Land of colors and smiles

Sometimes you have dreams, but you don't truly believe they'll ever come true. That's how this trek was for me: a dream I never thought would come true.

It was 2019, it was winter, and I was working in a bar on the ski slopes. I didn't really like it; I did it because I hadn't found anything better at the time. I needed something to give me a boost of energy, a new lease of life after a monotonous season. So I started thinking about a trip. I wanted to go far, as far as possible, to see things completely different from everything we're used to. My budget wasn't very high, so I immediately discarded the African and South American dream and began to eye Asia. Vietnam, India, Indonesia... Then an ad struck me: Nepal. I started researching, and one thing I immediately understood: I would only go to Nepal if I went trekking. It wasn't a country for tourists, not for me. The options were many and tempting, but time was running out—there was only a month to go, and almost all registrations were already closed. I found an agency offering Everest Base Camp... Just mentioning it made my skin crawl! I contacted them, and they were amazed; everyone else had booked at least five months in advance! After a few days, they confirmed; they'd managed to fit me in.

It took me a week just to decide what to pack, then finally the day of departure arrived. A train to Milan, then the very long flight to New Delhi, and the shorter one to Kathmandu. There, I met up with the rest of the group, we dropped off our bags, and immersed ourselves in the colorful chaos of the capital. The next day, a minibus whisked us away on a daring six-hour journey, along narrow dirt roads, making us sweat at every sharp turn we took at a thousand miles an hour. From the window, we saw the real Nepal unfold: shacks, mud, children in the fields hoeing or pulling weeds by hand. Toward evening, we arrived at the temporary airport; the one in Kathmandu was under renovation and had no flights to Lukla. Many other trekkers, like us, were waiting for good weather to allow them to fly, and there was no room for our tents. We stayed in a shack with a local farmer. In the evening, we showed the amazed children our electronic devices.

The next day, we finally took off, on a tiny 20-seater plane, with cotton in our ears to prevent damage to our eardrums. With our noses pressed against the windows, we watched the Himalayas unfold beneath us. Finally, in Lukla, the starting point of the trek, our adventure began! It felt like another world. Here, the only connection to the outside world was by planes and helicopters, which dropped off everything the Sherpa people needed to live in Lukla. From here on, everything was transported by animal power: horses, donkeys, yaks, and... men. There are kids in flip-flops carrying enormous loads, putting the weight on their foreheads, each with their speaker blasting Indian music. There are seven of us in the group, a 21-year-old guide and three porters, the youngest of whom is 15 and is on his first job. Being a porter is the apprenticeship to becoming a guide. Each of them carries two of our bags, which can weigh up to 15 kg, but despite the weight, they always left after us in the morning, outpacing us with their flip-flops and indie music, and going to save us places in the shelter. They were always cheerful, laughing heartily at everything, even if they didn't speak any English. One evening we all played Jenga together, and it was the best. The guide won, rightfully so. It may seem ungrateful to have kids carry the weight of your backpack, but for them it's work, necessary to become guides one day, and they treated with disdain those hikers who didn't want to take a porter with them.

But let's get back to the journey. It took us eight days to reach our destination. I can't recount all the adventures, all the emotions, and all the things we saw. There would be too many. The first few days we passed through lively villages, full of color, cultivated fields, fruit trees, and children playing. Prayer wheels and stones covered with writings were everywhere. As we rose in altitude, the villages became smaller, and the peaks became larger. We saw monasteries perched on rocky outcrops, ate delicious dishes cooked on tiny stoves fueled by yak dung, played with school children, communicated with locals through gestures, and met hikers from all over the world. Reaching base camp was indeed a milestone, but never more than now can I say it was only a small part of the journey. The altitude was so demanding; to give you an idea, just changing position in bed made me gasp! The hardest part was the last day of the climb, when we set out from the highest refuge at 5,100 m and reached the summit of Kala Pattar at 5,568 m. It took us all morning; it was an immense effort of will for me, but what a satisfaction! From the summit, a unique spectacle: Everest, Lothse, Ama Dablam...

The descent was much quicker than the ascent, because obviously we no longer had to acclimatize. As we descended, the comforts increased; the first evening we ate a hamburger, the second we took a shower after more than a week. We were preparing to return to civilization. The return to Kathmandu was traumatic, the heat was stifling. But we enjoyed the last day among monuments, markets, and shopping. Then came the sad moment of leaving this colorful land, with the promise of returning soon...