Hello Adventurers,
I hope you are enjoying the winter days. Below you will find the last part of Steve Olsen's Journal from our October 2002 Of Global Interest trek in the Himalayas in Nepal. Parts 1-3 are in the "Adventure Journal Archives" on my website (www.ofglobalinterest.com). My next trip to Nepal will be in October 2003. I am organizing two treks, one to Everest Base Camp (three weeks) and the second to the Annapurna region, a shorter less strenuous trek (two weeks). Let me know if you want to go! Travel is Safe. (The trekkers pictured on page 84 of the April issue of Outside Magazine could be you!)

My next Of Global Interest trip will be to Spain the month of May. This will be a 12 day cultural tour of major and minor cities, starting in Barcelona, to Granada, Ronda, Seville, Madrid, Toledo and Segovia. A visit to Northern Spain, Morocco and Austria is also planned. I am excited to start professional trips to Spain. Let me know if you are interested.

If you missed the documentary movie I created about the 2002 Of Global Interest Everest Expedition, you are in luck. I will be showing the movie at the Eighth Street Trekkers' Lodge Bed and Breakfast twice in April, the month the Banff Mountain Film Festival comes to Ann Arbor.

ALTITUDE, the story of the first cancer survivor to climb Mt. Everest. Documentary movie (45 min). Of Global Interest LLC Adventure Travel company owner O'Neal's inspirational documentary of intrepid Colorado climber Sean Swarner. Submission to this year's Banff Mountain Film Festival. FREE. Friday, April 4 and Thursday, April 24 at 8:00 PM at The Eighth Street Trekkers' Lodge B&B, 120 Eighth Street (at Washington), Ann Arbor, Michigan. (734) 369-3107.

Hosted by U of M's Outdoor Adventures Office, selected winning films from this year's Banff Mountain Film Festival will be presented Tuesday, April 8 at 8:00 PM at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater in the Michigan League in Ann Arbor (N. University at Fletcher St). I submitted my movie 'Altitude' to the festival but it was not a winner. Darn. I will be curious to see my competition. Tickets are $10 in Advance, $12 at the door. Let me know if you want to go, and I'll buy advanced ticket price tickets and meet you at the door.

The Adventure Journal messages that I sent after the Of Global Interest Everest Expedition in May 2002, are being published monthly on www.theNepalDigest.org. To go directly to the expedition find: #9. The Trek to Everest Base Camp By Heather O'Neal, Ann Arbor, MI at:
http://thenepaldigest.org/year14volIIIissue1/news_item.asp?NewsID=11

Have you discovered the radio show on Sunday afternoons between 3 and 5 PM on WCBN, 88.3 FM? "Sounds from the Sub Continent" sound really great throughout the house! Listen to the show live around the world at www.wcbn.org.

I have a new brochure for my cultural talks, slide shows, movie presentations, Everest shows and more. If you know anyone in need of a speaker for their next event, party or for a school, I am available. I visited Shelly Woodrich's seventh grade classes at Meads Mill Middle School in Northville on January 13. The Northville Record came with a photographer -- big news! There was a great article in the paper on January 16. Brochures for the B&B are also available. Just send an e-mail with your address.

The Fall 2002 Of Global Interest Random Acts of Kindness Fund Report is finally ready. It describes how the $850 in the Fund was spent on my last trip. Those who donated will automatically get a copy in the mail. If you would like a copy, send your address. As of today, I have $496 in the fund for my next trip to Nepal in October. I am registered for a class on "Starting a Nonprofit" in hopes of attaining 501(c)(3) status soon.

Play the bells in the tower at Kerrytown Market and Shops downtown Ann Arbor every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 12:00 noon to 12:30. Kids love it! Adults are sometimes too shy to admit how fun it is. I am there Wednesdays and Fridays, second floor above the market.

Quote of the day:
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. --Mark Twain

And something to ponder: The large power blocks of the world talk passionately of pursuing peace while burgeoning defense budgets bulge, enlarging already awesome armies, and devising even more devastating weapons. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A SPECIAL thank you to Steve Olsen! Your writing is beautiful, highly detailed and amazing! The mission of my business is "to bring you around the world and bring the world around to you." Your journal very eloquently brings the world home. Especially today, the need to travel and get to know and understand life and people in other lands, is great. Thank you! Heather O'Neal Of Global Interest LLC Adventure Travel Ann Arbor, Michigan (734) 369-3107 www.ofglobalinterest.com (This message is about 7 pages.)

Part IV of Steve Olsen's Journal

If you recall, I had left you hanging as we arrived in Lukla at the end of our trek. But it wasn't the end of our adventure...

Thursday, Oct. 10 (continued)

The Sherpa Guest House, Pemba's Uncle's house, is more of a local's lodge than a tourist lodge. The dining room is small, there are fewer guest rooms, and the family is living with the guests. As we come in, wet and tired we see a couple of Sherpas with backpacks huddling in one corner who look at us almost suspiciously, I suppose because western tourists don't usually stay here. It is a happy, friendly house with a couple of toddlers wrestling and laughing underfoot, and Pemba's Aunt smilingly presiding. There seems to be an endless stream of friends, neighbors, and hangers-on coming and going into the kitchen, out the door, up and down the steps, back and forth -- we see the same people returning several times, going into the kitchen. It is all very strange to us. I am eager for an opportunity to see the workings of a lodge kitchen, so I ask if it is O.K. for me to go in.

The Kitchen has a life of it's own. It is a small room, about seven feet by ten feet, with the actual cooking/working part very efficiently arranged, using a little less than half of the space. The largest part of the kitchen is taken up by benches where there are six or seven of the rotating crowd sitting and socializing, having a grand time, as if in a separate place altogether.

The stove is the biggest thing in the kitchen. It is about three feet by four feet, made of masonry with a metal top surface, which has a single round hole over the firebox. It is fired by wood that is cut in about two-an-a-half foot lengths. These burn at the end beneath the hole in the stovetop, and there is usually someone on a low stool in front of the stove whose job is to tend the fire, placing and moving the wood to maintain the highest possible flame. Hung over the stove are skillets, utensils, and a basket of garlic. There is a large wooden smoke hood over the stove and inside the hood are hung a number of pieces of some kind of meat left to smoke. There is a water pipe that runs through the stove to supply warm water to the sink. To the left of the stove is the sink, which is more like a trough about three feet long. Over the sink are shelves for glasses and a wire rack for all sizes of stainless steel plates and baskets of silverware. To the left of the sink are shelves for bowls, mugs, and miscellaneous pots and pans including several pressure cookers of various sizes. Pots, pans, and dishes are washed as they are used -- by hand, under warm water (no soap), and then returned to their shelf. On the stove top, there are large thermos containers full of hot water standing by, also one with milk tea and one with Sherpa tea (Yak butter, and salt -- definitely an acquired taste.)

To the right of the stove is a cabinet with a deep drawer for more pots. The top of this cabinet is the only available counter space. It is about twelve inches by eighteen inches. All cutting, mixing, and prep work is done here. There is an acrylic cutting board hanging on the wall above for chopping and slicing. Spices, condiments, and dry supplies (not a large variety) are on top of the cabinet and on an adjacent window sill. This is the working part of the kitchen. There is usually someone at the sink whose job is washing and serving, someone in front of the stove tending the fire, and a third person doing the cooking. It is very tight quarters for everyone, but they seem to be used to the crowding, and the whole thing works like a well-rehearsed dance.

Pemba is cooking tonight. There is a huge pressure cooker at the back of the stove that is full of rice for Daal Bhat, a smaller one with lentils. Pemba juggles lots of things at once with great skill, sauteing vegetables, pressure cooking them quickly, saving them in another pot to stay warm, pressure cooking pasta, shredding cheese, putting it all together, tossing pots into the sink to be washed as they are used. Pemba seems to time things in the pressure cooker by how many times the relief valve spits. He seems to know how many spits are needed for each kind of food to cook properly.

The group of men on the other side of the kitchen is completely oblivious to the cooking. They are in an animated discussion and drinking something that looks like cloudy lemonade. I am invited to sit with them, and I squeeze into the group, setting my black tea down on the small table. A wizened old guy sitting next to me pushes my tea mug aside and puts an empty mug in front of me. He holds up a plastic pitcher of the cloudy liquid, looks at me sternly, and says, "Chang?" I try to politely refuse, but looking around at the other faces, see that refusing would be a social blunder. So he fills my mug to the brim. They all look at me with a telltale smirk that says; "Now we will watch the tourist make a fool of himself!" I realize that I must pass this test. They all watch expectantly as I take the first hesitant sip.

I find out later that Chang is homemade Sherpa beer, made from millet. It turns out to be actually tolerable and fairly low alcohol content. I can get it down without gagging or any other negative reaction. They seem a little disappointed, but more willing to accept me now. My new friend sitting next to me acts as host, and in the fashion typical in situations such as this the world around, does not let anyone at the table have so much as a sip of their Chang without his going around refilling all mugs to the brim. The group goes from a dead calm watching me take my first tentative sip to a raucous good time in minutes. Fast-paced conversation, more Chang. Ignore the cooks, more Chang. I don't understand a word, more Chang. Everyone laughs at some joke, more Chang. We compare teeth, more Chang. Complain about the rain, more hang.

My new friend asks me (with lots of help) how old I am. I tell him I am 57, and for the first time he is speechless, the room is silent. In return I ask him his age -- he tells me he is 41. The hard life of the mountains takes a toll -- life expectancy here is around 52. He is about 15 years younger than me, but looks more like 15 years older than me. They are all happy that I am managing to drink the Chang so well. I am thankful, thinking that in my time I have had a lot worse. They continue to keep an eye on me, tallying how much I drink, but they have accepted me into their group. I learn that Pemba's Uncle makes the Chang himself, and now I understand all the comings and goings at the house. I have seen this phenomenon before -- cheap homemade booze equals lots of instant friends.

After I have drunk several mugs of the stuff, Pemba finally rescues me by telling me that my dinner is ready. I make my apologies and take leave of the group among much well-wishing (and toasting -- more Chang.) After dinner, the hostess gives Mary Jane a complete Sherpa outfit - Silk shirt, dress (Chuba), and hand-woven striped apron. She spends some time showing Mary Jane the proper way to wear it, which is complicated by lots of cinching and tying and adjusting. In the end, it fits very well because Mary Jane is about the same size as the average Sherpa woman -- small. They stand together in their matching outfits and almost look like sisters. They have bonded, even without the help of language. We have definitely enjoyed our short visit at the Sherpa Guest House.

Friday, Oct. 11

We wake early. Before you know it we take our last pictures of our porters, Kame and Chukba, and are on our way to the airport. Lukla airport is a model of efficiency in terms of getting airplanes in and out. There are no flights if there is even a hint of a cloud anywhere nearby, and they don't fly in the afternoon because of tricky air currents. So all the planes come in a wave early in the morning.

There are no flight numbers; you are given a boarding pass that says you are on the third (or second, or fourth) Yeti (or Cosmic, or Nepal Air) flight. Count the planes and be ready when yours gets here. There are only four parking spots on the apron, so the planes have to be turned around fast, to make room for the next one on the way in. Arriving passengers are hustled off the plane and into the terminal by a serious-looking policeman with a loud whistle. Baggage is unloaded from the plane and dumped in a pile on the tarmac next to/under the plane. Departing baggage is loaded from carts (it's a miracle that the two piles aren't confused) and new passengers are loaded, all in about ten minutes. Then the plane (whose engines have been running the whole time) taxis over to the runway, turns and points downhill, and with a roar of engines, disappears down the slope and off the side of the mountain.

We get on the sixth plane to arrive in the space of twenty minutes and now it is our turn to fling ourselves over the edge of the precipice. I get the same front-row center seat I had coming up (why doesn't anyone else want to sit up here and enjoy the view?) As soon as he rounds the turn from the parking apron, the pilot guns the engines and we plunge headlong down the steep slope. The plane lifts just as we go over the numbers at the far end of the runway, with a margin of maybe sixty feet from the cliff's edge. Mary Jane, poor thing, is in tears. All in all a smooth, if hair-raising takeoff.

We then have an uneventful flight over ranges of hills covered with farms, houses, trails, and villages to Kathmandu. After wrestling the luggage into a cab, the ride into town is as frightening as the flight. We're at the hotel by 9:30 and in the (hot!) shower by 9:31. Then we spend the rest of the morning and afternoon wandering the nearby streets.

We went to the Rum Doodle for dinner. It is a big restaurant that caters to mountain climbers. There are big boards on the wall that have been signed by all who have summitted Everest. Summitters are given the privilege of eating free here for life. It has just moved into a new building, which is huge by local standards. The kitchen is all new, stainless steel, etc., but the food is still Nepali - strange, not quite what you expect from the description on the menu, somehow unidentifiable. We run into Heather's friend Wongchu Sherpa, who has summitted Everest twice. I have met him before, at the hotel and at the airport, but in this place I am suddenly in awe of a man who has been to the top more than once.

Steve Olsen
onespeed@umich.edu 1007 Lincoln Ave.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104-3526
(734) 763-6183
(734) 936-1549 - FAX

NOTE: There are more adventures in Steve's Journal. Let Steve or I know if you would like to read more! The journal continues with stories from Kathmandu from October 12 to 18 and the long international flight home.

Back to the journal index