After a good nights sleep, we woke at 6 to the most magnificent view of Mt. Kongde from our window, absolutely striking, and fleeting as the clouds rolled in 20 minutes later.
Breakfast of porridge and Tibetan bread, then off for a leisurely stroll of about 4 hours to Khumjung (3790mt).

Well, the first half was pretty relaxed, a beautiful walk thru pine and rhododendron forest with breathtaking views over the valley floor with soaring mountain peaks opposite.

Unfortunately, to ascend you have to climb, and the second half was back to steep steps up, until a final descent to the wonderful village of Khumjung which is the largest Sherpa village in the Khumba region.

After a long anticipated lunch we went for a walk around town, thankfully without our backpacks for the first time.
We checked out the Khumjung Gompa (monastery) famous for housing a rare Yeti Skull, a legend around these parts.
I must confess, it was a little underwhelming, a hairy dome stuck in a tiny glass and wooden box.

After many spun pray wheels, we looked over the local hospital supported entirely by donations, plus the local school founded by Sir Edmund Hillary, and once again mainly funded by the Hillary Foundation.

The school is the only secondary education within the region, with students walking for hours each day to attend. Excellent training for future guides for treks like ours!

Our lodge is pretty good, nice and cosy, but they obviously don’t know how to rotate stock as they had a cheeky red wine offering of Stanley 4lt cask Rouge Rosso with a used by date of 1998!!!

Tonight is the last with our extended group before we split off at lunch tomorrow, and it has been great fun having their company.
Mike and Rod from Canada have been great fun, with both providing plenty of laughs and stories of holidays past. It was fabulous to see how their friendship grew out of a previous trek, and shared love of travel, and survives in spite of Mikes snoring! Allegedly!
Mike will be in Chamonix just as we finish our Mont Blanc trek next year, so hopefully we will catch up with him and his wife for a rose or two.

Hannah and Steve, the Brits were a little more reserved to start with, happy in their newly engaged status, but as the days rolled on opened up more and more, with plenty of laughs and stories. They are looking to get married next September in Wales, and we have all threatened to gatecrash.
Aussie Steve kept everyone amused with a myriad of stories about his life and adventures, and provided great entertainment regaling tales of his preparation for this trek which involved watching hundreds of YouTube videos on treks to Base Camp. He had everything down pat, was all over the details of his trek, was super excited and involved in everything and everyone he met along the way, shaking hands and chatting to everyone who came past….pity he forgot to prepare his gear!
Yesterday Mike had to take him shopping for a pair of pants, the only ones he had were trackie dacks!