Sunday July 12 2009
61 Days until departure.
I don't quite know what to expect.
Everyone says it’s going to be hard, that if the altitude doesn't get me, the cold will. Or the food. Or I'll be shot and kidnapped by the rebels. But I'm not quite sure if they are over exaggerating or I'm just naive. After all, it's currently 34 degrees in Nepal, I've been eating curry for as long as I remember, and I've been to a cold place before. How hard can it be! This is Super Extreme Adventure Team! We own hard.
OK, in all honesty, I KNOW it's going to be hard. Probably ridiculously hard. But that’s half the challenge. What fun would it be if I just caught a lift up the side of a Himalaya instead of pushing ourselves to our limits to see just how high we can actually go before we pass out and freeze to death! I also know, despite all the so called 'training' we've been doing for this trip - our systems will be bent, broken, battered and bruised and thrown over their limits, in a place where the vaccinations endured before setting off cost almost as much as the flights.
Truthfully I know it’s just excitement taking over in place of naivety. I'm fidgety and restless, I want to be somewhere remote and hostile. In 60 days - I will be.
James and his flakey passport leave tomorrow.
Sydney - Adelaide - Perth - China - Pakistan - India - Nepal - India - Sydney.
A little more impressive than my Sydney - Hong Kong - Nepal - India - Hong Kong - Sydney, and a lot more hostile. China has riots, Pakistan has the Taliban, Nepal has political unrest, it seems India is the safest place either of us will visit, unless we get adventurous with the food. Which we won't.
I'm half expecting to land in Kathmandu waiting for a James that never shows up. Let's hope that’s not the case. I'm going to need someone to get into trouble with.
I have no idea how we're getting from Kathmandu to New Delhi, but I like that. I enjoy not knowing. Anything could happen and I could be stuck there for weeks, maybe months, living off boiled blood and sheep testicles. I could be flying into this amazing part of the world only to get acute mountain sickness and spend 34 days in agony! (At 12,000 meters, the average person only has 9-15 seconds of consciousness, and it's not much better at 6000 meters; 5-12 minutes.) The unknown is intriguing. I don't WANT to know how I'm getting from one place to another. I don't WANT to know all the problems I'm going to face. I WANT to be there, in the thick of it.
The biggest problem I have yet to solve is how I’m getting all my camera gear in my backpack. Bah, raincoats and thermals, who needs ‘em! This is the place wide angle lenses were invented for. This is the first time I’m going properly travelling as a proper photographer. This is going to be fantastic.
60 days. It can't go fast enough. James, the prick, is already on route to Super Extreme Adventure Team Season 4.
Perhaps I should login to Facebook via iPhone, in 60 days time and set the only status that's possibly ever been worth reading.
"Sammy is at the highest place in the world, with camera, without James, and has 9 seconds of consciousness left."
Chris, on the other hand, is still in South Africa. Drunk, I’d imagine and in bed with someone who has no idea what she’s gotten herself into…
