Namche Bazaar is the main commerical center of the Solokhumbu (the region in which Sagarmatha (Nepali name for Everest) National Park lies). There are probably 50 guesthouses. Every day there is a Tibetan Black Market (as far as I could see, they just sold comforters, but am told you could buy anything there). On Saturday they have their weekly Bazaar, which is why the traffic was so heavy on the trail Friday coming into Namche. I ran into many a “yak jam”.

The Tibetan Black Market (supposedly you can get everything, I only saw blankets)

Traffic Jam on the trail (also see how high the loads are on the porters in the background)

The walk from Phakding is pleasant enough until you get to the three hour often very steep relentless uphill section. I had my first view of Everest today.

My first view of Everest (it’s on the left)

I spent a second day here as an acclimization day (it’s at 3400m/10,500ft), so the second day I climbed up to the Japanese “Everest View Hotel” which surprisingly has very nice views of Everest, Lhotse, Ama Dablam (kinda pyramid shaped, most people’s “favorite” mountain), and Thamserku (the most technical to climb). The idea on acclimization days is to do a day hike to a higher altitude (the hotel was at 3800m) and come back down to sleep, it helps the body acclimatize.

Do I really need to go further? The view from Everest View Hotel

I met up with some people from my guesthouse, who work for the World Wildlife Foundation. We went to the Sagarmatha Polution Control HQ too. They have done a lot of work here trying to stop the people from cutting trees for fuel – they are only allowed to collect fallen wood for two weeks out of the year. They are encouraged to use kerosene to cook and they use yak dung for heating. They found most fuel (80%) was used for heating water and only 20% for fuel, so they are trying to get people to use backpiping to heat the water while they cook. The Nepali workers said they are having a lot of success.

Also found out from an Australian guy that at Kala Pattar, the highest I’ll go (5545m/18,200ft), there is only 50% oxygen compared to sea level. Wow. I saw later that it goes down about 3.5% every 500m, with Everest at 33%.

When I got back from the walk with the WWF people, I was kicked out of my hotel. I was only paying 100 rupees ($1.33) for my room because I wasn’t using the inside bathroom (it was locked) but they had a guest arrive that wanted a bathroom and would pay $10, so I was booted out. The room they offered to move me to didn’t even have a ceiling so I moved to another Guesthouse which was nicer and had cheaper food.