Kumjung day –5Oct 25 -
Nov 15, 1998
The first site we saw when we descended into Kumjung was an elementary school’s
big field where a person was teaching some thirty or forty kindergarten through second
graders football (soccer). Emmy gave the teacher some pencils, hair scrunchies and a
Canadian flag and they allowed us to briefly visit a fourth grade classroom to take some
photos. The teacher told us that some of the students walk three to five hours over huge
mountains everyday to go to school, but the ones that live FAR away sleep over at
relatives or in the dormitory.
We walked into town and found rooms at the Everest Bakery “the highest bakery in
the world” was its claim to fame.
Tomorrow, we begin our ascent to Gokyo Ri (a mountain peak with spectacular views of
Everest.) Our first stop will be Dole or Phortse Tenga depending on the climb and how we
felt.
Our plan was to separate from Manny and Emmy at that time. We had been having a great
time with our new Canadian friends and changed our plans. We decided to go to Everest base
camp and Kala Pattar (another spectacular peak for trekkers with the closest view of
Everest without climbing it) before Gokyo. We were going to do this in the opposite order
but since they were only going to be in Nepal for 12 more days we decided to make this
change.
