The next morning we left Gorek Shep and headed to Periche. Going down is definitely much easier than going up and we were able to cover much ground. We backtracked in the way we had walked the day after we’d crossed the pass. As said before, part of the path from Lobuche to Gorek Shep was over a glacier, but a stable one. On the way back (only 2 days later), part of the path had changed from the glacier’s constant moving nature, and this was the safe, well-traveled glacier! Just shows how quickly the glaciers are melting and changing.
For lunch we stopped at the Italian Pyramid again, luckily we were all feeling much better than the last time we were here. It’s amazing how much going down in altitude only a few hundred meters can make a huge difference in how one feels. I had so much more energy and was hungry for the first time in days. We practically inhaled our lunches of fried rice and noodles. We also got a Coca-Cola which was really affected by the altitude. Altitude totally changed the nature of the carbonated drink and it almost exploded when opening it, being really fizzy immediately and completely flat when we drank it. The change in air pressure with altitude is crazy.
After lunch we continued heading down, down, down towards a town called Periche. As soon as we left Lobuche (the town of the Italian Pyramid), it started raining/hailing/snowing for a bit so we walked really fast. We spent most of the rest of the day walking. Eventually it stopped the snowing and became sunny again. We briefly stopped to take pictures of a majestic horse and to watch some yaks and naks cross a whitewater river. We made it down to the valley near Periche and walked through huge fields of yaks. I have particularly fell in love with the yaks as they are super cute and fluffy. We made it to Periche in the early evening. Periche is one of the trekking towns that got badly hit by the 2015 earthquake. Even now, 3 years later, the damage can still be seen and there’s rubble of many fallen buildings still around everywhere. However, there is still a good clinic here by the Himalayan Rescue Association with many American and European doctors, so there was the constant sound of rescue helicopters in the air.
The tea house we stayed in was super cute, but even the earthquake’s effects could be seen here (a giant crack ran through the floor, wall, and ceiling of the bathroom). We spent the evening playing cards as usual. The next morning we woke up and began the long descent to Namche Bazar. Most of the morning was pretty uneventful. By this time in the trek, prime trekking season had finished (due to upcoming monsoon season) so we were some of the only other trekkers we saw that day. The land of the high mountains transitioned into the lower hill-land throughout the day. We said goodbye to the big snowy mountains one last time before getting down. From this point on, we were backtracking exactly where we had walked before on the way up.
For lunch we stopped at Tengboche. It was really strange because the lodge seemed practically abandoned due to it no longer being ‘trekking’ season and we were one of the only ones eating there. However, Luca decided that the best bathrooms of the entire trip were at this lodge. We continued walking again after lunch towards Namche. The afternoon was also not very eventful and we walked and walked and walked. The last mile or so to Namche was spent walking through the clouds. We finally made it to Namche and we were happy to be finished walking for the day. We had walked around 13-14 miles to Namche.
We again stayed at the Footrest lodge that we had stayed at on our way up. The people here were very kind and we enjoyed the environment. We walked around some in the evening and played cards for a long time before heading to bed.
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