche Bazar has had the coldest October for many years and that Everest Base Camp had been particularly hard for trekkers this year. A lot of people have been evacuated due to altitude problems, more than usual (when we tried to call a helicopter for our sick trekker we could not get through - it was actually faster to carry her fast down the mountain than to keep trying - and this was because at least 5 helicopters were being called that morning!) which makes you wonder if maybe the air pressure is lower than usual for the time of year, the extreme cold doesn't help. Apparently a lot of frostbite has been seen in Kathmandu from people climbing the so-called trekking peaks (mountains like Mera Pea and Island Peal that don't really require climbing, more of a stiff trek). Our party coped admirably though, and have all returned cheerful for a couple of days shopping therapy and, for those brave enough, a Nepalese leg waxing.

few Muslims here, and a small Christian minority - but you get a sense here as nowhere else that at the very root of things all the religions are the same. Not in their meaning of belief, but in the way they make people behave towards one another and in the way they bless one another and observe moral codes. It's as if in Nepal different religions unite rather than separate. Having said that the Maoists would like to ban religion, at least officially. I can't believe that would ever happen here.

Now though, we are off for a stroll in the sunshine, to buy a red sari for my friend who is getting married (here only married women wear red - and the minute they are widowed they must change their wardrobes). Weddings are a big deal here - an auspicious date must be chosen, a special sari purchased, special jewelry, the correct stones for auspiciousness (my friend is a Tibetan Buddhist - fortunately the Lama has told her she needs to wear coral rather than diamonds - it can get expensive). When we've done that we may sip a banana lassi on the rooftop of a restaurant in Thamel and reflect on just how tough the last few days have been, and how lazy the next few are to be - until, of course we are all back to work and the realities of the English winter set in.

They have met porters who would do anything for their safety - and indeed who carried some of them for miles over steep rocky ground when they were ill - and they have flown on tiny aeroplanes onto airstrips that make your hair curl - and they have hardly turned a hair.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about the trip. If you're interested at all in the work of Community Action Nepal, of whom I'm a Trustee, please look them up on the website www.canepal.com and read about the work we do. Meanwhile, we will see you all soon....

Dr Mary Selby

25th October 2007
Greetings from Namche Bazar.....

Dear All,
Well, here we are on the way back down again from Everest Base Camp after a pretty eventful trip, even by Barnardison School standards. We left here shortly after our last email and headed up, the path was steep and the route fairly bleak, dotted with bridges that make your hair curl (one of which they were completing as we approached. Actually they cheered as we crossed it, clearly because it did not immediately fall into the river and carry us all away with it, thrashing and screaming in the icy froth...).

in a windy valley, exists only because of the Everest route. There are magnificent mountains all around and the night skies have ten thousand stars, but when you're feeling sick as the proverbial parrot you sadly notice anything but the inside of a bowl! it's not a place you'd go for a suntan, although you do get a red nose. Mine would stop traffic.

Nevertheless we went on from Pheriche with only some mild altitude symptoms ... to Lobuche, where disaster struck. Yes, the following morning one of our party awoke with HACE - high altitude cerebral oedema - one of the most deadly of the altitude illnesses, requiring immediate descent. Our satellite phone would not connect to get her a helicopter - the satellite phone system was continually busy, so rather than waste a minute with her at risk, we loaded her onto a porter's back, gave her all the treatment we could and they ran with her back down to Pheriche, 700m lower, from where the Pheriche health post helicopter (directed by a doctor who, oddly, I know from my altitude studies in the UK) evacuated her straight to Kathmandu. Just as we took the decision one of our teenagers admitted to marked altitude symptoms. We decided he should stay at Lobuche for the morning and if not improving descend back to Pheriche. His mum stayed with him, and we prepared again to leave, after all... it had been enough drama for one morning, and the rest of us prepared to leave for lonely Gorak Shep, the site of the 1953 Everest Base Camp - but just as we started to walk Matilda, aged 10 developed severe tummy ache. Did we go or did we stay? We decided to hire her a pony and see how it went.

It didn't go well. By Gorak Shep, 4 hours later, her tummy ache was worse and we were now in air only 50% as thick as that which you and I breathe at sea level. Again we called for a helicopter - but this time we could not have one. The place was too high, the pilots will not land there anymore as the weather had changed and become colder and windier, and in any case it was now 3pm and the Pheriche helicopter was busy - they would have to send one from Kathmandu and there wasn't time before dark. We were preparing the porters and myself to carry her down 1000m through the night (a freezing and unpleasant experience) when suddenly she sat up, smiled and started to play cards. We relaxed.

Now, although a few of the children felt a bit seedy we felt sure we could make our walk to Base Camp next day. The one rule was that anyone with altitude symptoms would not join us but instead descend at once. Lots of us by now were taking Diamox, the altitude headache treatment drug which aids acclimatisation and nobody seemed to have a serious altitude problem. I thought we were doing well, despite the bitter cold and loss of appetite most people get up there.

The walk to new Everest Base Camp from Gorak Shep is quite long, 3 1/2 hours each way on a bad day, so the next morning the few children who felt tired elected to stay behind and play cards with one dad. They would climb Kala Pattar to look at Everest, the rest of us would trek to Base Camp. And so it was that in the end 16 of the original 25 of us got there, including 7 children - the youngest was 8 that day. We wrote our names on a stone there and buried it under a cairn. Unfortunately though, the Khumbu glacier, which you must walk along to get to the final destination, had moved since last year and instead of taking 3 1/2 hours the walk took 5 as the path convoluted and was 50% longer. But we'd made it. Triumphant we ate our boiled eggs, photographed the crows, each other and the Thai expedition who have been trying to reach the summit for three months but still haven't because of the unseasonal weather (far colder than usual for October, and until last week far wetter - which on Everest means snow). Then we headed back. On the way back another of the party developed the vomiting bug. I sent the others back ahead and she and I made our way slowly out of the valley with two porters and a head torch for company. As we walked the sun set and we had the unusual and stunning experience of walking out of Base Camp in the dark beneath a three quarter moon and a firmament of stars. In the end she became quite poorly and the porters carried her back, me trotting along behind, both of us expecting a heroes' welcome at Gorak Shep.

Alas when we got back into Gorak Shep we were told thank goodness the mothers are back, all of our children were vomiting and there is work to be done. The gastric bug had struck. What followed was a pretty grim night. Imagine people vomiting in their tents and it freezing in the bowl at once (that's the last of the graphic detail, I promise). Imagine the sounds of adults and children, all night, every five minutes someone different. Already we knew that nothing worked - anti emetics, antibiotics, - it seemed that, unusually for Nepal where most gastric bugs are bacterial, we were passing a viral illness amongst ourselves. Five of us had already had it by now so we knew the pattern.... The next morning we were due to depart anyway. People don't recover well at 5200m, there's not enough oxygen. Matilda was looking quite unwell again and I said to Tej, our sirdar, she needs to go down, the next time I looked she'd gone! We loaded seven children and one adult onto porter's backs, hired extra yaks and fled for lower altitudes. By 11 am the sick ones were safe back in Pheriche - it took the rest of us 7 hours to walk there.

Since then we have recovered. After a 9 hour walk yesterday - during which most of the children skipped along claiming not to be tired, and we became so blasé about passing yaks that instead of backing into the sides of the path as they passed we marched boldly on and shoved their horns aside - we are now back in Namche Bazar - bloodied, you might say, but unbowed.

On the plus side we have seen beautiful mountains, expanses of starry sky that would fill you with wonder, the light on the peaks at dawn making them glow from within, we have seen Everest in all her glory and trodden the footsteps of mountaineers of old. We have rubbed shoulders with Yaks and drunk Sherpa tea. We have crossed raging rivers and watched monks perform their most holy Buddhist rituals. We have lived in the highest parts of this most beautiful and remote country, and everywhere we have gone the children have been greeted with delight. And we got there.

Dr Mary Selby

Here though, all are Buddhist. Chants of Om Mani Padme Om compete with Western pop music from shops and restaurants, and necklaces of turquoise compete for our attention with yak shawls and even yak body parts (tails and horns are very popular back home!).