Sunday May 25. BC to Deboche 3800m.
Today I left base camp to start my journey home. I have spent a long time living at base camp and it did become a temporary home, but it is time to go to my real home.
Ryan stayed behind for an additional day to recover. He will join us in Kathmandu. There was no big party last night. We had beer and wine with dinner, but not much was touched. Our bodies are in recovery mode right now and did not want any alcohol.
I slept alright last night, but not great. I guess I was excited about our departure.
We had breakfast at 8am and were ready to go by 9am. Before we left we handed out tips to the cook staff for all their hard work over the last eight weeks. The porters than grabbed our bags and we were off.
We quickly passed the porters as our loads were much lighter than theirs. We had decided to go to Deboche today. This was a long walk, but Deboche is a nice place to spend the night. It is about 5000 ft lower in elevation than base camp and is in a beautiful forest.
It took us almost two hours to get to Gorak Shep where we stopped for a short break. The town was filled with Everest Marathon participants. The marathon starts in a few days and participants arrive early to acclimatize. It looks like it would be a fun, but challenging race.
From Gorak Shep we went to Lobuche where we had lunch. It was then on to Dugla and into the valley to Pheriche.
The walk through the valley was beautiful. The grass was coming ip and small purple flowers were everywhere. It was great to see the colours and smell the vegetation.
Even though we were walking down hill it was quite tiring. The smallest uphill would leave me breathing hard.
Eventually we made it to Deboche after 8 hours of walking. It was a long day. We settled into the Ama Dablam Hotel and had a nice dinner. It was the first dinner I have had off Everest in eight weeks.
Tomorrow we will head to Namche. Because we covered so much ground today, tomorrow will be a shorter day.
All is well. Angus, Al, and I are walking together.

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Susan please send all emails to my Gmail account from now on.

Monday May 26. Namche
Had a great sleep in Deboche last night. Must be all the oxygen. Had apple fritters for breakfast (yummy).
Hit the trail at 9am. Walked for 20 minutes to get to Tengboche. From there it was down hill for about 45 minutes. At the bottom of the hill we walked up hill for over an hour to make up most of the elevation we lost. Then it was a relatively flat trail for a long way.
Eventually we hit the pass above Namche and could see the town. It was a welcome site as it means we are almost out. The total walk time today was 3 hours.
The main excitement for today was when we ran into a sick porter in Tengboche. He had the initial stages of pulmonary edema. He had deen piggy backed by another Sherpa through the night to get to lower elevations.
When we came upon him hewas having a hard time breathing, he was coughing up foam and fluid from his lings and when I checked his heart rate was 118 and his oxygen saturation blood level was 83%. He was ok, but not great. I gave him some diamox and Naphadamine and we called a helicopter to take him to the hospital in Lukla. Fortunately all porters are required to have rescue insurance so this will cover the cost of his flight and the hospital.
When we arrived in Namche the town is almost deserted. It is the end of the trekking sea on and the exiting climbers are pretty much the only people around. Many of the businesses have already closed for the season. They will re-open in September when the trekkers come back.
Tomorrow we will head to Lukla and hope the weather is good and that we can fly out the following day.