Nepali Embassy

Visa

I visited the Nepali Embassy for my Visa and bumped into one of the medical staff who is 'manning' one of the testing stations at Namche. A South African, she has climbed to 4,500 metres and has summited Kilimanjaro. I felt slightly envious, wishing I had done these sort of things when much younger.

The flight information for the Everest trek arrived too. It seems we depart from Heathrow at 2030hrs on Gulf Air and arrive at Muscat 0720hrs (their time). We do not depart Muscat for Kathmandu until 1310hrs, so it looks like we'll have some time to kill - but I reckon we'll be restricted to the airport concourse. We are due to arrive at Kathmandu 1850hrs and then transfer to the hotel, where we acclimatise for a day and complete the first of our tests. A long period of travel.

The return journey is also quite interesting. We depart Kathmandu at 1900hrs on Gulf Air and arrive in Bahrain at 2120hrs. There is a short delay before picking up the transfer at 0110hrs to Heathrow, which arrives at 0625hrs. This will be very inconvenient if the family choose to meet me, as they will need to travel down in the early hours of the morning.

There are fourteen people on our trek, plus our guide. Three clearly are doctors, but I am expecting others to have a medical background as well. Our guide has an interesting CV. She is aged 37 and has been climbing for over 20 years. She began high altitude mountaineering in 1993, during which time she has climbed in Bolivia and North Peru. Working in the outdoor industry since 1989, she has led expeditions to Morocco, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Borneo, Nepal and India. She is also a qualified Advanced Wilderness Medic and has much experience of altitude related illness.

If you take into account the Xtreme-Everest medical staff at the four testing sites as well, somehow I don't think we'll be short of qualified medics on our trek!