Mt. Everest, here we come!

In the past few months I have been talking to one of my friends Matt about places that we want to visit or things we want to do before we stop commuting – essentially a bucket list for commuting. He has been commuting for about 1.5 years longer than me, so naturally my list is much longer than his. However, it just so happens that he and I have aligning days off after this work hitch, so Chelsea, Matt, and I decided to knock out one of the things on the list – Mt. Everest Base Camp! (which was earlier Mt. Everest, but since around 25%-50% of hikers die on the trek for things beyond their control, we changed it to hiking to the base camp.) I have to admit, Matt was originally going to do the trip solo or with a group, but realizing the timing of our days off he invited Chelsea and I to join him – ok, I kindof invited ourselves. =)

For the last three days Chelsea and I have been deciding if we wanted to do the trip right now or not. We both have poured through countless webpages and blogs about the trek and finally decided to do it. Even though its just hiking to the base camp its still at 17,600’ elevation and requires many days of acclimatization. (allowing your body to adjust for the change in oxygen percentage) We have yet to find a guide or set a solid schedule, but that will come soon. The best synopsis of a “normal” schedule, track distances, and change in elevation per day can be found here http://www.rei.com/adventures/trips/asia/nepal_everest.html

We bought tickets today and will attempt this trek in 17 total days, arriving on Oct. 24^th and departing on Nov. 9^th. One funny thing with the trip is that we fly from Kathmandu to Seoul, then leave Seoul at 2am on the 10^th and arrive in LAX on the 9^th at 8pm. LOL – I love it when the dateline works in your favor. I guess that the timing of the trek depends largely on the individual and how long it takes to acclimatize – so well see how it goes for us. Nonetheless, we are extremely excited for the trip and to see Matt, a close friend who we haven’t seen in over two years!!

I am definitely the most unfit one in the group and have started training hardcore, working out three times a day, using three different programs – P90X, Insanity, and Amped Abs – conveniently, non of these require a gym! I plan to lose 1 pound or more every two days for the remainder of my 28 day work hitch. Not to mention, get stronger and build endurance for the hike.

As for my last few work days in Angola. I went into the office and met our country manager, he said that he had some things for me to do while I am waiting for my receipt and my base pass and I was actually greatful. Ive been going crazy with boredom! He also told me that I would be able to work from my room since space is limited in Escom and transportation difficult. He was a nice guy. That day I worked from 6am until 6pm and by days end I had done all the things he had asked me to do for the week. I think I will turn in one thing at a time until Monday though… =)

I moved to a new room today. It’s a lot bigger with a nicer shower and better bed. I don’t think that my feet will fall asleep on it anymore! Score. See pictures below.

Food that I brought for the trip. So far I have eaten LOTS! I need to bring more next time.

New Room

New Room 2

Bathroom

Jetlagged...

After talking with a few friends from Angola, I decided that since I didn’t have any notarized copies of my Visa and Passport - and that if I got inspected by a police officer that I would go to an Angolan jail - that I should work from home the next day. I probably wouldn’t see my bosses boss again anyway. This was good, because due to jetlag, or my addiction to finishing TV Series the day that I start them, I didn’t go to sleep until 5am. In fact, the season finale of V was so exciting that I couldn’t go to sleep for about an hour after I started trying…

At 7:04am, there was a knock on my door and then I heard “What yoou doooin in ma room boy” (Tinidad accent, similar to Jamaican). Patrick had arrived, and had been traveling for 3 days straight, and they shouldn’t have put me in his room. After getting to the bottom of who is in which room, who is coming, etc. We found out that all the rooms in staff house 6 were full!!! They assigned me to the Ilha a completely new, and big staff house about 7km away. The guy who assigned my room on the phone told me that he would send a bus at 10am to take me to my new staff house. I packed up all my things, then waited downstairs. I waited some more, then at noon, I called this guy and he said, "oh yea I will send a bus right now". Seriously?! Long story short, I arrived at the Ilha 3 hours later and it took us 2 hours to go 7 km – that’s stupid.

The drive to the new staff house was very nice. The road went along the ocean and there were palm trees on either side. The restaurants and buildings all seemed to get nicer, and nicer, I was excited about this new staff house! Then we turned down a dirt street revealing shanties on each side and finally arrived at a large 6 story building. The reception guy spoke good English, and put me in room 23. See pictures below.

Palm Tree's on Both Sides

Shanties

The room is fine but, of course, I am too large for the bed and since it has a wood frame, my feet constantly fall asleep  from resting on the wood unless I sleep diagonal. The only other complaint is there is also no gym in this staff house, but aside from that no complaints.

That night, immediately after I had dinner I saw a big group of expats, ranging in age from 25-40, congregating just outside the front doors of the staff house. I went outside to introduce myself and they told me that they were going out to celebrate one of their guys getting transferred to another location – Nigeria. They invited me to come, and said that the company would pay for the food and drink. I ran upstairs grabbed some money, and ~20 of us start walking down the shanty street, then about half a mile down the main street arrived at a Chinese restaurant. There were already seven people at the dinner, and everyone that I met was nice. People kept straggling in as they got off work and fought the traffic, and after the appetizers and a few beers, of course, my bosses boss walks in and sits two seats down from me. He never asked me about work or said anything awkward, and for the rest of the meal we enjoyed the food and many drinks. At about 11 o’clock the part was winding down, the majority of the people had to work the next morning at 6am. However, one guy, Jason said that he wanted to go out and if I wanted to come. Of course I did!

There were four of us that continued on to a small nightclub about a 10 minute car ride into town. We had fun until about 4 in the morning, and after having only an hour of sleep the night before, I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

1 pm came fast that morning and when I woke up, I was not in a good state. I meandered down to the cafeteria and the cook made me some fries and pork chops. I did some work that afternoon, and at dinner the guys that I had gone out with the night before invited me to go play poker with them. Poker was fun, there were about 7 guys plaing and I ended u splitting the pot with another guy so the game didn’t go on forever. I went back to my room at around 11:30pm and couldn’t sleep until 4am. Stupid Jetlag!

Sunday is a half-day for expats in Angola and at 3pm we all went down to the beach where there was a nice bar called Miami Beach (lol). We drank until sunset then walked back to our rooms. It was good to be in this staff house where the majority of the people are my age and everyone hangs out a lot. Too bad Im only here for another 5 days, then on to Cabinda.

I think that this map below shows the approximate location of the staff house (green arrow). http://maps.google.com/maps?q=-8.770088,13.253817&hl=en&ll=-8.806199,13.24419&spn=0.085243,0.132093&sll=-8.770191,13.253417&sspn=0.021313,0.033023&vpsrc=6&doflg=ptk&t=m&z=14

My 1st hitch off and my 1st day back in Luanda, Angola

My first hitch of days off have come to an end. It was a good time with friends, family, and lots of vacation! After coming back on Sunday from Saudi Arabia, Chelsea had arranged to throw me a surprise party with lots of friends and family to reunite after 10 weeks of being away! It was a great night. Thanks Chelsea!!!  The following day I spent in Bakersfield and got to see our good friend’s babies, Payton and Hudson, as well as many more family and friends. Then on Monday night we left to go to Tulum, Mexico for a week’s vacation with Hillary and Greg, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend. The resort that we stayed at was incredible and all-inclusive; needless to say after spending 5 weeks in dry-Saudi, it was just what the doctor ordered. It was great to get to know Hillary and Greg better, but after a week we were headed back to Bakersfield. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Bakersfield, but by Wednesday the itch to travel was starting on us both. We talked that afternoon about going to Paris and by nights end we had booked tickets for Thursday afternoon to make the 5 day trip.

Paris was really fun and it was so cool to see first hand all of the tourist attractions you see in movies and pictures. Chelsea and I visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Palace of Versailles, the Arch de Triumph and many more places! It was a very fun, and romantic, trip. My only regret/advise is to avoid doing tourist things on Monday, 75% of places are closed on Monday. However, there was a two day pass to most all of the museums that we purchased that was very useful and we were able to use it for more than two days. Also, learn to like bread. I thought the food here was so-so, but the baguettes were incredible (and cheap)! We got back to LA on Tuesday and stayed in Bakersfield for about 2 weeks until I went to Denver for a bachelor party and Chelsea went to Wisconsin for a wedding. (same weekend)

The bachelor party went down without a glitch. There were some funny moments, we seemed to have gotten the only limo still in service that was made in the  1970’s and was literally falling apart from neglect, but we laughed it off and made the best of it, it added character to the trip. After the bachelor party I met Chelsea in Wisconsin for the long weekend and one of her close friends took off a few more days to spend with Chelsea and I. We both had a great time in Wisconsin, it is beautiful there with lush grass and tree’s everywhere and every meal we had was superb! Claudia’s buffalo chicken cheese dip was especially fantastic! While we were in Wisconsin, we got to visit the Leinenkugel’s brewery. The third oldest and fourth largest handcrafted brewery in the country, of course we had beer tastings at the end of it, the Leine’s Berry Weis was Chelsea and my favorite! We brought back 10 bottles.

I was home for another week, and then Chelsea took me back down to LA to drop me off at the airport for what we prepared would be a very stressful day! Since the Angolan consulate only issues visa’s to enter Angola within 72 hours of its issue, it makes the trips and flight paths difficult. At 3pm my passport (and visa) was released from the consulate in Houston, then a courier took it to the airport and put it on a plane to LAX that was supposed to arrive at 8:15pm, and my flight was at 9:00pm. So I was going to check my bags with my second passport, then pick up my passport with the Visa and then return to the airport and try to get through security as fast as possible. Maybe it was all the praying, but the courier was able to get it on an earlier flight that landed at 5:30pm in LAX! Crisis averted! Little did we know…

Chelsea and I love eating at a restaurant called Gyu Kaku. It is a small Japanese BBQ restaurant in West Hollywood. There is a small grill in the middle of the table and you can choose from many meats to grill. The meat is so hot as it comes off the grill and the experience so unique that this has been my favorite restaurant on the planet for about 2 years! It never gets old to me, even though in essence you pay to cook your own meat. Before we ate we got a GREAT parking spot right outside, and since the meter said “monitored 10am to 4pm” we didn’t even have to pay as it was 3:51 and there was 9 minutes left in the meter! Once we were done with a great linner we walked back outside and our car was gone! After walking to the corner we say the sign “Anti-Gridlock Zone 4pm-6pm, No Parking, Violators will be towed.” It was 6pm and since it was after hours, the city would not pick up to let us know which tow company had our car. We started calling every tow company in West LA, and luckily found the car. It was only a block away from the restaurant so we walked it. We were both sooo happy to see our car (with all my work luggage inside) that we didn’t care at that point how much it cost. That didn’t last long. About 5 minutes after we started driving, we realized there was a ticket under the wiper for $170 to the city on top of the $225 (125 of which went to the city) we had already spent to get the car released!! HOW IS CA BANKRUPT!?!

We carried on to Pinkberry, Chelsea’s favorite place in LA before picking up my passport and dropping me off at the airport for an otherwise uneventful remaining trip. I had gotten upgraded on the long flight to Paris (yes, the exact same flight we had taken 3 weeks earlier) to premium, which is basically old-school first class seats, which was really nice.

I had never realized how truly nice the airport lounges were until I took a shower in the Air France lounge after my long 11-hour flight! I forgot to take a picture, but this will definitely be my M.O. from now on when I have layovers in Paris!! I thought that I was going to get equally lucky on my flight to Luanda, I had gotten a exit, bulkhead row with no one sitting in the middle. BIG SCORE. I took a 1 hour nap, then when I woke up, there was this big guy sitting in the middle seat, equally as broad as myself. We elbow wrestled the rest of the trip. Clearing immigration in Luanda was  breeze, but then when I went to get my baggage I waited, waited, waited, then the conveyer stopped! Crap! I went over to lost and found and filled out 15 minutes worth of paperwork, thinking I would never see my bag again. Then when I left, there was my bag sitting like a present right outside the lost and found area. I still don’t know how it got there, and I don’t care.

I went outside and breathed in the unhealthy Luanda air and waited for about an hour for my ride to the staff house. Meanwhile, this Angolan guy was talking to me for about 40 minutes. Ultimately, he was hustling me for a cliff bar, he said he hadn’t eaten for days and he looked like he could be telling the truth. I gladly gave him a cliff bar, then he scampered off…

I had forgotten how crazily the people and drivers are in Angola. When you step into a car, its like you are getting ready for battle to see who can beat who on the streets. Sidewalks with pedestrians, dirt fields with HUGE potholes, or driving into oncoming traffic, anywhere is fair driving grounds. Unfortunately, we drove on all the mentioned ground plus more I think. We also got stuck in one of the huge potholes. I had to get out and help push with 3 more Angolan passerby’s to get the car out. The trip really got my blood pressure up there.

Finally arriving at staff house 6, they assigned me to room 22 for the week. My duffle that I had left was conveniently in this room, but I was sad that my friend, Mr. Patrick was not here, but I was happy to take his room.

After trying to get transportation for nearly 2 hours I finally made it down to the head office to submit my passport to Immigration. I had been instructed that I will remain in Luanda until I get my receipt from Immigration, a process that has taken up to 8 weeks before. The visa lady told me it should only take a week, but we will see. I will lay low and work from the comfort of my room until I get the receipt. At dinner, I was not overly talkative but still this guy from Australia was prodding me to see what I was all about. After a few minutes he said that he was the district manager for Cabinda, my bosses, boss. He told me that he would see me at work tomorrow…