The Swantek Family: Back to Lukla/Kathmandu

After our amazing sunrise, we said goodbye to Amrika and Rajeev, packed our stuff, and headed back to Namche, home of the hot shower, internet, and Oreo cookies. The next morning we trekked from Namche all the way back to Lukla-13 miles! I didn't take a ton of pictures as we hiked back the same way we came, and it started raining on the hike from Namche to Lukla. We've been so lucky with the weather so far! But we passed the same: waterfalls, Yaks, cows, mules, Sherpa families, suspension bridges, lush hills, small towns.

We found a new mountain when we woke in Namche. The clouds hide some big surprises! No idea which one it was but it's impressive.

We spent the night in Lukla and prepared for our flight back to Kathmandu the next morning. As I mentioned on the way in, flying in and out of Lukla is a tricky thing-some days all planes fly, other days many flights or even all flights get cancelled. If your flight gets cancelled it becomes tougher as you have to hope that the next day is better and that all of the regularly scheduled people make it out. You can see how it can get very backed up. We went to the airport and waited for a few hours with no activity. Niraj grabbed us and said he found a helicopter that was already doing a rescue flight (high altitude sickness is a common thing and they helicopter people out) and we could tag along for a small fee. We had been warned that a helicopter ride could be almost $1,000/person and his price was WAY lower than that. He also told us that the longer we wait the more expensive it gets as people start to get more and more desperate. They also help with paperwork in the hopes that our trip insurance will cover it (they said we had a pretty good chance). So, with the knowledge that our flight likely wasn't leaving that day, plus I'd never been on a helicopter before, we were in!