Cities upon a hill, part two

A few days deeper into the mountains, and things get much less developed.  These are a few yak farms on the edge of Dole village, which in addition to the smattering of private homes, consisted of two bare-bones lodges.  At this altitude, too, wood-burning is prohibited due to extensive deforestation, and so our only source of warmth, the common-room stove, used dried yak dung as fuel.  Sustainable, but acrid as hell.  Makes for a much earlier retreat to the sleeping bag.  But it don't matter, cause mountains!

Cities upon a hill, part one

Namche Bazaar, elevation around 12,000', in the Himalaya.  According to wikiped, it had a (permanent?) population of 1,647 as of 2001.  And at any given time in the season, I wouldn't be surprised if there were about that many tourists as well.  Or more.

Namche is the gateway to the upper Khumbu, the reward atop the first major climb and the most comfortable place to take a few acclimatization days.  Pretty much all of those buildings are large, relatively (relatively) posh lodges.  The rest are bars (AC/DC on a loop!), bakeries (ubiquitous!  a Nepalese predilection?  pandering to tourists? regardless, sources of amazing deliciousness, especially considering the difficulties of cooking at altitude), and random amenities (banks, gear shops, bookstores, roughly a bajillion gift shops, etc.).  We spent two days here; playing asshole & hearts over baked goods and learning to play Settlers of Catan in het Nederlands.  

The tail end of the monsoon was still beating us with near-constant rain, but every now and again the clouds would lift a little bit and give us some of our first mountain views.  This was taken on our short little acclimatization hike, from near the Syanboche Airport (used for evacs, supply runs, and the very, very rich) on the hill behind the village.

In the spotlight

A room of statuary, deserted but for the guard.  Not sure what museum this is in- the Met?  The PMA?

Balls.

Apparently I'm still feeling abstract.  Defunct fountain + public art, Girona, Spain.

Metallurgy

More beauty amid decay: texture and color swathing an abandoned house in Bodie, CA.

Dichotomous

Juxtaposition in Shanghai; out with the old.

On the Farm

End of the day, cleaning Sex Farm, a 12a, down in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky.  Shot from a recessed shelf about halfway up.  This was our third day climbing and the first with sun and dry holds; the first day I really got to taste what the Red has to offer.  Which is a lot!