Loading...

• By Monika Paris
• Posted October 28, 2016

Day 12: From Namche Bazaar to Lukla

Brillant sunshine woke us on the last day of our trek. We left early to be able to finish the remaining 13 miles before dark.

Trekking down from Namche is tough. The initial part of the trek is super steep and it requires a lot of concentration to place every step properly. Many hikers use walking poles to protect their knees especially after nearly 2 weeks of trekking. I personally don’t like using poles descending, I always feel they get in the way. A lot of trekkers were coming up from Lukla eager to explore one of the most beautiful places on earth, a world we were just living behind. We had to stop on several occasions to let people pass.

We had the opportunity to have tea and lunch with Pemba’s family which made the day and the entire trek very special to us. Being invited into a real Sherpa home is rare, it allowed us to get an inside glimpse of a Sherpa familiy's live.

These houses are small and very often consist of only one room. Cooking is done on a wood-burning hearth, it has one “burner” and everything is prepared using that one burner. We enjoyed a serving of Sherpa Bread, Momos, and milk tea. Delicious! Occasionally, neighborhood kids would stop by to see if they could score some chocolate from us.

After lunch we still had about 2 hours to hike up and down to Lukla. We were all a bit tired and could feel the cumulative effect of being on our feet for the past two weeks. When we finally got to Lukla, a sense of relief and immense gratitude combined with a feeling of achievement, f illing our faces with smiles and our hearts with joy. We were all happy to be nearly home.