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05 APR 2001
 Audio Dispatch
Viesturs
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Hi, this is Ed Viesturs, it's 10:30pm Kathmandu time, Thursday evening April 5th. We've just had another day go by here in Nepal, and Veikka and I just about an hour ago or so returned. We were invited to the Finnish Ambassador's house for dinner, as well as a nice traditional Finnish sauna and some cold beer. It was a nice end to a rather busy day.
We spent a large part of the day running some errands and finishing trying to pack and consolidate all of our gear into loads which all should weigh about 55 to 57 pounds. That's the average weight a yak can carry on each side, so that's why we have to be particular about how we're packing our loads.
We sorted all of our gear and food, most of which were already here from last years attempt on Annapurna. We had a lot of dried foods left behind, as well as soups and drinks and that type of thing. Both Veikka and I brought along some fresh stuff. Veikka traditionally brings cheese and sausages and mustards and stuff like that from Finland and then I brought, let's see, about 4 lbs. of Starbucks coffee for our French press, some salsa, some mixed nuts and a fresh big load of fig newtons. Tomorrow we're going to get all of our loads organized and loaded up into the truck later in the day for our drive to the border on Saturday. We'll also be getting our Tibetan visas so that we can legally and safely enter the country of Tibet.
Last night we had a good evening as well. We went to the Rum Doodle Bar and Grill. It's a very traditional and fun, historical place to go. Many Everest climbers have signed the wall behind the bar as far back as Hillary, Messner, and Whittaker, and hundreds of other people that have climbed Everest signed the wall. Once you've climbed Everest you get a plastic laminated card with your picture on it and whenever you go over to the Rum Doodle, for the rest of your life, you get free dinner or lunch and drinks. So it's not a bad deal, it's right around the corner. It's just too bad they don't serve breakfast and too bad they don't have a hotel, otherwise we'd be set. We wouldn't have any expenses to pay here in Nepal.
Tomorrow, like I said, we'll finish organizing and packing our stuff, run a few last minute errands we have to accomplish, but other than that we are ready to go. Looking forward to getting out of town and getting on the road and heading toward the mountain. So for now that's all.
I'll give you an update again tomorrow, our last day in Kathmandu. Thanks once again for following us on Mountainzone.com. And for those of you interested, you may want to check out my website edviesturs.com. It's got a lot of cool stuff and a lot of past information about me and stuff that I've done with my friend Veikka, as well as other people on other climbs and also there's some links to my other sponsors as well as to Mountainzone.com.
Thanks for checking in and we'll talk again tomorrow. Out from Kathmandu.
— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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