Running Everest (eBook)

CHAPTER 1

Days 1 and 2: Arrival in Kathmandu

After the overnight Etihad Airways flight from Munich, in which I didn’t get any sleep, I was not thrilled at having a three-hour layover in the Abu Dhabi International Airport. It was 8:00 am local time as I found a seat at the gate for the connecting flight to Kathmandu. The coffee didn’t help much to lift my spirits, but Beatrice would be meeting me shortly and I was full of anticipation about seeing her again after more than a year.

If you are not familiar with Beatrice, this may be a good time to go buy my first book, Ultramarathon Mom, and get acquainted with us; otherwise, here’s what you need to know. Beatrice and I met in 2016 at the Marathon des Sables, a 257-kilometer (160 mile) 7-day stage race across the Moroccan Sahara Desert, where we were tent-mates. She was born and raised in Tuscany but now lives in Zurich after a stint as a bond broker in London. She is spontaneous, outgoing, and daring, while I am the complete opposite, an introverted pragmatic planner. In the Sahara we were nicknamed Salt & Pepper by some of the other runners. The comparison suits us perfectly, a blond and a brunette, basic and spicy. The only thing we seem to have in common is our thirst for adventure, which was what was bringing us together again.

Our current quest: The Mount Everest Marathon.

The Everest Marathon is known for its extremes. Extremely high, extremely technical, extremely remote and, above all, extremely, breathtakingly beautiful.

The trip entailed a couple of days in Kathmandu, a ten-day trek up to Mount Everest’s South Base Camp, two night of sleeping there on the glacier, a marathon trail race from Base Camp down to Namche Bazaar, and then a few days of recovery in Kathmandu before flying back to reality. All told, we’d be away from our families for three weeks. And our families are not small, with seven kids in total between us.

So there I am in Abu Dhabi, completely wrecked after missing an entire night’s sleep, and here comes Beatrice bouncing along like a schoolgirl, looking fresh as a daisy since she had flown in the night before and slept a wonderful eight hours in the airport hotel.

So much for me being the pragmatic planner.

Although, to my credit, I had managed to get us seats together on our flight from Abu Dhabi to Kathmandu. Beatrice was surprised when I handed her a new boarding pass, and she happily tossed away her old ticket that had us separated by half a plane.

I was seated by the window, with Bea in the middle and a stranger on the aisle. He was probably about 30 years old, looked as though he was from somewhere in the Middle East, as were most on that flight, and he sat cool and relaxed. After about an hour, the man fell asleep with his arms crossed on his hips and his legs spread out somewhat provocatively.

After a while, Bea and I had to go to the bathroom. I’d had to go for some time, but had been waiting for the guy to wake up so he could let us out into the aisle. Bea said she couldn’t wait anymore and that she would climb over him. I laughed and told her I’d give her 10 euros if she could do it without waking him up. With excitement in her eyes, she immediately hopped up onto the armrest in the middle, then, facing him, she carefully sidestepped across to the outside armrest and jumped down into the aisle. Then she looked at me smugly, rewarded at the sight of my dropped jaw. I was impressed. Now what? How should I get out? Whatever. I followed suit as quickly as possible, climbing just like she did onto the arm rests, but a flash of fear shot through my mind as I briefly paused mid-straddle while looking down at a stranger’s head between my legs. What if he were to wake up right now? I hastily jumped down into the aisle and Bea and I skipped back towards the rear of the plane, startled by the astonished looks from the dozens of passengers seated behind us who’d just gotten some free entertainment. From their intense stares, I thought we were going to get a round of applause.

Returning to our aisle we found that Mr. Cool had woken up, and though he looked confused when we asked him to let us back into our seats, he never said a word.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity—but was only four and a half hours—we reached our final destination: Kathmandu, the city of organized chaos.

The scene in the airport was farcical, too many people not knowing how to get a visa and too few people there to show us how. I thought that I was smart by getting my visa in Munich before the trip, but since Beatrice hadn’t had a chance to get one back in Zurich, I’d have to wait anyway. Somehow, in what can only be described as an unjust twist of fate, after we got all her forms filled out for her visa, then stood in separate lines for those with and without the entry visa, she was actually processed faster than me and, to top it all off, after she passed through customs, she stood behind the counters laughing and snapping photos of me trying to keep a straight face while frustratingly answering the redundant questions of the customs agent.

Then down to baggage claim and the same deal. Beatrice squealed with delight as her suitcase was one of the first to appear. I waited. And waited. The place was a zoo. Massive amounts of trekking equipment, bundles of who-knows-what tied up in rope, plastic wrap, and miles of tape, and monkeys swinging from the rafters. I needed to use the ladies’ room but was afraid to miss my bag, so with crossed legs I waited for an eternal ten minutes until it arrived. Then after a quick stop in the loo, we were outside and being propositioned by taxi drivers, hotel reps, and luggage schleppers. We found our trekking company representative and he ushered us across a chaotic park-whereever-you-want-since-there-are-no-lines-anyway parking lot to a minivan that had a few from our group already waiting inside. We were given a flower-wreath lei necklace and asked to take a seat since we were waiting for others who had also been on our flight.

We chatted with the guys in the transfer van. There were two men from New York City, Ray and Dave. Complete strangers to each other up until that point. They had traveled separately, but on the same flight, and were surprised to learn that they live in the same neighborhood, just around the corner from one another. Who knows, maybe they pass each other every day on the street on their way to work or the gym, but it took a flight to the other side of the planet for them to have a conversation with each other.

After 15 minutes of waiting, it was beginning to get hot in the van.

Next came a Welsh dude, whose English was next to impossible for the rest of us to understand. Really. He asked if any of us had a pen, which resulted in dead silence and blank stares until he mimed a writing motion and then it clicked. Forty-five minutes later, the last two, Polish men, finally got there. They had been buying phone cards. Super. We had just traveled for a full day and wanted nothing more than a shower and a change of clothes, but we had to wait in the sweltering heat while our comrades were doing personal errands. Then, when they finally got there, not only did they not thank us for waiting but they did not even say hello! I commented lightheartedly that they owe us a beer, but there was no reaction. I suppose there was a language barrier in addition to the politeness gap.

At 6:00 PM we finally arrived at the Hotel Shanker! Drinks were handed out while checking in and then the confused nonsense started up again.

And why were the Polish guys being attended to first? Ugh.

We were approached by a very young and fragile-looking Nepalese woman, who told us that there was to be a short info meeting for our group at 6:00 PM. I looked up at the clock on the wall that now read 6:15. She followed my look and said, “Whenever you can get there.” Beatrice and I hurried to our room to drop off our bags, so it was another 10 minutes before we arrived in the conference room for the info session which was already well in progress. The speaker looked at us skeptically. “Did you just arrive?” he asked. Yep, we responded. Clearly they’d scheduled the meeting at a time when all group members should have already arrived and had time to check into the hotel, and he’d apparently not been informed that some were delayed. But by now we were a little frustrated since we would have gladly skipped the hour wait in the bus at the airport to have made a timely appearance at the meeting, but hijacking the vehicle was not a viable option—even in the post-era Kingdom of Nepal.

Apparently there were different groups with the trekking company and the meetings were subdivided amongst these smaller units, so our meeting was an assembly of everyone in Lodge Group A. We were 25 people. I alternated between listening to the speaker and scouting out the other members of our trekking group. Shaun was sitting in the back row. We’d had some email contact prior to the trip and I recognized him from Instagram, so I was looking forward to finally talking to him face-to-face after the meeting. Two women who sat close together in the front also caught my...