We meet for breakfast at 9am. Glenn and Xavier come down and join me for some nice & fresh coffee – a luxury we haven’t had for 3 weeks – some pastries and hot breakfast. The air is cool but just the right temperature. It’s delightful to be clean, rested and enjoying the service and food of the beautiful Dalai-La hotel – Pat’s recommendation, spot on!

Plan for the morning:
– Shaving and loosing the thick beard that has grown over the past 2 months
– Checking out flight tickets for Xav
– Arranging to see a doctor for my frozen feet

Lunch at the New Orleans cafe in Thamel owned by a Québécois who lives in Kathamandu, it’s peculiar to hear this accent in Nepal. It reminds me of my childhood in Canada. Most places are closed due to the end of the Festival of Lights holiday, people are dancing in the streets. This place is packed and we wait for our food forever, but who cares when you can enjoy a nice Everest beer with friends after a long and tough expedition?

After lunch, I meet the doctor at the hotel. In the middle of the lobby, with my bare feet on the coffee table, he checks them and tells me I have been lucky as the blood circulation is good. The nerves, however, have been damaged and my feeling is still close to none. I close my eyes and he tests each foot toe after toe, asking whether I can feel it or not. At times I can barely discern if he is actually touching my toe or pretending, but I manage to pass the test with flying colours.

It doesn’t change the fact that my feet are totally numb, painful, and that I loose my balance when I walk due to lack of feeling in my toes. It’s a scary experience but at least I feel better now that I saw him. Not much I can do except for massaging aloe vera cream into my feet everyday to help blood flow. (I will later see doctor Tim Cheung in Hong Kong who will confirm that I was lucky not to get serious frostbite and he prescribes anti-inflammatory + vitamin B for support of nerves re-growth)

Glenn is leaving us tonight, it is the only flight he could get and going back to Qatar to resume 777 intercontinental flying. A great friendship has developed, very nice guy, passionate mountaineer, able to cope with all tough aspects of an expedition without the slightest complaint, and always here to help his teammates when needed. Thanks Glenn for your friendship and for always being here when needed.

Xav and I hang out in the city sad to have lost one more of our team members. We walk from Thamel to Durbar Square, the old town where I had first been with Lorraine in 2011, to discover the devastating aftermath of the earthquake. A huge portion of the old town structures, temples have been flattened and some partially destroyed. We feel for Nepal. On the way back from the old town we hitch a ride with a local bicycle-taxi. After a few minutes of riding in the dark streets of Kathamdu, the man starts sobbing and crying loudly explaining that his life has been ruined by the earthquake, house flattened, some family disappeared and killed. He hands us a little personal journal where he has written some of his story. He is unstoppable, tears run down his cheeks, we are terribly saddened by the story he is telling us. We are quiet and unable to say much and try to slightly calm him down and comfort him: ‘you are a strong and good man and you must keep fighting for your son,you will make it…’ We get off the bike in Thamel, the happening & party district of Kathmandu. We grab a last beer at the hotel puzzled by what just happened to us.