Day 6 (Oct 30) – Namche Bazaar

The first night of sleeping at 3500 meters didn’t really go that well for me.  All night I was sort of asleep, then awake, then asleep, then awake.  One time I woke up and could feel my heart beating really fast, which was weird.  But this morning I was fine, just a little tired.  I think it will take time to adjust to the altitude.  After breakfast, we set off on a short walk in the area above Namche Bazaar.  We didn’t do anything strenuous, but we did get up above the town a little bit and we were able to see some beautiful views.  We even got a glimpse of Mt. Everest in the distance.  Then the group split in two – one group climbed up another couple hundred meters to get a view of the surrounding valley, while the rest of us took a lower elevation route around the back side of Namche over to the monastery.  We still had a really great view of the area, without the climb (which I felt was better for my knees and my adjustment to the altitude).  We got back to the hotel around lunchtime.  At that point I was feeling really exhausted, but some food and hot tea really helped.  After lunch, we walked over to the same café as the day before to have a coffee.  We then browsed the local shops and people bought various souveniers, gifts, and hiking apparel.  Now we are back at the hotel waiting for our dinner.  Italians are really not down with dinner at 6:30pm, especially since we keep eating lunch at Italian time (1 or 2pm), but we still manage.  Eating dinner earlier allows us more time to digest food, which I am told happens a bit slower at high altitude (as if my digestive system didn’t already work slowly enough…).  Tomorrow morning we set off hiking again, so tonight is a night to rest up and get our things in order.  

I spoke with one of our contacts in Kathmandu this evening, and he tells me that our shipment cleared customs (hooray!), so hopefully tomorrow the boxes will fly to Lukla and then the porters will carry them up.   We hope they will arrive only one or two days after we do, but we will see.  We’ll try to get some information tomorrow to see how things are progressing, but we made it past the first hurdle so that is good.  
Til next time...

Day 5 (Oct 29) – Monju to Namche Bazaar

Last night I finally slept for several hours when I fell asleep around 9:30pm and woke up on my own around 6am. It was great.  The porters were ready to take our bags by about 7am, but we were able to take a leisurely breakfast and start hiking around 8:30.  Shortly after leaving Monju, we entered the Sagarmatha National Park.  Although we still passed through a few small towns after that point, it was less developed than the day before.  A couple hours into our hike we stopped for a cup of tea. I think I am in love with Nepalese milk tea.  It’s so good!  We then continued hiking but had to go very slowly because from that point on we really began to gain altitude. Once we crossed above 3,000 meters I could feel it in my breathing, but we all just went really slowly and everyone did just fine. There was one point on the hike where we could see Mt. Everest in the distance for the first time, and that was pretty cool.  

We arrived in Namche Bazaar (our stopping point for the day) around 1:30pm.  We checked into a pretty nice hotel where we can all have a bed and a warm shower tonight and tomorrow.   Namche Bazaar is at about 3500 meters, and we will stay here all day tomorrow to adjust to the altitude.  We had a great lunch at the hotel (for me, white rice and chicken curry… yum!) and then set off on a short walk around town.  We first had a coffee in a nearby lodge and I am happy to say that all of my Italian friends ordered Caffe Americano… I think it’s because it’s cold outside and they wanted something large and warm to drink (although I drank mine nice and slowly like one should).  We went in a couple shops and our group leader, Gianpietro, introduced us to the storeowner who is a friend of his.  This is good because it means we can be sure we are getting a good price.  Trekking gear is pretty cheap here so it is tempting to buy a lot of things (although so far I have resisted)!  Now we are relaxing at the hotel before dinner. 

I am enjoying our group so far – they are all really nice and do a good job of staying together while we hike. Even if we split up a little, no one is ever alone and eventually the group ahead will wait for the others to catch up.  We also do a good job looking out for each other – sharing water and food when necessary, and making sure we’re all feeling alright.  They ask me often about my sore knee (which today feels surprisingly a little better than yesterday).  I think we should have a good time together over the coming weeks.  They help me with my Italian too and I occasionally help them with English.  We also have two Nepalese trekking guides with us.  One is quiet, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him say anything.  The other (Ves) is very friendly and knows Gianpietro well from traveling with him over the years (he calls Gianpietro “Sir Peter”).  It’s nice to feel like we are in good hands while we are here.  Tonight we’ll have dinner altogether and then tomorrow will be a rest day.  I look forward to taking a stroll through town and browsing in the shops where it seems less likely that the owners will immediately flock to me and try to get me to buy there things and haggle over prices. It’s much more relaxing here than in Kathmandu!  Monday morning we will set off again and continue gaining altitude, so it will be nice to have some down time before that.  

Side note for Tyler and Mike and anyone who has seen our photos from Pompeii: Earlier today I saw our luggage being transported along the trail while we were walking.  I realized that our bags aren't actually being carried on the backs of sherpas or porters, but instead they are strapped on the backs of animals - something resembling a yak.  I kind of feel like we have the Nepali version of donkey slaves!

Day 4 (Oct 28) – Kathmandu to Lukla to Monju

We started very early on Friday morning, meeting for breakfast at 5:30 and heading to the airport promptly at 6am.  The domestic terminal in the Kathmandu airport was an interesting experience, and I am thankful our trekking guides where there to help us through the process of getting tickets for an early morning flight to Lukla.  If you don’t get out early, sometimes you have to wait until the next day to depart because it can get cloudy in the afternoon and then the pilots won’t go.  We got a flight at 7:45, which was pretty good.  It was a tiny prop plane with only one row of seats on each side of the plane.  I think there were maybe 15 passengers total.  Needless to say it was an eventful flight.  It was only 30 minutes, but it was so interesting to get up out of the haze of Kathmandu and finally see the Himalayas on the horizon.  Of course we felt every wind gust and updraft, which at times made it feel like we were on a roller coaster instead of a plane.  Landing in Lukla is also an adventure.  The Lukla airstrip is right in the mountains so seemingly out of nowhere the plane touches down and comes to a very quick halt on a runway that is slanted upward.  You get ushered off the plane quickly so that the next group of outbound tourists can get on.  After that we went to a lodge where we met our trekking guides and had a cup of hot tea.  Our porters gathered our luggage and prepared to carry it up for us while we got our daypacks ready and organized ourselves for hiking.  

We set off in a very large group, even though there are only 8 of us who are actually traveling together.  Our hike started at about 9:30 with a break for lunch around 11:30 (which lasted until at least 1:00) and then we finally reached our destination around 3:30pm.  Our final altitude today isn’t very different from Lukla (about 2800 meters) but we had a lot of up and down during the hike – it was by no means flat but it also wasn’t anything too difficult.  I have never seen such a crowded trail.  We were surrounded by people all day and several times I had to make sure I could actually see one of my group members in front of and/or behind me.  We also seemed to just walk through towns and villages all day.  So although it’s in many ways very rustic, it’s also very populated around here and we are by no means out in the wilderness alone.  That has its advantages and disadvantages I guess.  


Overall it was a good day… beautiful scenery, good company, and a nice hike.  My knee is hurting just a little bit, but I wore a neoprene sleeve all day and that seemed to help (so far no swelling).    I am just trying to hike slowly and go easy on it.  I am thankful that after tomorrow we get a full day of rest.  I think that will help.  After that just 3 days of hiking.  Hopefully my knee can handle that!  I tried to get a lot of photos today but it was hard with my hiking poles in hand and the crowded trail that I had to dodge through.  But there are still many photo opportunities ahead!

Nepal Day 3 (Oct 27) - More Kathmandu tourism

On the first night in the hotel I didn’t get to sleep very easily, I think because of the time change, even though I was totally exhausted.  Therefore on the morning of day 3 I was awakened by a knock on the door by my colleagues around 8am reminding me to get up and enjoy the day.  After some breakfast we set out for some tourism.  We took a taxi over to one of the Kathmandu neighborhoods where there is a big stupa (see photo on the right), a monestary, and other Buddhist statues and temples.  It was fun to walk around during this time of festival and see all the people out and about.  Of course we were constantly encouraged to buy their wares.  We also had to watch out for the monkeys!!  We made our way back toward the hotel around lunch time and had a great meal at an Indian restaurant.  I had not had chicken tikka masala and naan in ages and it tasted so good.  After lunch we took a taxi over to another part of town where there is another big stupa and more shops to peruse.  For dinner we met up with a couple other colleagues and went to (what I assume to be) the only Italian restaurant around (at least in our neighborhood).  The pasta was alright.  I tried to just think of it as carbo loading for our hike.  It was a fun day of touring around before setting off early the next day for the mountains.

Adventures in Nepal: Days 1 and 2 (October 25-26)

My trip to Nepal started Tuesday morning with a flight out of Lamezia Terme around 9:00 am.  I was worried that my trip was off to a bad start when 10 minutes before walking out the door to go to the airport (about 6:50am) I put on my backpack and one of the strap connections just broke right off.  The plastic connection appeared to have melted at some point, and the weight of the pack caused the connection to just crack in half.  I had a minor panic attack, but Tyler came to the rescue and rigged up a temporary connection using one of the plastic fittings from his pack, some nylon cord, and a safety pin.  I still have to make a stronger connection before I start hiking, but it at least got me through my travel to Kathmandu.

I flew from Lamezia to Milan, where upon my arrival I met up with a technician from a company in Milan who needed to deliver some spare parts that we had ordered for our instrument.  He was very kind and even drove me over to the other terminal in the rain so that I could meet my colleagues and catch my next flight.  Soon after arriving there, I met up with the technicians from Rome (Giulio and Stefano) who are here to help me set up our mercury analyzer. We had plenty of time to kill before our flight out of Milan so we had a chance to visit and even track down three other guys (Carlo, Roberto, andPaolo) who were traveling to Kathmandu on the same flights as us and will also do the trek with us. We all went through check-in together and have pretty much been together ever since.

We flew from Milan to Doha, Qatar.  That flight was about 5 or 6 hours.  The time passed reasonably quickly with the help of a few episodes of Six Feet Under and a decent meal served by Qatar Airways.  In Doha we had to wait for about 2 hours to catch our next flight to Kathmandu, which left at 1:20am.  The flight from Doha to Kathmandu was shorter – maybe 4 hours. That one was a little tougher because I really just wanted to sleep at that point, but I never do that very well on the airplane and Qatar Airways seems to think that serving a meal at 2am (basically second dinner for us) is completely normal.  Essentially the cabin lights were never dimmed so it was hard to get much sleep.  We arrived in Kathmandu around 8:45 am local time.  I learned that Kathmandu is 3 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Italy.  I still need to figure out why they have chosen not to extend that time difference by 15 minutes. We had to wait quite a while for our bags after getting our Nepalese Visas, but eventually we got them and everything was still in tact – no damage or lost articles.  I consider that a success anytime I check a bag. 

When we exited the airport we walked right into the smog and chaos of Kathmandu. Fortunately we had two drivers waiting to take us to our hotel so we could ignore the crowds of other taxi drivers offering their services to us. Our drivers greeted us with a sort of Nepalese-style lei for each of us – bright orange carnations strung together with the occasional purple or white flower mixed in. It was then that we learned that it is festival here in Nepal for about 4 days (today being day 2).  Someone told me this is pretty much like Christmas for the Nepalese in terms of its importance of a holiday for everyone.  There are bright orange flowers hanging in almost every door and window and there are people everywhere!  The drive to our hotel was interesting needless to say – there were people everywhere on foot, in cars, and on mopeds.  I thought Cosenza traffic was bad, but it has nothing on Kathmandu.

We arrived at a very nice hotel where we met up with another two Nepalese men who have helped coordinate our expedition.  We had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and they filled us in on the plans for the next couple days.  Basically we have today and tomorrow to hang out in Kathmandu.  Then very early Friday morning we will take a short flight from Kathmandu to Lukla and begin our trek.  However, it was during our meeting with these guys that I learned that our instrument has not, in fact, arrived in Kathmandu.  This is not news I wanted to hear, although I’m not really surprised.  Because it is festival for the next few days, the customs office is closed so even once our cargo arrives, it cannot clear customs until at least Sunday. But we start hiking Friday.  I was worried for a while, but about an hour ago I spoke to my boss Francesca and she had already spoken with our contact in Bergamo who organized the shipment.  I guess our box should arrive today or tomorrow and it will have to sit at the customs office until Sunday the 30^th.  After that, the porters will bring it up faster than normal so that it will arrive around the same time we do at the station.  This is the plan.  If it goes as I have described I think it will be a miracle, so please keep your fingers crossed for us!! Otherwise we’ll just be kickin’ it at 5,000 meters.

Anyway, after we got settled in our hotel rooms we set out for a walk around town to see the local shopping area, exchange our Euros and Dollars for Rupee, and find some lunch. The streets were swarming with people and it was a little overwhelming.  Kathmandu is fairly run down, but it has its charms.  It’s kind of like a more extreme version of Naples, if you can imagine that.  The little shops are full of pashminas, jewelry, hiking gear, and interesting local artwork.  It’s just a little hard to enjoy it between the mopedszooming past every second and the street vendors constantly walking up to you trying to get you to buy their stuff. Once we took care of the money exchange we went to a really great restaurant for lunch.  I had a typical local dish called dal-bat, which is a plate of white rice with little dishes of different sauces and vegetables to put on top of it.  It was fantastic. That dish, a beer, and a coffee cost me only 9 Euros, too.  Awesome. 

After lunch we got a taxi and headed over to a neighboring town called Patan where there are more interesting shops and some historic buildings and temples.  Getting a taxi was really interesting and I’m not sure how to describe it.  It involved a lot of big vans lined upon the side of the road and a lot of yelling Nepalese men.  It got us where we needed to go.  We did have an extra passenger in our taxi, though, and I could tell right away he was American.  It turns out he was born in Seattle and now lives in Grand Rapids.  If you could see the scene in Kathmandu, you would be thinking what I was thinking… What are the chances he and I would end up in the same taxi together?  He runs and NGO here and spends about 3 months a year in Nepal. We chatted for a while during our ride, which helped me ignore the insane traffic.  Our walk around Patan was really nice but we were all getting tired at that point, given our sleepless night, so we eventually came back to the hotel to relax for a while.  A hot shower has not felt that good in a while.  We may go out a little later for some dinner, but really I just want to sleep!  Tomorrow we will likely do some more walking around and then get ready for our trek.  We have to be ready to go at 5am Friday morning.

So that’s the story so far.  Overall things are going well (minus the missing instrument…).  I am happy that the guys I am with are friendly and nice.  I was worried about being the only woman but so far that has not mattered at all.  I am getting to know Giulio and Stefano better all the time and I think they will be great to work with. 

I’ll try to write every couple days to fill you in on my goings on.  Check back for more updates on my adventures in Nepal!

Travel, visitors, and the arrival of fall weather!!

We are long overdue on a general update about the goings on over here in Italy.  We apologize for the long silence!  Here's what has happened since our last post... 

Back in September Tyler took a trip to Oxford for an environmental history conference where he presented some work from his dissertation.  The talk went well and he really enjoyed his couple days in England.  From there he flew to Seattle for his good friend Paul’s wedding.  While in the northwest Tyler got to see a lot of family and friends, and he was really glad to be able to attend the wedding with all of his best buddies from Western Washington University. 

Shortly after Tyler’s return to Italy, our friend Mike Christianson arrived from Ann Arbor.  He spent about 10 days with us in Italy.  During that time we spent a weekend outside of Naples (see photos in my other recent blog post) and a weekend in Rome.  In between, Mike stayed with us in Cosenza.  We really enjoyed having him here and getting to see some parts of Italy we hadn’t visited before.  Now we are looking forward to Tyler’s mom, Laurie, visiting in December for about a week.  Who will be next after that?  Our tour guide skills are getting better and better and we look forward to more of you coming over to see us! :-)

Thankfully fall weather has also arrived in Cosenza.  During the day it has still been reasonably warm, but very comfortable and the evenings are cool.  Once the sun goes down (which keeps happening earlier and earlier...) it is definitely "sweatshirt weather", which Tyler will tell you is my favorite time of year.

In other news, some of you heard in recent months that I might have the opportunity to travel to Nepal this fall to set up a monitoring site in the Himalaya.  Well, that possibility has become a reality.  I leave on Tuesday!!  There is a monitoring station near a Mt. Everest base camp where we (the CNR-IIA) have arranged to set up one of our mercury monitoring instruments as part of the big international project I am working on.  I went to Bologna in March with a couple colleagues to discuss the possibility and logistics of going there with our equipment. Then in recent months we tried to figure out when we could go and who could actually take on the responsibility.  Because there is also an oceanographic campaign happening around the same time, I will actually be going with two technicians from Rome who I met a couple weeks ago.  They seem like nice guys, and I hope we all get along because we'll be together for 4 weeks!!

We leave October 25 and fly to Kathmandu (via Qatar).  We will spend a full day in Kathmandu, and the next day we will take a small airplane to a town called Lukla.  Many tourists go to this town when they want to hike toward Mt. Everest.  From Lukla we will hike for about 6 days from small town to small town until we reach the monitoring station, which is located at 5,050m!  It's called the Pyramid, because it literally was built in the shape of a pyramid.  It is an Italian monitoring station that was built about 20 years ago and is staffed year round.  The six-day trek includes at least one day where we stay at the same town all day to acclimate to the altitude.  In fact we hike relatively slow (compared to Tyler Cornelius hiking standards), hiking about 5-7 hours a day and stopping for meals so that we don't go up in altitude too quickly.  Once we arrive at the station we will stay there for 12 days to install our instrument and train the technicians there on how to monitor/maintain it.  Twelve days is actually a little long for the amount of work I need to do up there, but we are traveling with a technician from Bologna who goes to/from the site a couple times a year so we need to hike up and back with him since this is our first time.  At the end of our stay we will hike back down in about 3 days, then fly from Lukla to Kathmandu, spend a day in Kathmandu, and then fly back to Italy.  I will arrive in Italy on November 21. 

Overall, I am excited.  It is such an awesome opportunity to see that part of the world.  I've known for a long time that this could be a possibility and I am excited that it is now a reality.  Some things I am feeling nervous about include... (1) being away from Tyler for that long, but he assures me we will be just fine, (2) being physically ready for the hike given the knee trouble I had in August, but I did some physical therapy in recent weeks which seems to have helped, (3) having problems with the instrument when we get up there, because once we're at the site there won’t be a Lowe's or Home Depot that we can run to for tools and spare parts!  Also my technicians have only been briefly trained on the instrument we're bringing, so I am more or less the "expert".  Eek!  And, (4) the altitude.  5,050 m is really freaking high!!!  All that aside, I'm definitely excited and I am in the process of getting all my stuff in order to leave.  I may get to go again in the spring, and if that happens then I will see if I can bring Tyler along.  He's super jealous that I get to go!

When I return to Italy it will be only a couple days before Thanksgiving, and at that point I think I will be thankful to be home with Tyler.  It also happens to be our good friend Rosana's birthday that week (Rosana, her husband Martin, and their 13-year old son James have become very good friends of ours) so we are already talking about cooking Thanksgiving dinner together (at their house, given that I really don't think our oven could handle cooking a turkey).

Anyway, that's our update for now.  I'm fairly certain I will have internet at various times during my travel and for sure once I actually reach the monitoring station.  I'll keep in touch as best as possible (via Tyler if nothing else) and will take a lot of photos!

Napoli, Amalfi, Sorrento, Pompeii, and a good friend from Michigan :)

Here are some photos from our recent trip to Naples, Sorrento and the Amalfi coast when our good friend Mike came to visit in early October. We camped near a town called Vico Equense, between Sorrento and Naples, for 3 nights and did our best to see the local attractions. We went to Pompeii one day and that was really amazing! I highly recommend a visit. During Mike's stay with us in Italy, we also spent some time in Rende/Cosenza where Mike got to see the local sites and meet some of our friends. We then spent a weekend in Rome with Mike, but Tyler and I forgot our camera so I have no photos of this (hint hint Mike... send us what you have from our time there!). We had a great time while Mike was here and we were sad to part ways with him in Rome. We hope he enjoyed his visit as much as we did! Next up: Tyler's mom Laurie visits in December!

Napoli, Amalfi, Sorrento