Its 1.30am and I'm making use of the slow internet connection and a dingy pc in the basement of the hotel. 100 rupees (1 euro) gives you unlimited access but it takes hours to get anything sent. Anyway, it's been a hell of a day.
I think Greg and I have not slept properly since Thursday night when we slept at our friend's house in Dubai. We had a flight that had to leave at 1240 hours Dubai time, but didn't leave before 1400... reason being that they lost one of the passengers in the terminal building.
Royal Nepali Airlines persisted in waiting for him and when they decided that they cannot keep a plane with the engines running and 150 people waiting on a plane in sweltering 40 degree temperatures, they wanted us to verify our luggage which added another half an hour.
To make matters worse we were seated exactly near the door, making the little air-conditioning ineffective. Even though I do not sweat a lot, on this occasion I was sweating profusely.
To pass the time Greg and I counted cockroaches running along the floor carpet. We managed to spot three in 15 minutes.
The good thing about this flight is that we managed to 'smuggle' 92 kg of luggage when we were only allowed 54kg between us. This we managed to do by turning our charm on an unsuspecting clerk and through some devious means which are better not described in public.
I did not have a passport photo - which is a requirement for the visa. There is a passport photo booth but there was nobody manning it. So after a while the officials decided to issue a visa without my taking a passport photo - probably to save them the the embarassment of their colleague disappearing without authorisation.
We were met at the airport by Robert and Victor (actually I spotted Robert and missed out on Victor - as he blends so well with the Nepali - short, dark complexion). We rushed to the Tibet (China) visa office to get the visas for Tibet sorted before 11hrs - as this would have delayed the expedition by two days.
We managed. Visas came through early afternoon. We had a pizza for lunch, and Victor then checked our expedition equipment - which resulted in my reducing the stuff I will be taking up Cho Oyu to a respectable 40kg - down from 57 kg.
We met the rest of the expedition team in the afternoon (five Brazilians and a Guatemalan girl)... they are very strong mountaineers with all of them having bagged the 6,962m Aconcagua among other peaks (as we did in January 2008).
Should the Guatemalan girl bag Cho Oyu, she will be the first person to do so from Central America. Most of the climbers intend to go for Everest after Cho Oyu. It seems that one of the Brazilian climbers intends to climb Cho Oyu without supplementary oxygen.
Well, his choice... certainly not mine! Victor gave us an overview of the climbing programme in the afternoon - summit day is scheduled for September 28, but this will always remain a tentative date as it is impossible to plan so far in advance on these big mountains.
We then proceeded to dinner where a lot of beer was downed :)
Programme for today: - late start (and a hangover, in my case) - off to Thamel (Kathmandu centre) to buy last few bits of equipment - briefing meeting with Victor at 1 p.m. - Packing: luggage will be collected at 5 p.m. - Evening/night in Kathmandu before we set off to Tibet at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning.