It is afternoon - a rest day after two hard days of walking - thank goodness - and I am sitting on the court of the balcony that is just outside my hotel room. We are in a hotel in the clouds, far above the steep valleys below. I can sense the mysterious presence of the Himalayas, high and cloud-covered and far beyond the treetops that surround the balcony. I am in warm sunshine and mist, and the air is filled with the sound of locusts. High above there are wispy, diaphanous clouds that swirl like smoke against a pale blue sky.
Black kites and crows are soaring high up here, as well as far down below. The echoes of their caws can be heard as they soar above the gently curved terraced farms that wind all the way down the hillsides into valley after valley below.
The hotel rises, earth-colored, red brick and ochre, a reflection of the Nepali landscape. Like the hills, it is tall and steep. Like the hillsides, it is multi-terraced, multi-storied, and the balconies at each level are full of growth - four and five-foot marigolds, chrysanthemums, leggy geraniums, elephant ears, and jade. Among the plants on the balcony there is a tall rosebush with a few red roses and there is also a potted tree. I rub some of the tree's needles between my fingers and smell the pungent, sweet smell of sage.
The hotel apparently began with a large main building to which has been attached more terraces of rooms and balconies and many steep stairs. Although it is somewhat compartmentalized, it is interesting, and there is a uniformity about it as if it had been built according to an original plan.
Suddenly the peace of the afternoon is broken by the loud, commanding sound of a helicopter. It is flying in from the direction of the realm of Everest. I watch as the red and white machine appears through the hazy clouds and then takes a deep turn down on the way into Kathmandu. Instead of reassurance, it fills me with a sense of dread, and the panic of last night begins to reemerge.
I remind myself that I have been awake since one a.m. and that a lack of sleep can produce many strange sensations, and that this moment of dread is just one of those sensations. But what had caused me to awaken suddenly from last night's deep sleep and suddenly experience a physical sensation equivalent to an "Uh-oh, something's really wrong?"
Last night, as I lay in bed, there was a very unpleasant sensation in my stomach and a sudden message from the body to the effect that something's going to happen and it's not going to be good. And then a second message came — "Pepto Bismol — and now!!" I reached for the Petzl headlight that I always kept at my bedside, turned it on, found the Pepto Bismol, and took a big swig.
I lay back down in the darkness. The thought of being sick is never a pleasant one and all sorts of dark imaginings surfaced from the depths of my mind. Was it finally here — the intestinal situation I had feared all along? What if it was really serious and terrible? "I'll bet it was that shower I took today," I thought to myself. After the day's 10-hour hike, I had such excitement and anticipation of having the luxury of a hot shower that I had forgotten to be careful in keeping my lips tightly closed, and some of the shower water had gotten into my mouth.
The sensations in my stomach continued and about an hour later I took another swig. Then I felt a pain in my sternum and another dark thought overtook me: "What if it's my heart?" I had severely overtaxed myself in two intense days of 10 hours of trekking each day. After the first day's climb, my heart had raced and thumped in my chest nearly all night long. And the next day I had pushed myself for another ten hours. What if I have seriously overdone it, I wondered?
I was miles away from any hospital or doctor or help of any kind. I was alone in the dark with no phone in my room and no cell phone and no knowledge of where Bhim was, and I began to panic. Then my heart really began to race and the next thought was that I might just all of a sudden quit breathing. (This was one of my big pre-trip fears: what if my body forgets how to breathe?)
I had to gain control of myself and so I began to pray. And I thought of the people who said they would pray for me and I imagined their faces and their presences and that I was with them — that all of them were circled around my bed. But it was more than imagining. I could feel the presence of these friends through their prayers. It was a long night, but, mercifully, as time passed, my stomach settled down, and I was so relieved to discover I was not going to be sick. I had brought with me a copy of Vanity Fair. At about 4 am I turned on my Petzl light and used the precious battery energy to read the article about Daniel Craig and how he is "stirred, not shaken" and thought how there was nothing like a dose of Vanity Fair to put one back in touch with reality.
In today's sunlight last night's fears just seem like a bad dream. All that had happened last night was a bit of an upset stomach and the Pepto Bismol had prevailed. Now all was sunlight through mystical mists, swirling clouds, and the call of birds over the steep hillsides. What a beautiful day. What a blessed day. I could just hear the voices from the Wizard of Oz: "You're out of the woods, you're out of the dark, you're out of the night!"
The hotel apparently began with a large main building to which has been attached more terraces of rooms and balconies and many steep stairs. Although it is somewhat compartmentalized, it is interesting, and there is a uniformity about it as if it had been built according to an original plan.
Suddenly the peace of the afternoon is broken by the loud, commanding sound of a helicopter. It is flying in from the direction of the realm of Everest. I watch as the red and white machine appears through the hazy clouds and then takes a deep turn down on the way into Kathmandu. Instead of reassurance, it fills me with a sense of dread, and the panic of last night begins to reemerge.
I remind myself that I have been awake since one a.m. and that a lack of sleep can produce many strange sensations, and that this moment of dread is just one of those sensations. But what had caused me to awaken suddenly from last night's deep sleep and suddenly experience a physical sensation equivalent to an "Uh-oh, something's really wrong?"
Last night, as I lay in bed, there was a very unpleasant sensation in my stomach and a sudden message from the body to the effect that something's going to happen and it's not going to be good. And then a second message came — "Pepto Bismol — and now!!" I reached for the Petzl headlight that I always kept at my bedside, turned it on, found the Pepto Bismol, and took a big swig.
I lay back down in the darkness. The thought of being sick is never a pleasant one and all sorts of dark imaginings surfaced from the depths of my mind. Was it finally here — the intestinal situation I had feared all along? What if it was really serious and terrible? "I'll bet it was that shower I took today," I thought to myself. After the day's 10-hour hike, I had such excitement and anticipation of having the luxury of a hot shower that I had forgotten to be careful in keeping my lips tightly closed, and some of the shower water had gotten into my mouth.
The sensations in my stomach continued and about an hour later I took another swig. Then I felt a pain in my sternum and another dark thought overtook me: "What if it's my heart?" I had severely overtaxed myself in two intense days of 10 hours of trekking each day. After the first day's climb, my heart had raced and thumped in my chest nearly all night long. And the next day I had pushed myself for another ten hours. What if I have seriously overdone it, I wondered?
I was miles away from any hospital or doctor or help of any kind. I was alone in the dark with no phone in my room and no cell phone and no knowledge of where Bhim was, and I began to panic. Then my heart really began to race and the next thought was that I might just all of a sudden quit breathing. (This was one of my big pre-trip fears: what if my body forgets how to breathe?)
I had to gain control of myself and so I began to pray. And I thought of the people who said they would pray for me and I imagined their faces and their presences and that I was with them — that all of them were circled around my bed. But it was more than imagining. I could feel the presence of these friends through their prayers. It was a long night, but, mercifully, as time passed, my stomach settled down, and I was so relieved to discover I was not going to be sick. I had brought with me a copy of Vanity Fair. At about 4 am I turned on my Petzl light and used the precious battery energy to read the article about Daniel Craig and how he is "stirred, not shaken" and thought how there was nothing like a dose of Vanity Fair to put one back in touch with reality.
In today's sunlight last night's fears just seem like a bad dream. All that had happened last night was a bit of an upset stomach and the Pepto Bismol had prevailed. Now all was sunlight through mystical mists, swirling clouds, and the call of birds over the steep hillsides. What a beautiful day. What a blessed day. I could just hear the voices from the Wizard of Oz: "You're out of the woods, you're out of the dark, you're out of the night!"
