Back at Sea Level - Oxygen level 100%

We're now back in the lap of luxury - enjoying real cups of tea, hot water, not having a daily wrestle with our sleeping bags, and most importantly flushing loos.

Selective memory is an amazing thing and we've already forgotten the horrors of Russian gulag style teahouses, scuttling mice and the delirium of altitude sickness. Some people are already talking of their next challenge....others are dreaming of the beach!

After our lucky escape from Lukla where 2,000 trekkers had been stranded for 7 days due to adverse weather conditions, we miraculously walked on to our flight with no problems, whilst the Nepalese army helicoptered out 25 Germans for $600 each!!

Once back in Kathmandu we celebrated in style with our first drop of alcohol in 7 weeks and of course long, hot showers. On our final day we were taken to visit one of the Room to Read schools which our money will be partly going towards. It was an inspirational visit to see a thriving school with an all-female staff especially in a country where girls are largely uneducated. Amidst the beautiful Nepalese countryside and with excited and enthusiastic children, it was sobering to learn that 50% of their parents are illiterate and the teachers themselves had sacrificed a month's salary to build the library. This totally put our small sacrifices into perspective.

We're now at £43,000, only £7,000 off our £50,000 goal which will go towards helping children like this. Many people have asked us to share our stories, so to help us reach our fundraising target we are going to have a no holds-barred, true story presentation of what really happened on the trek at Penguin HQ.

Please come and support us - there will be mulled wine and mince pies but definitely no yak cheese in sight! However, we'll be asking for a small donation so please dig deep.

More details to follow soon, but here are some photos to whet your appetite..

P.S For all you non-Penguins out there, we will post the full story here afterwards.

We Made It!

Gorak Shep (5140m)

If anyone asks you to trek to 5,364m….Just say no! We can tell you first hand it’s harder than it sounds and every Penguin has felt the effects of the altitude to at least some degree. After a 5am start from Lobouche on Tuesday morning, little did we know it was going to be 11.5 hours until we made it back to the luxury (ha ha) of Gorak Shep!

Wrapped up in all our layers (oh yes our Rab investments were really paying dividends), we slowly made our way up through the moraine of the Khumba glacier to our first tea stop at Gorak Shep. At this point some of the group were seriously considering whether they would make it any further - pounding headaches, feeling sick, puffy faces and just feeling like every step is a struggle were some of the symptoms we felt. It is testament to the team spirit we have experienced that everyone pulled together to support each other and we all left Gorak Shep together.

It was sunny and clear as we set out and as we made slow progress over the boulders onto the glacier, we were incredibly relieved to see the prayer flags and boulder marking the achievment of our goal – Everest Base Camp. When we finally got there, we celebrated with a cold toasted nak cheese, cabbage and carrot sandwich, pringles and a mars bar. There were some emotional phone calls home, a few pictures and even a video of the Penguins. We then attempted a speedy (?!) exit as the snow began to fall.

The trek back was probably harder still as we knew that all that was waiting for us was very bleak accomodation, death hazards of frozen pee on the toilet floor and icicles over the sink, hideous floral wall paper, mice and reheated leftovers for dinner. Temperatures dropped to -20 degrees overnight and the symptoms of altitude sickness continued. Record for lowest oxygen saturation was 57%.

Despite the hardships, it was an incredible experience, the sense of achievment made it all worthwhile and we’ve seen some of the most amazing scenery, experienced wonderful Nepalese hospitality and realised how lucky we are.

We are writing this after our first shower in 8 days and having eaten a fantastic vegetable curry. The team are all in high spirits and looking forward to getting back to Kathmandu where we will be visiting one of the Room to Read projects which is what this is all in aid of. We hope this post gives a flavour of how tough the challenge has been and would encourage anyone who hasn’t already to please dig deep and sponsor us.

It’s Harder Than You Might Think (and Harder Than We Thought)

Lobouche (4900m)

After reaching over 5,000 metres today, we are currently sitting at 4,980 metres where even the yaks have frozen whiskers. The magnitude of the challenge made itself apparent to us all. The day started with frozen fingers and toes and went downhill (or should that be uphill) from there. On the upside, we don’t have much in our backpacks anymore as we’re wearing it all.

We saw the Khumbu Glacier this afternoon, but at this altitude our creative language to describe it is somewhat limited. But, as our leader, Khush, would say, “wow”.
We celebrated Halloween in style, with Halloween sweets and Deborah dressed as a pumpkin.

Tomorrow is the big day, which we have all been waiting for…

Yak yak yak

Hello from Dingboche. It's been two days since we have been able to blog as we are really in the wilds now but we just wanted to let you all know that we are safe and as well as anyone can be at 4,400m.
We are now above the tree-line with no running water, no electricity in our lodge, yak poo fires, and no basin so we are cleaning our teeth outside. In some ways camping would be more comfortable (at least there would be no mice!)
We've been trekking through spectacular scenery over the past two days. We saw dawn over Everest at Tengboche where we were woken at 5am by the monks' gongs and chanting. Our route has traced round the magnificent peak of Ama Dhablam our second favourite mountain after Everest. Today on the acclimatisation climb out of Dingboche we saw three of the five highest mountains in the world - Everest, Lhotse (number 4) and Makalu (number 5) and we touched our first snow. We built a cairn for luck.
Just a quick good luck wish too for Becca Sinclair who is running the Dublin marathon tomorrow in aid of our Room to Read fund. Go Becca!

Faffing, cinema and Everest

Today started with two sicknesses, five headaches, two colds and a lot of people slow off the mark (only some due to altitude). A lot of faffing and discussion of tog factors occurs at 3,445 metres.

After breakfast, we set off on an acclimatisation walk. We were all surprised at how slow we had to walk. It was all worth it when we got our first view of Everest, which was every bit as breath-taking as we'd hoped.

Some well-deserved lunch and then some much-needed stretches and showers (probably the last now for over a week). A trip to the cinema seemed an odd thing to do at altitude. We should have realised what was in store when they blasted U2 at us first for a good 10 minutes. However, a film about people dying on Everest seemed like a good idea at the time.

*Hi John, Jackie may not be a technical genius, but her stretches are second to none!*

A big day ahead of us tomorrow, possibly traveling beyond wi-fi. Keep your fingers crossed for us at Everest Base Camp, where the temperatures are currently around minus 30.

Best cafe and real coffee in Namche, with the most entertaining toilet sign we've found so far!

Things we've learnt today

A yak lives for 40 years

The Nepali name for Everest is Sagarmartha and the Tibetan name is Chomolungma which means Mother Earth

A female yak is called a Nak, so really we are drinking Nak milk and eating Nak cheese

Yaks can cross suspension bridges quicker than us

Prawn crackers actually come in fluorescent pink

Sherpa children like to break-dance

Nepalese diwali dancing celebrations unleashed previously unknown dancing talent in Debs,Pauline and Hermione *

We need to drink 4 litres of chlorinated "swimming pool" water a day and pee out 5 litres in bushes!


*photographic evidence available in exchange for a large donation...

P.S We also walked up a BIG hill

And we're off

We finally felt like we were on the way as we touched down at Lukla airport this morning after an exhilarating flight in the tiniest aeroplane ever - but we were still impressed with the service in the form of a glamorous air stewardess offering us boiled sweets and cotton wool to stuff in our ears to drown out the engines.

Time for a quick team photo and a turn of the Buddhist prayer wheels before setting off. We trekked for several hours on quite a busy trail with a constant stream of yaks and heavily laden sherpas - one even had a wardrobe on his back complete with full length mirror.

We have reached our first stop at Phakding and settled into our tea house - warm and cosy by the fire, but sub-zero everywhere else. Head torches are firmly in action as are down jackets (bit like wearing a duvet!)

Sorry, no photos - they aren't loading properly, but we'll try again at our next stop...Namche Bazaar tomorrow night.