13.4.2007
It’s fashionable to wear those black round Lennon glasses here with their mirror effect and leather straps on the sides. They certainly offer anonymity but not the level of protection necessary for a mountaineer! Within a short time, my head started to spin and I began to suffer the effects of heat stroke under the relentless pressure of the suns rays. So much for fashion when it results in such a dizzying glare that it makes you feel you are entering a scene from Friday the 13th!
 Now I know those beautiful glasses are not for me. I want to avoid any more head aches and vomiting and have taken to wearing my contact lenses and favorite biker glasses (a combination which proved successful on the Cho Oyu expedition last year). I put them on and am ready to receive the guy’s complements as they hand me the first hot tea of the morning - particularly welcome as my ever-precise T-Touch Tissot watch indicates that its -10°C inside the tent. Even the plastic pee-bottle is frozen like a stone! It would be useful if the electric heater was placed inside my shoes but our power supply is busy charging the mobile phones. Inevitably it will only get worse as we climb higher and we are training to face the cold. There’s no reason to lose time at our interim camp. We all are fit and so the plan is to move on and pitch our tents at Advance Base Camp (6.440m).
As I flip the controls on my watch-face between its different functions – compass, temperature and altitude read outs (Tashi’s GPS satellite navigation system is almost as correct as my watch!), I realize that the eczema on the index finger of my right hand has disappeared just as quickly as it did on Cho Oyu last year. Local air works as a balm here! Once upon a time, when I was a small girl, I wanted to switch on the lights in the hallway of the building where I lived. But someone had stolen the switch and I was electrocuted and after that was walking around with my finger pointing upwards like Spielberg’s E.T! My finger feels good here and we are snapping away taking photographs for the expedition records.
Oh, and my hair feels fine here too! During my stay in Kathmandu, my hair suffered from “serpent spin disease” (my schoolmates coined this expression!) which it characteristically retreats into in damp weather - when it crimps and is impossible to comb. But now I can easily hide it under my cap and helmet. So I have a recommendation for women: “If you want to have healthy skin and hair, go to the Himalaya. And if you need to lose weight, certainly consider the same thing…”
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