Although I recovered from Acute Mountain Sickness, more commonly known as altitude sickness, after a day of sleeping, headaches, and throwing up… John was not so lucky. He stayed in bed for 2.5 days. Each day he was awake for maybe an hour total, coherent for much less than that. Finally on the 3rd day we threatened to have an IV shoved into him because he wasn’t keeping any food down. I know Lhasa is technically China but none of us were in a rush to try out the needle inventory here. I think that did the trick because on the next day he was able to get out of bed and, more importantly, eat.

Now we’re all back to mostly ourselves. The lower oxygen here at 11,000ft is making us out of breath just from walking around town. Another problem with the altitude is that all our shampoos, lotions, and pens are bursting but that’s much more manageable.

We are packed, with way too much clothes and food, on this the eve of our Everest Base Camp attempt on the Tibet side. Okay, so all we’re going to do tomorrow is sit in a car for 7hrs but that doesn’t sound nearly as exciting. Over the next few days we’ll be seeing the Tibetan mountainside, staying in villages, trying yak butter tea, gaining altitude and trying to acclimate. Our goal is to spend the night at the tents in base camp at 17,000ft with Mount Everest looming over head.

Given our earlier encounter with altitude sickness we’re trying to take every precaution to make each step a success. This is testing ground for us as next we will be making the 15 day hike on the Nepal side to their Everest Base Camp. That will be much more challenging and physically demanding.