I saw Everest today!

It was everything you'd expect it to be. I mean I'm still far away from it, but I saw the entire lineup, Everest, Lhotse, Peak 41, Ama Dablam, Kumbili, etc. Everest is behind Lhotse and you can only see the tip, but what a view! It's now Day 3 of this trek. The past 2 days have been pretty brutal. For the firt day and a half , the hike was so easy I was beginning to think getting to Base Camp would be no big deal, but I was really really wrong.
The last few hours yesterday of hiking were so hard. We climbed 600 something meters to the town of Namche Bazar at near 12000 feet I think. It was one of the hardest things I've done physically. I think we went too fast. Most people do it in 6 or 7 hours, but me and Dave did it in 4 hours of hiking. Dave got a headache yesterday night which is the first sign of altitude sickness, so we learned our lesson. Our guide has been dissapointing. He doesn't speak very good english, and he responds to all questions with 'Yes, maybe.' You can ask him how many hours of climbing to such and such town, and he just says 'Yes,...maybe.' It's beyond frustrating. Thankfully, we got a lot of information yesterday night. This Indian guy from London who is part of a 14 member group doing Gokyo/Kala Pattar/Base camp in 21 days overheard our frustration with 'Kopin' (or Kipin we haven't figured out his exact name) and told us to take aspirin every day, and to take neurophrin at the first sign of a headache. Aspirin, thins the blood which allows it to carry more oxygen, which is good because as you climb higher up your blood thickens and less oxygen is carried by the cells. We are trying to avoid taking Diamox for the moment. It's the altitude sickness pills you take when you really get AMS.

Anyway, besides the lactic acid pain that my legs are suffering from, the lack of oxygen, sleeping in the same clothes for the past 3 days, eating the same Dal Makhani every day, and the guide who says 'Yes' to everything, I am having the time of my life! Just the sight of Everest made it all worth it. Now to get closer!