Everest Base Camp, Tibet

Tashi prepped us in the morning with “if you’re lucky you’ll see the mountain today, you can only see it from this pass a few times a year.” We crossed our fingers in anticipation as we went over the final pass and low and behold there it was!! “Lucky, lucky, lucky” were Tashi’s words as the infamous mountain Tibetains call Qomolangma came into view.

Another three hours on the road (but just 100k for the day) we were 8k from Everest Base Camp (EBC) at Rongbuk, the highest monastery in the world (5000m). After lunch at Rongbuk we packed a day pack with snacks and clothes thinking we would be able to hike around but were a bit dismayed to learn that we wouldn’t be able to walk around. Having passed at least 3 other police and military checkpoints today, we were surprised to be restricted to such a small observation area (5250m). None the less we enjoyed the place to ourselves.



Fortunately we were able to explore a bit further down from the EBC check point. We climbed around the nearby nunnery and walked along the river between Rongbuk and EBC. The sky was clear throughout the day and after an awesome sun set against the mountain we walked to the Yak Tent Camp. To our surprise there were Tibetans playing pool (billiards) even up here! Tibetans love playing pool and every town we passed through, no matter how run down or poor seemed to muster up enough to have at least one outside pool table. After watching for a bit we headed into our “Peace Hotel.”

We were a little nervous about sleeping in a tent, as it was freezing outside and we had all of our clothing on! However, when we stepped into the tent we were pleasantly greeted by a yak-poo furnace burning strong! We played a Tibetan dice game that moved shells and coins around the table and required you to yell as loud as you can for the number you wanted and then slam the dice container as hard as you could onto the leather platform, so we fit right in  Thanks to Sam’s recommendation, that night we went for a walk outside to look at the stars. The sky was still perfectly clear and the sky was unbelievable, cheesy as it sounds we even managed to see a shooting star.