Today was a tough one. I woke up rather sore all over from the exertions of the first day of trekking, and then I started getting a nauseous feeling that was promptly followed by diarrhoea a couple of hours into the day’s trek. It may have been last night’s tuna pizza to blame… Added to this, we ascended more than 800m, with a lot of steep slopes up and down, and I started to feel exactly what oxygen deprivation does at 2800m. I could feel my pulse thumping at my temples, trying to get enough oxygen to my brain, I was getting lightheaded and dizzy, and had a feeling of being in a dream. Altogether not a good combination when walking up roughly hewn stairs along high cliffs on wobbly legs…
Dorchi realised how awful I was feeling when I could no longer reply to his commentary on the landscape and wildlife, although I suspect the bathroom stops I requested in every single village we passed had given him an idea of it already. Then he and Syange suddenly turned into a nursing team at the desolate and ancient village of Thanchowk, where they had local farmer-hoteliers make boiled water with salt and sugar for me, and they found a duvet I could rest under in the lodge’s deserted dining area. Syange quite literally tucked me in!
As they left me to rest for an hour or two, a huge storm broke outside, and inside me too. I couldn’t stop thinking of this situation being rather similar to the one that lead to Ozge’s death. Diarrhoea and dizziness in a foreign country, except that I am about four days from the nearest hospital, and not 40min! I asked my guides (astral not sherpa) for help for the first time since I graduated from healing school, and they came, along with who I perceived to be Ozge who sat with my head on her lap while my guides did energetic healing on me. Then I dozed off.
When I woke up, the storm was still raging outside, but I felt quite a bit better, though still weak. Dorchi decided we would stay where we were for the night instead of pushing on to Chame 90min away as planned. My heart sank as I know there is an Internet connection in Chame, but my body was relieved. So I had an impromptu authentic Nepalese village experience in an environment that has not changed for several hundred years. We sat around a wood fire on the kitchen floor, with ash falling on us when we blew on the fire to get it going again. We played with the goats outside and watched the huge orange moon come up behind the mountains. Then the family came to cook for us on the simplest metal stove and it was all perfect: chapatti breads, boiled veg and garlic soup. And a fried Snickers bar in a chapatti as a surprise for dessert as they could see I was much better! I also had several more cups of “medicine water” as they called it. I actually put away the Dioralyte sachets that I had brought along, because the traditional village treatment was working wonders for me.
Then, as the Himalayan evening grew darker and darker, we sat round the fire with smoke rising to the meats hanging below the ceiling to preserve them. It was lovely just watching the embers and listening to the Nepalis, seeing their eyes shining in the firelight and flashes of bright smiles.
I hope that the acclimatisation process to these heights becomes easier tomorrow without quite so many other problems to deal with. I feel very safe that I will not be pushed beyond what I can handle. The story of my whole incarnation
