My turn for a very quick note, as Valerio’s stuck without a connection in Khumjung.
While Valerio’s been gallivanting around playing with his satellite phone and (to paraphrase Paul- shout out #1) curling his eyelashes at various hill stations on the way to Base Camp, I’ve been continuing to gather all the things he still needs here in London and getting them shipped out by yakmail to arrive in Base Camp before he does. The main bulk of it has been a very specific energy drink which his double-Iron Man-running teammate uses and Valerio is now convinced will be the wind beneath his wings. He’d previously been relying on Red Bull and tortellini.
So, assuming this would be easy, I set out to track down this drink and eventually discovered that it is sold by only one distributor in the whole UK, in Penrhyndeudraeth (I kid you not), Wales. So I have been arranging a delivery from Penrhyndeudraeth to Pengboche via a number of other places all in need of some serious vowel culling, which involved a lot of phone calls consisting of P-for-Pappa, E for echo… and so on, ad infinitum. I’m desperately hoping it won’t all end up in Pengzhou.
But the deed is done, the box is sent (again in charge of the mysterious Man Named Zav in his white van) and I can finally turn to getting myself ready for my own trip out- I’ve discovered most of my kit consists of Valerio’s leftovers so expect lots of pictures of me looking lost at Base Camp in oversized hand-me-downs.
But for now, it’s my last weekend in civilisation (or London anyway) so I’m off to enjoy this sunshine…
Tags: 3 Comments
Yay! Shout out!
Where are you off to now?
Px
Hmm. There was me thinking the Beardmore Glacier was in Antarctica!
Are you implying that Bliss is somehow Valerio’s beard? What rot! The only heterosexual anywhere near as rampant that leaps to mind would be an admittedly diminutive action hero movie star who insists on performing many of his own stunts, at grave risk to life and limb, a plane flying, motorbike riding, couch jumping chap called Mr Tom Cruise. Or is it Graham Norton? I forget.