EBC.

By the time we made it to Rongbuk Monastery - four bedraggled days later - we were a little dispirited - by the long, lonely roads, the tiny, impoverished villages, the lack of sustenance. (Tibet, for all its blue skies and beauty, is terribly inhospitable in nearly all other respects. Nothing grows; food is imported from China proper, and, as such, is costly and generally non-perishable. The trip's diet consisted mostly of plain chapatis and soda crackers.)But then, almost suddenly, there we were, at the world's highest monastery, looking, on an unusually clear, cloudless day, at the world's highest mountain.


We settled into one of about fifteen tents nestled in the rocky valley running perpendicularly toward Everest.


"The Yak and Yeti" was indistinguishable from its neighbors; a stove, which also served as a furnace, was wrapped around a support pole in the center of the tent. One continuous bench marked the periphery, where we'd sleep head-to-toe. Two flaps cut into the tent's slopes let in frosty sunlight.

The trek to the Base Camp - 5km from the Yak and Yeti - felt like walking across the imagined terrain of a strange moon. The roads was full of clefts and dips, framed by igneous boulders and small valleys of purple and green pebbles. The sky was very blue; it was frigid and windy and the air up here - 5,200m high - was noticeably thin. In the far-off distance, Everest loomed like castle. Progress was therefore slow; we paused more than once for water and to rub some circulation into our raw ears and noses.

Finally arriving at the Base Camp - frantic prayer flag streams and a small cluster of Chinese foot soldier tents - felt like a mighty achievement. We were lucky, we were told; the weather had been particularly forgiving, and afforded us a brilliant view of the mountain.

We returned to the Yak and Yeti, and picked at oily noodles and played cards until the sun set (Everest blushed soft pink), after which I skipped outside to stare at the brightest sky of stars yet. The next morning, we would continue on the trickiest bit of the trip - the drive to the Nepalese border.