Lukla airport

Big few days. Had party last night with our porters and assistant guides who would be leaving us today... maybe...

Waiting at Lukla airport for the fog to clear. For some context here, 2 days ago we ran into a group that had been waiting for 3 days for a flight, but finally gave up and hired a helicopter.... so fog clearing isn't necessarily a given.

Made it!

More to come later, but im now sitting in a teahouse in Lukla! tomorrow I catch the plane to Kathmandu.

OMG ITS HAPPENING!

This morning was a nice wake up at 0425, at the lobby by 0445h. The atmosphere was one of anticipation / muted excitement. We knew it was happening today, but it hadn't really set in. The ride to the airport as bumpy as I've come to expect, though even at 0500 some traffic was starting to form.

The airport was almost exactly like every other airport (see my previous musing on the drawing flow of airports). Initially the flight was delayed as it was cloud, but it was only 15 minutes before we were being rushed to the plane. Literally, run to the plane. They are really serious about getting us up in the air as fast as possible. This is because the weather in Lukla can change very quickly, and it had been effectively closed the past few days due to cloud. 

Once we got into the air, it started to get real, as the flight went on we all became more and more exicited, lots of photos were taken. The anticipation was really strong.

The mountains were above us, but we were only a few hundred feet off the ground, nowhere near the runway.

The landing was amazing! You have now idea, I've seen the videos, I've read the stories, but my God, it's amazing. You think you're approaching steep nose down... you're not, the runway races up to meet you at about the same angel as you meet it. The runway slopes up, and there is a big brick wall at the end of the ludicrously short runway. There's a reason they call it the most dangerous airport in the world!

For the pilots it is of course a daily job, but for everyone else, it was fantastic!

We were all giddy with excitement when we got to our briefing. There was nothing muted about any of the emotions!