DIVA IS AS DIVA DOES: MY JOURNEY TO EVEREST BASE CAMP AND HOW MY FULL SET OF NAILS ALMOST KILLED ME
I have to admit for as decent of a writer as I feel I am I suck at storytelling. It’s definitely a skill I’m looking to strengthen in the coming years. So when people ask me about my travels or my life I have found it much easier to downplay my experiences and give a vague or broad answer rather than put the effort into trying to capture the essence of my adventures.
The same goes for when people ask me why I did something or am doing something. “What made you decide to hike to Everest Base Camp?” uh I dont fucking know tbh. The same force that carried me to Spain and then Bali and will continue to guide me on my path. A force that I spent many years writing off as unregulated impulsivity. A force that resents rationality and seems to only have an interest in propelling me into growth-inducing experiences. This force knows what’s next before I do and I have learned after years of trial and error to just surrender to it when I hear it whisper rather than waiting for it to yell. I haven’t yet been disappointed.
This is how the decision came to be: I knew I was going to Bali in December to do my Yoga teacher training, I knew I wasn’t going to fly 30 hours back to the US after that for Christmas, I felt my bi-annual mountain craving deep in my bones, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about the best mountain destinations in Asia, thought about Nepal, okay Nepal feels right, I wonder if normal people can do Everest Base Camp, ask ChatGPT ‘can normal people do EBC’, answer is lowkey yes, remembered a guide company a friend told me about at a pregame months prior, glanced at the itinerary, booked it. This happened within about 30 minutes on my lunch break and my mom was lowkey pissed when I told her. Some people think this is an insane way to live but to me it feels insane to go your entire life without doing insane things. Impulsivity, when regulated, can be a superpower. Maybe that's too paradoxical for you rn. I completely understand. More on this concept another day.
The night before I left for Kathmandu, Nepal, I went to the club. Nothing too crazy, but definitely made for an interesting 12-hour travel day the next morning. Lord willing, I made it from Bali to Singapore (manage expectations for Singapore airport) and then Singapore to Nepal. I got to Nepal and realized my debit card was missing and nearly had a stroke. Luckily I had a backup. I still refuse to cancel that card though because I'm convinced it’s just on a sabbatical and will come back to me.
I spent the next couple of days running around Kathmandu exploring, shopping, getting occasionally followed and/or verbally harassed by strange men, eating incredible Indian food, and working on my website. Kathmandu is definitely a city with a pulse. The vibe is similar to when you see a tree growing through the cracks of concrete. I’m looking at my notes right now that I took walking down the street and I have ‘help old lady cross the street? Old lady help u cross the street’ and that about sums up my time there. The intersections were lawless jungles and I found myself often shadowing an old lady because I figured if she was crossing the street maybe drivers would have mercy on her. Traffic was incessant and there were no less than 40 Nepalese Chads on scooters hurling towards me at all times. Bring your gaze up from street level a bit and you are met with a city smog that would make Hong Kong air look pure and an entanglement of landlines that was unlike anything I had ever considered possible before. Walking down the street felt like walking on a thin tightrope and I found myself in lust with both the wildness and the omnipresent edge of danger I felt.
All I brought with me were hiking boots and a couple of sweatshirts. So the day before my flight from Kathmandu to Lukla (where the trek starts) I bought some essentials. I had a lot of fun prancing around the different stores and trying things on and negotiating prices. People were so interesting here and I found myself eating nuts out of strangers' hands or receiving Masala tea on more than one occasion. If I had to explain why I love travelling alone in a sentence, it would be that. What a gift it is to be led to connection with strangers that I would otherwise never have interacted with. That day I also met Krishna, my guide for the next 12 days. When I originally signed up to do this, I was anticipating going with a small group. However, it turns out few people are crazy enough to do EBC during the coldest month of the year, off-season, and during the holidays. So I found out it was just going to be me, Krishna, and Gopal, the porter I hired to carry my extra bag cuz I’m a diva.
My first impression of Krishna was interesting. We spent a little time together in Kathmandu because there were a few more things I needed for the trip and he said he could get me a better price on supplies by coming with me. I took him to get Momo (Nepali dumplings) after we ran around town. As I sat across from him at the table I didn’t really see us connecting too much. I could tell he couldn't really understand half of what I was saying and likewise I often got lost in his broken english monologues. He kind of reminded me of my surf instructor from this summer. He always seemed happy adjacent but I could tell it was a guarded smile and his heart was somewhat closed off to me. He always had a bit of a wandering eye as if someone might be following us. I didn’t really mind though because I was so stoked to have the whole trip to myself and be free from the chains of group socialization. So many judgements I am making on a person I hadn’t even known a day. I feel a little bit better knowing now that he was doing the same.
The next day Krishna shows up at my hotel at 6:30 AM with the biggest smile, “Good Morning, Grace!”
I gently corrected him and then instantly regretted it. We waited at the airport for a couple hours. The flight to Lukla is really unique and kind of a free-for-all in some ways. The flights get canceled and delayed so often because of the weather that you never really know when yours is so you just sit and wait and hope. Luckily after a few hours we were taking off. Krishna made sure I sat on the left side of the plane to get the best views of the Himalayas on the way in. The plane was so small I couldn't stand up in it. Upon taking off my stomach began to churn. Shit was getting real. Mind you, I booked this about a month prior and hadn't trained or prepared one bit. I had no clue what to expect and I felt like a candle in the wind in this teeny plane. I tried to remind myself that without the story, it is only physical sensation I am feeling, and I chose to reframe it as excitement for the adventure ahead of me. I thought about how I am becoming a person I had always dreamed of being. And I thought about how Tori one year ago would have to pick her jaw up off the floor if she knew what I was up to right now. The energy I felt (felt – projected -- pick your poison) from my first view of the Himalayas on the plane was overwhelmingly motherly and powerful. Nurturing and asserting. Eventually we landed at the Lukla Airport, coined the most dangerous airport in the world because the runway is only about 300 meters long. Which if you’re American, like me, means nothing to you. But likewise, if you’re American, like me, you’ll take their word for it.
Days 1-4 of the trek feel so unnotable now considering what days 5-9 had in store for me. I spent a lot of time in my head those first couple of days because I had so many things to think about and process. In the past week I had quit my job in Spain, committed to moving to Bali, completed a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, and then hopped straight onto a plane to a country I had never been to before to see the tallest mountain in the world. My mind was a really interesting place to hang out.
I could tell Krishna still didn’t know my name because he was dancing around ever having to say it. At some point he asked me why my name wasn’t Grace like it said on my passport (my middle name is Grace). So for the sake of making things easier for him and for the charm of having a nickname, I told him he could call me Grace. He spent the next few minutes playing with different ways to say and sing ‘Grace’. Grace Grace Grace <3 Despite me having headphones in for 80% of the journey I could always hear him singing to himself (and I think he liked that).
I was so happy Gopal (my porter) was with us because he and Krishna yapped in Nepali all day and it felt like a relief to not have to constantly make conversation and just do me. You know when it’s your birthday and everyones looking to make sure that you're having a good time and it puts this weird undesirable pressure on you where you feel like you have to perform in a way to make everyone else around you feel comfortable and like you're having an amazing time? There were elements of this experience before Krishna and I got super close that mimicked that feeling sometimes. He was very eager to please and anyone who has spent an extended amount of time around me knows that my day-to-day vibe is pretty chill. I can be having a great time but sometimes that just looks like peace and contentment and quietness which can be confusing to people sometimes.
I am going to do my very best to describe Krishna to you, but please know there are certain people we meet in this life that are just to be experienced and are truly indescribable, Krishna is one of those people. If you’ve ever read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (recommend) he is literally Prabaker to a T. But if you haven’t and aren’t planning on doing so… imagine the most enthusiastic, curious, silly, big-hearted, selfless person you know. Krishna was always so honored and excited to serve. Not just me, but any and everyone we encountered no matter where we were. Every time we got to a restaurant or accommodation, Krishna was the first to hop behind the kitchen counter, start taking orders, and help anyone in any way he could. At first I figured he had some sort of agreement with the employees of the establishments or something but I quickly learned along the way that this was not the case. It didn’t matter who they were or where we were, if he had been there before or not, he was always helping. People I met along the way were often curious why the waiters seemed to take such a strong liking to me until I explained to them that the man serving was just doing it out of the kindness of his heart. He genuinely wanted everyone's life to be easier and to make sure I was as comfortable and having as much fun as possible. He was always asking to take my picture, holding my stuff, tying my shoes, making my bed, taking my food order hours in advance so it could be ready for me exactly when I wanted it, going out of his way in any way he could to make my experience special and effortless. He was also fucking hilarious without trying and his Nepali accent made everything 10x better. For example every time I asked him for something it was “Yes please.”
“Krishna can I get some more water”
“Yes please”
“Can I use the bathroom?”
“Yes please. Long or short?”
Sometimes I wouldn’t be saying anything at all and he would just look at me and say “yes please”
I got so used to the way he spoke after being around him 24/7 for days on end but it was so unique and learning to understand what he was saying was like learning a whole other language. I told him I lost my debit card one of the first days I met him and his response was along the lines of “ah must be very fast good when travel” ?
He would say things like “You will have very exciting yeah” or “Maybe if you have an important you can use” (about me asking for wifi) or “You do happy hiking?”
At the beginning of the trip I found myself wondering what the fuck he was trying to say to me but about halfway through I was completely fluent in Krishna and actually found myself speaking it quite well.
My top 3 Krishna phrases:
“Oh my Godness” (instead of oh my goodness) (always followed by side glance to make sure I was laughing)
“Don’t worry chicken curry” actually brought tears of laughter streaming down my face.
hand on my shoulder “Thank you for sharing your history with me” literally anytime I shared something about myself or my life no matter how small. I could tell him I had one sister and this was his earnest response.
The moment I decided I was going to love Krishna was on day 2. I offered him to split my last ration of dark chocolate with me and instead of politely declining he graciously accepted and from that point on we halved every fun thing we had. Any sweet treat connoisseur knows the real treat is sharing it with someone. A sweet treat halved is an experience made whole. You can get that tattooed if you want. Sometime around day 5 we were best friends. We broke through the acquaintance layer and into the I trust you with my life layer. I think I needed to fully trust that he was going to keep me safe no matter what and he needed to trust that I wasn't a cop. We started opening up to each other in between me gasping for air on what felt like 6 hours of stair master level 7 while chiefing an Elf Bar. That’s the best way I can describe how the trekking was beginning to feel.
Krishna could not wrap his mind around why I left America 2 years ago and it really got me thinking. That’s something I adore about traveling. Your perspective has no choice but to expand when you broaden your experiences. Krishna was opening me up to reframe the way I look at things I had become so jaded to. How lucky am I to have the opportunity to just decide I want to up and leave whenever I want? How lucky am I to come from where I come from and know that pretty much wherever I want to go, I can go relatively easily? How lucky am I to have a family that doesn’t need me to stay and take care of them or take it personally when I want to follow my dreams, even if that means being a 30 hour plane ride away? There are a billion reasons I am lucky. I try to acknowledge them as best I can but sometimes it's the foundational things that we end up taking for granted. The freedom of choice was something that I pondered during those long walks. You will not find me being someone who shits on America just for fun. I definitely used to be that way back in 2020 when I, like many of us, was in a media brainwashed frenzy and regurgitating opinions I heard on the internet that I mindlessly adopted as my own. But the truth that has found me as I have grown out of that bubble is that I am incredibly incredibly lucky to come from where I come from, to have the problems that I have, and the freedom that I have. I don’t mean things like freedom to buy a gun, but, sure. I mean the fundamental things like the freedom to make choices about my life, the freedom to come and go, and the freedom to express myself as I am. I think there's a somewhat common misconception that if we acknowledge these seemingly basic things, we are giving America (or insert any developed country here) too much credit or not demanding enough. Or sometimes we feel afraid to acknowledge all that we have at risk of making someone else feel small for what they don’t have. But in my personal experience, gratitude only leads to expansion. Brené Brown articulates this well in her documentary The Call to Courage. She explains that expressing gratitude doesn’t diminish others but instead creates space for them to feel and process their own emotions, even in the face of scarcity or struggle. When we can openly acknowledge the good in our lives, it doesn’t discard someone else’s pain. Instead, it invites connection, shows them they are not alone, and gives them permission to process their own experiences without shame. Gratitude is not about comparison, it’s about connection. Conversations with Krishna gifted me the opportunity to explore this concept and to focus on acknowledging all that I have without feeling guilty that I have it. Rather, I was able to see things in a new light and appreciate things that tend to go unnoticed. I felt connected to him when we explored the different ways our lives and respective cultures contrasted. It was never about comparing or one being better than the other. It was never East vs. West as some people often position the conversation surrounding cultural differences. It was always fueled by curiosity and genuine interest in the others’ experience.
I forgot what we were talking about
OKay anyways Day 5, 6, and 7, are FUCKING HARD. I don’t know if I even possess language hyperbolic enough to express the level of physical and mental difficulty I was enduring. But I loveee challenging myself. So as much as it hurt, it felt so good to push myself to my absolute brink. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but I slept like a little kid who spent all afternoon playing outside with her friends. My days went as follows: wake up around 5/6AM, usually I would find Krihsna’s wholesome ass waiting outside my door with a glass of boiling water and a smile, breakfast which was always sooo good (my fav was Tibeten bread with an omelette and Masala tea), then Krishna would pack my stuff while I took way too long to get ready, and we were off. We would hike for around 3-4 hours, stop for lunch, hike for another 3-4 hours, and then get to our accommodation for the night. I would usually rest for an hour or so and then have dinner, laugh with Krishna and go to bed criminally early. Every night he begged me to learn a Nepali dance with him but I was always way too exhausted. Looking back I probably should have just sucked it up. He sometimes made me watch hours of Nepali wedding music videos on his phone. One night he even got me to play cards which, if you know me, is really impressive because I hate cards. The further up the mountain we went, the colder the nights got. Days 6, 7, 8, and 9 fluctuated between -20 and -25 degrees Fahrenheit (-30ish Celsius for everyone else in the world). It was truly a piercing level of cold I had never experienced before. It made me really ponder what cold actually is and how it makes us feel as humans. The cold added a layer of urgency to everything I did. Everything felt a bit more scarce. I started to think of warmth as not only a luxury, but a limited resource which got me thinking creatively about different ways I could preserve it. There was never heat for longer than a couple of hours at night from a small chimney in the common room of the tea houses we stayed at. At night I would fill my Nalgene with boiling water and leave it in the bottom of my sleeping bag with my phone and portable chargers so my electronics and I could survive. I learned the hard way that if I didn't leave my hiking boots by the chimney at night they would be frozen over with a layer of ice in the morning, so defrosting my things became a part of my routine. Masala tea and curry felt like a soul hug at the end of my long, cold days. The most important hack I found for the cold was laughter. Krishna had a special way of making me forget that my fingers and toes were numb and shriveling up because he was always making me belly laugh. Against all odds. I was so grateful for that.
Omg I have to tell you guys about the rice wine he kept making me drink holy shit. Did you know they can make wine out of rice? Now you do. On Christmas, which isn’t really celebrated in Nepal, Krishna decides I need a special celebration so he offers me rice wine. The place we were staying was lowkey sus and he said it was homemade but I was like fuck it, sure. It can’t be worse than anything I was given in college at a fraternity party. I was so so wrong. As someone who is so un-picky with alcohol, or flavor in general, and used to drink absinthe at the pregame (times were different) I want you to understand how not dramatic I’m being when I say this was the most foul thing I had ever drank in my life. Everclear doesn’t compare. Everclear fucking wishes. I don’t even know how to describe this. My brain is reaching for hand sanitizer as a descriptor but it was so much worse than that. But okay, I can handle a bad sip of something that's nbd. However, one thing to note about Krishna is that absolutely NOTHING goes to waste in his presence. I understand, it’s a cultural thing and I think in the West we could probably benefit from indulging in this mindset a little bit more. That being said, he took it to the extreme at times and I could see him begin to have a visceral reaction when there is leftover rice on my plate (always because he would give me seconds and thirds of food before I even finished my firsts). We got in an argument one time because he brought me a glass of milk (sus) and when I chipped away at him and found out that it had come from a cow that had been milked about 5 minutes prior and refused to drink it he was so triggered I could waste such a thing. But that was like day 9 and I was not about to get sick from drinking suspicious cow juice to make Krishna happy. However, on day 1, I was not so comfortable yet. You should have seen the look in his eyes as I took my first nervous system shocking sip. He loved when I tried Nepali things and he would call me Grace-Sita (Nepali woman name). Anyways, if given the chance to try rice wine I urge you to pass. He tried to get me to drink it every day after that and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t like it so I just rerouted the conversation every time he brought it up. One night after dinner he insisted I have rice wine in my coffee. I think it was his attempt at an aperitif. I nearly passed out. I told him I was a lightweight and that if I had a sip I would blackout. He brought up rice wine comically often and it felt like an inside joke with myself every time he did. I don’t know why he was so hung up on me drinking it. He loved it.
Around Day 8 things went from hard to harder. Stair master level 9 whilst hitting blinkers vibes. Every step was felt, every minute counted, and every time I looked up and saw what was ahead of me I was stunned. It was a really good opportunity for me to practice separating the physical sensation I was feeling from the mental chatter in my brain and being able to see what that did for me in real time was really cool. I noticed how when I was struggling physically my brain would often try and match that energy by sending me extra negative thoughts to pair along with the things I was feeling in my body. Sometimes when you are doing something that is physically demanding it can seem like devoting any energy to refining your mental state is a luxury you can’t afford. However, I found that this was the very thing that allowed me to continue and to do so with a little more ease and grace than I would have been able to otherwise. Still, hard is hard and I was moving s l o w. I think it took me about an hour and half to get up this particular mountain and when I did I collapsed on a rock while Krishna brought me water and let me rest. When I stood again, I saw a sign that read:
“If your goals don't scare you, you aren't dreaming big enough”
It felt like a little nod from the Universe at that moment. It gave me a second wind of strength to keep going and to do so in as good of spirits as I could muster within myself. On we went for another couple of hours until we reached our accommodation for the night. It was around 4PM at this time. It’s important to note that the night prior I was not feeling 100%. I had a slight headache and then had woken up a few times in the middle of the night struggling to breathe. We tried taking my oxygen levels the next morning but obviously I had a full set of gel nails on which really messed with the numbers we got from the machine so we never really knew exactly how I was doing. One of the reads we got was 36 and 64 (it’s supposed to linger around 80-100 to my knowledge) but like I said, the nails were a factor so we kind of shrugged it off. I wasn’t feeling amazing but there were also other factors contributing to that like the fact that it was -20 degrees outside (and inside). I felt better after eating breakfast so we decided to go up that day rather than waiting. I didn’t know it was going to be as hard as it was.
When we got to the accommodation, I became a little delirious. I was instantly catapulted back in time to 2013 when I was in Colorado on vacation with my family. Despite my omnipresent teenage angst, I had suddenly become ~silly~... suspiciously silly… laughing-gas-at-the-dentist kind of silly. As we were making our way down a mountain I found myself laughing at nothing and stumbling about as my mom grew increasingly concerned with my delirium. I ended up being fine in the end but not without turning grey in the face and nearly passing out. I felt that familiar feeling creeping in.
I was too tired (and too used to princess treatment from Krishna) to do anything when we got to our place so while Krishna made my bed and unpacked my things for me, I was weakly throwing pillows at him and crying laughing at things that probably shouldn’t have been that funny. He eventually finished setting my room up for me, I laid down to rest, sent a few ‘I just had the hardest day of my entire life’ texts and attempted to close my eyes. Nope. Alarm bells going off in my brain. Suddenly it felt like I had the most grueling hangover ever combined with the flu. I frantically began to chug water but it wasn’t helping. After about an hour I reached my breaking point when I stood up to go to the bathroom and it took nearly every ounce of my being to do so. Something was really wrong and getting worse by the second. I pathetically waddled to the main room where Krishna was sitting.
“Look, Grace!” He was smiling and pointing at something to show me until he looked up and saw my face.
Standing there in the doorway at that moment I was literally the embodiment of ‘mom I frew up’.
Moments later I was surrounded by 5 Nepali men all barking orders at each other trying to find solutions for me. Krishna was feeding me garlic soup by the spoonful and had about a 50% success rate of getting it in my mouth. Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had and being force fed garlic fuckingggg soup of all things. Every few minutes someone would come with a different pulse oximeter (oxygen measure thing) with hopes that this one would work despite my diva nails but no luck. I knew I was past the point of needing any sort of measure to tell me how poorly I was doing. I was in the common room of this tea house which had quickly turned into my makeshift bedroom wrapped in a comforter, surrounded by pillows, eye mask on, parka, ski gloves and all. I could barely see anything and I couldn’t speak. When I had the courage to occasionally open my eyes I was met with tangible fear from Krishna’s.
“We go down now. It is trekking rule.” The “rule” is if you start to get AMS symptoms you need to go down at least 500 meters immediately.
“Absolutely the fuck not Krishna I will literally die if I move.” let alone hike 7 miles in the freezing cold in my condition.
We went back and forth like this for about 30 minutes until I caved. I reached my breaking point when he suggested calling a helicopter for me to get airlifted out of there. I knew I had to go down but I literally could not fathom doing such a thing in my condition. I can only describe that feeling as surreal. It felt so surreal to have done what I did that day and know that I had to do it all over again. This time in worse physical condition, and with the pressure of racing the sunset. But I had no choice. Let me explain AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) if you are unfamiliar. At first it often shows up as a headache, nausea, shortness of breath, and extreme fatigue. If it gets worse it can become life-threatening very quickly and lead to swelling in the brain or lungs filling up with fluid. So Krishna and Gopal frantically packed my stuff as fast as they could and down we went. L o r d w i l l i n g. I was mute and disassociating for the first hour. Krishna kept one arm around me and guided me. Periodically reminding me every 10 minutes or so, “I save your life”.
About an hour and a half into our descent I was starting to feel better. That's the nature of AMS, when you go down generally your symptoms lessen. I was even beginning to speak again. We eventually were met with one of the most ethereal sunsets I have ever seen and I began to feel like feeling as bad as I did may have been worth it just for this sight. I wanted to take a million pictures and videos but my fingers were so cold and I was still feeling too weak to do much more than put one foot in front of the other. As if he could read my mind, Krishna grabbed my phone and began snapping away. To be loved is to be seen or whatever. It genuinely looked like we were in an Apple screensaver.
Something strange happened along the way here. Earlier that day Krishna was asking me about my life and my family. He asked me why I didn’t have a brother (typical nature of a Krishna question). I explained to him that once upon a time I did but that he passed away when he was a baby. I told him his name and his story and we kind of moved on after that (obviously he thanked me for sharing my history). A few hours later as we were going down, in the middle of the snow, ‘C O N N O R’ was written. I pointed it out to Krishna because I thought that was funny timing that we were just talking about him and how random of all things that could be here in this moment on this random mountain in the Himalayas. Idk. I felt comforted in that moment. I felt like my family was all around me in their own special ways. I felt my Dad every day I spent there because I was living out a life-long dream of his. I felt my mom in the clothing I wore. I always turn to her 15 year old Adidas pants that I stole from her when I’m needing extra comfort. I think clothes hold peoples' energy. I felt my sister’s selflessness and kindness with me in the way Krishna took care of me when I needed help. Maybe I was just coping at this moment, there was certainly a lot present for me emotionally, but I let myself bask in this feeling for awhile. When you live so far from everyone you know and love you learn to see them in everything.
But all good things must come to an end, and when the sun went down shit got real. We went from mostly flat terrain to no clear path and just rocks on a downhill slope. It had just snowed a couple of days ago and that snow quickly turned into ice. All three of us were taking our turns slipping and falling. The lightness I felt moments before was gone. Krishna was doing his best to guide me but we only had two headlamps for 3 people and the terrain was so rocky and icy and steep that every step truly felt like a gamble. We probably moved for another hour and a half going straight down this mountain that only a few hours prior I had effortfully ascended.
I chose not to tell my friends or family what was going on because I'm a big believer that if there's nothing anyone can do to make it better and it’s only going to cause concern then it’s best to wait until all is said and done. While I don’t think there's anything wrong with leaning on people when you need support, sometimes it’s more appropriate to find stability within yourself first. I tend to tell people about things when they are over and done with and when I feel my own system is regulated enough to explain the event in a way that doesn’t spike everyone's cortisol beyond repair. My family has learned to be grateful for this habit of mine through the years.
After a couple of hours we finally reach the place we are keen on staying for the night. I couldn’t believe we were finally there. I was flooded with all kinds of relief and gratitude and release as I plopped myself down on a bench inside. Not 60 seconds later did my symptoms come back. Now with a vengeance. Again, I found myself circled by no less than 5 Nepali men and this time I did my best to spare everyone the drama and just showed my ass the door. I knew we had to go further down. Tears were knocking at the back of my eyes but I wasn't ready yet. The journey ahead of us was about twice as long as the one we had just completed. The one that I thought was virtually impossible in my condition. I was equally in shock at this point as I was jaded to the entire situation.
Off we went. In the beyond freezing cold and a darkness I hadn’t experienced since the last time I was in the Rocky Mountains. Occasionally I would look up to see some of the most beautiful stars I had ever seen in my life and allowed myself to bask in that romantic, awe-inspiring holy-shit-I-am-so-small-and-the-universe-is-so-big feeling, but like I described earlier, hangover + flu combo = looking up makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. In about 30 minutes we went from walking to climbing. Somewhere around this time I tripped and that was all the permission my brain needed to let out the tears I had been holding back since about noon that day. I let myself be a baby for a few minutes. Krishna and Gopal kept moving and let me have my moment. I appreciated them for that.
“Be truly honest with me how long until we get down” Krishna hated delivering any sort of news I wasn’t going to be absolutely stoked about and he had a habit of sugar coating things.
“...maybe 3…” …so 4 fucking hours ?!
I daydreamed about the parallel reality where I was in the helicopter getting airlifted down the mountain and taken to a warm room with cozy blankets. Maybe someone would bring me tea and tell me I did amazing and that all I had to do from that point on was exist. And then I would trip over a rock and snap back into reality.
I thought a lot about Bali and considered why I seem to be chasing after extremes. I went from can’t step foot outside without being drenched in sweat or monsoon rain to can’t leave my sleeping bag without various body parts being so cold they go numb.
There's nothing much to really say about these next few hours that I haven’t previously described. Cold, hard, grueling, tiring, blah blah. It felt like Krishna and the mountains took turns taking care of me. My “dinner” was 2 Snickers bars and a package of Oreos which I think is pretty iconic especially for someone who only a few months prior was packing lunches for plane rides because she refused to eat anything processed. So much can change in such a short time.
As we began to get closer to our final destination, 7 miles from where we started, I began to soft launch to Krishna waking up really early the next morning and just grinding it all out again. I really wanted to get to base camp. We had come within 5 hours of it at our first accommodation. I figured since we knew the way already and knew exactly what it took that somehow it could magically be easier this time. Krishna was open to it it seemed, but as these words came out of my mouth, the Universe revealed she had other plans for me and I was hurled in the air like a cartoon character and soon found myself laying on the ground. Bleeding, crying, feeling a whole other level of defeat in that moment. It was the kind of fall that just requires you to lay there for a little. The tears quickly turned into laughter. Sometimes that’s all you can do. So my knees were fucked after that and the decision was Divinely made: no one’s going up any more mountains.
Somehow we made it to the tea house, for real this time. I was so drunk with delirium and exhaustion at this point I can’t imagine what I looked like walking in there but I know it was a sight because the looks I got from the staff told me everything I needed to know. I walked in, eyes glazed over, made my way straight to a booth while about 8 of them sat around the chimney. Their conversation stopped and their heads slowly turned to look at me. I think they thought if they moved slowly I wouldn’t be able to see them staring. Which, given my condition, wasn’t necessarily out of question. Then their conversation continued at a lower volume in Nepali as they continued to attempt subtle glances my way. I trusted Krishna to give me the tea the next morning. (He said they couldn’t figure out if I was a girl or boy… fair… hood up, sleeping mask covering my forehead, 6 ft tall, pixie cut… whatever I’m secure you can laugh). I finally called my mom (against Krishna’s will, he was so worried what she would think about him for letting me be in danger) and told her briefly what I had just endured. She was worried and relieved and grateful for him and Gopal, as was I.
I slept like a baby that night despite the cold. Krishna told me he didn’t sleep a minute. His wholesome ass was up all night debating on whether or not he should come check on me. He explained to me that a couple years prior they had a guy my age in similar condition pass away in his sleep and even though he wasn’t a part of his group it understandably really rattled him.
The next day it was my mission to hike as far as possible down the mountain so I could take a hot shower and have running water again (past a certain elevation point these things are lost luxuries). Knowing that I wasn’t making it to base camp somewhat scarred the novelty of the experience, my social battery felt drained, and I had only been around men for 10 days. I felt ready to get back and join real life again. Or my version of real life at least.
I think Krishna and I were trauma bonded after that point. There was a vibe shift. He felt like my older brother in a way. It made for great Tiktok content which I’ll link here.
The next few days were a fever dream. We reached the bottom about thrice as fast as we went up. I moved my flight so I could go back to Bali a few days early. As much as I appreciated my time in Kathmandu I was ready to feel safe walking down the street again and to see what my new life in Bali had in store for me.
