The road between Phortse Tenga and Dole is relatively short. Only three hours separated them. It is also much less traveled than the road from Namche Bazaar. As we wandered along the path – slowly, slowly as always – the panoramic Himalayan vistas that were concealed from us the day before were finally revealed. We are now only a few hundred metres below the snow line, and at over 4000m, the foliage has changed. There are no more soft pines or conifers or what appeared to be paperbark. The trees are smaller, scrubbier, and very soon will end altogether.
Dole is a sleepy little place, smaller than even the main drag of Amphitheatre, Victoria (the nearest town to where I grew up where the population is a little over 200). Constantly bells ring from the necks of grazing yaks and dzopkos. There are very many yaks here, and appreciative few which I would judge from their uncollared necks and the way at least one local chased them from his land, are wild. They are far hairier than their bovine cousins, with tails much like that of a horse, and great horns protruding from their heads. They have voracious appetites as they grazed almost continuously since our arrival a few hours earlier.
Having arrived at Dole before midday, and the weather much finer, a number of the group took the opportunity to wash soiled clothing by the river. We then laid them over rocks, as the Nepalese do, so that they would dry. The walk down to the river and back would have been much more pleasant had the 2 litres or so of fluid consumed before lunch not made for such a hasty retreat to the facilities which, in Dole consists of a small building with a hole cut into the floor. There is leaf litter piled at the back of these ‘facilities’ to cover any more substantial deposits through the gap. These composting toilets, I understand, are used to help fertilize the land on which vegetables are grown for human consumption. A practice long utilised by the Nepalese people.
The less that pristine weather has made much of the land unsafe to tread, circumventing any afternoon excursion aside from the short laundry trip. As we meandered up steep steps and great wallows of mud, the mountainside on the other side of the valley was subject to a landslide, the crack of falling rock as loud as gunfire. Aside from the road to Machermo where we will be trekking tomorrow and the road back to Phortse Tenga, there is no other real tracks to take and so any excursion would have been on very smaller, lesser used trails. Meet was concerned we could dislodge rocks.
The trails have been, thus far, steep but doable. Our lungs run out of oxygen before our legs their strength. The reduced oxygen is very noticeable on exertion, as though you were carrying an additional 16 or 20 kilograms and it will only worsen as we are to ascend another 1600 metres. Our pace, thankfully, has been slow. Regardless, we generally make each day’s trek within the approximate times as outlined in the trek overview. Even with a cold, I have had no difficulty keeping pace with that set by our sherpa guides. Today D.B. lead us and Basu was located somewhere toward the back of the group. Meet watched us all walk in turn, ever mindful and observant of signs that any one of us may be exhibiting AMS. The drone of helicopters in the valley is becoming our constant morning companion, as ever more trekkers are airlifted from the hillside.
(Postscript: This was the day I commenced the course of Cold and Flu tablets I brought with me in the hope that I could relieve my symptoms before Cho La. While my cold symptoms did subside a little, the cough persisted until I returned to Kathmandu. Developing a persistent cough is quite common in the Himalayas, I understand. It is often called the Khumbu Cough for those that develop it in the Khumbu Valley on the way to Everest Base Camp. I have since been advised by a fellow hiker that a ventolin inhaler could assist with persistent coughs developed at altitude.)
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