We Got To Get Out Of This Place – Part 1

Thanks Eric. The morning came, and it had rained again all night. There was an uneasiness in this small town. It was beginning to fill up with people. Folk seeking flights to escape to connecting flights to get home. And it wasn’t happening. We are all in this together lasts two minutes. Then every man for himself.

Bikram had returned to his home town of Namche last night. A truly wild and wayward spirit. Sad to say, I must be on my way, so buy me beer and whisky cos I’m going far away. Bye Shane. And then there were four.

Nir began to be extraordinarily keen on getting us back to his home town of Jiri, where Killer and I stayed two years ago. No planes today. And no planes forecast for the next four days.

We’re going a little stir crazy, and it’s only 10.30am on the first morning (second for Dan). Bugger it, we’re walking! Nir, get packed up, we’re walking. Tell Amit we’ll pay him extra to help carry our gear.

Nir said that we should wait until the next morning when it was confirmed that there would be no flights. He filibustered, dragged his heels, disappeared and farted about. After an hour we got him to the table, told him that we were going and that we needed his guidance. We knew that if he didn’t come with us we were knackered. We also knew that Nawaraj would instruct him to get us back safely to Kathmandu.

Our plan was to walk as far as we could today, hoping that we would make it to a rough track before nightfall where we could take a jeep down overnight to Salieri. In Salieri we would get another jeep to Kathmandu. Great plan. Nir would also recruit another porter today to help carry gear.

The difficulty is that these are the steepest valleys and mountains on earth and we can’t follow the valleys down. We have to climb up and over them, and repeat.

Nir disappeared. We ate an early lunch and got all our gear together in the common room. All the other parties expressed interest in someone planning to do something to break out. I told them we were buying a helicopter and that Daniel, as a qualified pilot, would not be subject to the commercial pilotage rules. He could therefore decide to fly blind through clouds.

We started another search for Nir. Once found he denied knowledge of our departure and said we would leave tomorrow if there were no flights. He didn’t have a porter and he hadn’t eaten and we were going to Jiri to see his wife, who had cried at the extent of my head injury.

Nir! We’re feckin going down this mountain today. Eat your feckin lunch, recruit a feckin porter and we’re going!!!!!!

In an hour he accepted our departure. Covered in plastic ponchos we set off, with Nir (like a scolded puppy), Amit and a new porter in tow. The rain was grim.

We didn’t take photographs, we just trudged miles downhill then up and over the valley passes. There was a rough track that had been bulldozed out of the mountains. It was covered in avalanches, mud and spontaneous rivers but it was better than slippery mountain footpaths.

We marched for seven hours, well into the hours of darkness, through the thickest mudslides in Christendom and up on tiny mountain tracks when the bulldozed route was too dangerous to navigate.

The drops were deadly and beckoning in the darkness. The avalanches were considerable, which meant we had to climb over the easiest passage, which was invariably next to the drop at the side of the old road. In pitch black, illuminated only by Amit’s phone. We didn’t have the strength to dismantle all our packaging to get to our torches. Our boots were full of wet mud. Our clothes were drenched, despite our ponchos, but our will was still strong.

Finally, we saw some buildings and, in the distance, the headlights of a jeep. After a quick rest in the nearest building in front of a fire, we upped and offed into the night again. Twenty minutes later, after five big avalanche clambers, we were in a jeep, full to the rafters of wet folk.

Now, it takes a lot to frighten me.

Mice, old ladies with sticks, roller coasters, strong winds, enclosed spaces, open spaces, flashing lights, Americans with guns, Americans without guns, kangaroos and people smiling for no apparent reason.

However people may have wrongly assumed that I was frightened on the drive down. I may be brave but, well…..no but really……this ride tested my whatsits. I think you’ll find that I came out of it with my bravado intact. Even though I shat myself.

After three hours the jeep came to a halt. Nir got out and spoke to the driver. It wasn’t good news. The road had collapsed under a substantial avalanche. The rain was threatening more avalanches and Nir thought we needed to go to Jiri.

There turned out to be no road left to Jiri due to further avalanches, but that didn’t stop Nir rabbiting on about it.

The road collapse had occurred near a river, and from this spot we could walk down to a footbridge that was still intact, and cross the river to a tiny village on the other side. Here we would find more jeeps to drive us to Salieri.

We set off in the even pitcher black, and dropped down off the rough track to the very muddy and slippy valley side. We were only around thirty feet above the river level, and the roar of it rushing through was truly terrifying, if you are frightened of that sort of thing.

Holding on to each other we made it without slipping to the swing bridge. There is something menacing about a deafening roar of water underneath you when you’re in the dark, swinging from side to side, clenching your buttocks. The river, in full flood, felt like it was very close to the level of the bridge.

We crossed and walked up to the village. After an hour of negotiation, the local driver refused to drive onwards in the rain based on safety grounds. If it’s unsafe for these guys it’s unsafe.

At this stage we didn’t realise how bad the conditions were, and the extent of the massive damage due to flooding.

It was nearly midnight. We had three hours to get some sleep before we would set off again at 3am. We didn’t need a second invitation. Snore city Arizona.

Night night.