some call me cammie "mountain goat" brennan.....

I'm back. I did it. I conquered Everest.....base camp that is...... I just got back a few hours ago from a smashing good weekend. As you know, we found a third person to go with us. Nick ended up not being a murderer at all! He is a fabulous professor in the north of England and is a professional photographer/videographer. We set off Wed. Morning with our Tibetan driver and guide to drive 250 km. to Shigatse and then Lhaste. The trip was fairly uneventful, consisting of Ann and I getting to know Nick and marveling and the amazing scenery. We had to stop once when a truck ahead of us fell into this hole. It was right in front of a village so when the westerners got out to stretch, all the village kids came running asking for money, food, pencils etc. After we got through that, Nick and I started taking pictures with our digital cameras. Despite adult Tibetans being very wary of cameras, the kids love it. It was a great bridge in communication. Most of them have never seen a picture of themselves and would scream with delight when they saw themselves on the back of the camera and then run back in front of you so you could take their picture again. It was a great game that could have gone on for hours, but eventually we had to go one. The second day was different. We left Lhatse to hit some serious road construction (at least 150 km of it) on the two-lane dirt mountain road to Rongbuk. About two hours in, the car stopped running. No matter how many times the driver (Tensing) tried to readjust things under the hood it wouldn't not restart. Finally our guide said, "big problem. no petrol." And with that the driver suddenly disappeared into someone else's land cruiser going the opposite direction. Our guide (Dawa) explained that he was going back to Lhatse (2 hours one way) to get fuel.......cut to five hours later.......Dawa, our guide, has also disappeared. Despite Ann's yelling at him that he could not leave us, he got into someone else's car and headed back to Lhatse. Before he did this, he had turned the ignition on in the car and it had run for two hours. By the time the driver came back with fuel, the battery was dead, Dawa was gone, and there was an hail storm going on. The driver, speaking no English tried for about 30 minutes to start the car when finally Ann stepped out in the street and hailed a Chinese bus headed towards Shigar (about 3 hours from Rongbuk). But, once we got on the standing room only bus, we realized the driver didn't follow us. We were on our way to Mt. Everest with no driver, no car, no guide, no place to stay, no papers to be traveling on this road and no permit to get into Everest. Three and a half hours of awful dirt-mountain-road driving on a bus we ended up in Shigar. We found a place to stay and called Lhasa for some serious assistance. Eventually, we were reunited with our driver, our car, our papers and permit but our guide never returned. We drove on to Rongbuk the next day. I wish there was a way I could explain Mt. Everest. It was simply wonderful. The first day it was there, it was cloudy and we watched the mountain peak in and out of clouds. The next morning, the view was stunning. The sky was perfectly clear and the mountain lay in front of the monastery in which we were staying in all its glory. (whenever I am reunited with my own computer, I will post a picture). That morning, I wandered around the monastery drinking in the sights, smells and sounds of a Buddhist monastery at the foot of Everest. While I was meandering, I ran into a young nun. I greeted her in Tibetan and she answered in English, very good English actually. She (her name is An Droma) was fascinated by my digital watch and wanted to know for how much I would sell it to her. While I've been asked several times for my watch in Tibet, no one has ever offered to buy it. I took it off and gave it to her and said "no money." She smiled a priceless smile, grabbed my hand and took me into her "cell". It was a tiny dark room with a tiny naked old woman sitting on the bed. She explained that it was her mother and that she was blind so she took care of her. She asked me to join them for Yak butter tea (um, that is rancid yak butter put in a churn with boiling water and churned until it is mixed, actually I hate it with all that is within me). Of course I said I would love to join them for some tea. We spent the next hour drinking yak butter tea, eating barely powder and sharing stories. Before I left, An Droma reached for a necklace on her shelf. She explained that she had gotten it from a temple when she went to Nepal with her parents and that it had a picture of the Buddhist goddess of compassion on it. Despite my protests, she tied it around my neck, making it clear that it was in trade for the watch. I've never received a gift so precious.