We woke up early to a foggy Lukla for the first flight to Kathmandu. As we had breakfast in the nearby bakery, Ang Dawa went out to check on the flight status and take care of checking us in. However, things were not looking too good. The fog was still lingering in the airfield with no sign of lifting. Our departure time passed and we were still hanging around in the dining area of our lodge waiting. We were still hoping for flights to resume later on in the day, similar to the day before when flights only resumed after lunch. We then got a call from Harka.
According to him, no flights are in operation for the day, which we were already aware of. He, along with other folks, were organizing a helicopter alternative to get us down to Kathmandu that would cost us around $500 (for 2 people). Now $500 is quite a sum of money and while I was considering the cost, I just wanted to get back to Kathmandu as soon as possible. Little did I know, this was because I was already experiencing symptoms of Giardiasis. Socs and I discussed this and we made a decision to take Harka up on his offer.
I was hoping that the helicopter would land in Lukla and get us out of there, but we were told to get our stuff ready for an hour’s trek down to where the helicopter can land. So after lunch, we reorganized our gear (as we were dressed for air travel and not trekking) and set off down the mountain. Ang Dawa took our other bag which Dill would have normally carried. It was a wet trek down and we could definitely see why no flights would be coming to Lukla anytime soon (in fact no flights were in operation until we were back in London nearly a week later). During the trek down, I started imagining that we were being evacuated from a conflict zone to the chopper’s LZ (coincidentally, Tears of the Sun was showing on the telly when we got back to our hotel). Our LZ turned out to be a clearing on the side of the mountain beside what I think were corn/rice fields.
Socs: For people like you and me, LZ = Landing Zone

foggy trek down to the LZ
Continue reading →