It was a cold night at Base Camp, despite being curled up in all my clothes with blankets piled high on top of me. Nevertheless, I was awake early in the morning, and was blessed with a perfect view of Mount Everest. There was not a cloud in the sky, which was a well-appreciated rarity among all the others who were braving the cold for the tremendous view. Pictures do not do the mountain any kind of justice because it is the blistering cold and altitude that make it such a wrenching climb. I never would have thought I would be so lucky to wake up looking up at Mt. Everest, and I felt a greater sense of reward than I have in quite some time.

I am afraid the pictures do not make Everest look as awe-inspiring as pop-culture has made it out to be, so I will substantiate its claim to fame with a few notable facts…
1) There have only been around 900 people to reach Everest's peak
2) Over 160 climbers have died trying to reach the peak
3) For every 6 people who reach the peak, roughly one person has died
4) The peak is 8850 meters above sea level, or 5.5 miles high

After soaking up all the views I could handle, I hopped on a horse-drawn cart for the 8 kilometer trek back to Rhongpu Monastery (where the Land Cruiser was waiting). Predictably, we were only on the road for an hour before the jeep died for good. After spending a couple of hours waiting, another Land Cruiser happened by. As luck would have it, they were also heading to the Nepali border. More importantly, there was a pull-out seat in the trunk of the jeep, which meant I was back on the road with three Koreans and an American!!

We drove for most of the day trying to cover the remaining 350 kilometers to the border, but were forced to stop 30 kilometers short. The drive was amazing as it was through unmolested Tibet, and I could not get over how fortunate I was to actually be heading for Nepal after our jeep died. Although I was bouncing around like a pinball in the back of the jeep (there wasn’t a single stretch of paved road), I can think of worse things than driving parallel to the Himalayan mountain range for an entire afternoon.