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  • Day 155

    On to the next continent...

    May 2, 2016 in Nepal ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Tomorrow we leave for South Africa! Rachel especially is excited to return to Cape Town where she studied for a semester. We leave Kathmandu in the afternoon and fly through both New Delhi and Abu Dhabi before landing in Johannesburg, South Africa. We'll travel overland to Cape Town within a few days.

    Regarding our trek on the Everest Base Camp Trail...we did not make it all the way. Unfortunately, after several days of trekking, Nick began to experience the symptoms of altitude sickness, which can be life-threatening and even deadly. We followed protocol by not ascending any further for two days to give Nick's body a chance to acclimate. However, his symptoms only worsened so we descended on foot at that point. As this illness can quickly escalate if ignored, we didn't want to take any chances with Nick's health. While it was tough to give up on that dream, we are both confident in the decision to descend. Subsequently, as the trek to Kilimanjaro ascends both higher and at a more rapid pace than what we had planned for Everest, we have decided to cancel that trek as this is not the first time Nick has experienced problems at that altitude. It is a well-documented phenomenon in fact that people have varying limits when it comes to altitude, but everyone has one. Scientists have yet to find a correlation between altitude limits and any measurable body factor. On the upside though, we really challenged ourselves with this trek, saw some beautiful landscapes, and can say that we've seen Everest in person (albeit from far away). We've included a few pictures from our eight days in the Himalayas.
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