Lukla

5:00 am go to the airport over the dark bumping side roads of Kathmandu and then wait this is the beginning of solitude wait all morning then most of the afternoon because the weather is bad in the mountains. Finally the helpful airport person thinks a helicopter might do, in fact the first thing he said when we met him was maybe a helicopter...so after much negotiation five of us, plus all the bags are stuffed into a helicopter. What about the bad weather, I thought. What about all of this extra weight? So the entire trip I was looking for safe places to land in case we became too heavy...it was easy to look since our pilot, surprise, from Austria,likes to fly really close to the trees and the walls of the steep mountainsides. 

I didn't know helicopters had windshield wipers. Lukla is misty foggy and raining and now I will need to get all the way to Namche tomorrow.