Day 6, 7/10: BC (14500 ft)

Today is another rest day, which I basically did nothing again. However, I was so glad that I had this rest day; it allowed time to my lungs and feet to recover. It’s just a day to chat, sit around, and get some sun bath (though the UV radiation is way higher than any beach because of the altitude).

The sun just burns through.

In the morning, I drank a LOT of tea. Since the cause of my lung’s pain was breathing in too much cold air, I needed to warm it up. Aside from the 5L water I would drink later in the day, tea is a great way to diversify the liquid I take in and not make me sick of the endless amount of water.

Tea session.

One of our teammates is an expert at Chinese tea drinking, she even brought a set of teacups and pots, and I just drank whatever she put in there. A lot of other people in the team brought tea leaves, so in the end, we had about six kinds of tea to drink. We even had a few tea “cocktails” where we mix different tea together. The mixture tasted surprisingly refreshing.

Tea set.

In the afternoon, we did something fun: we roasted some lamb kebabs, one of Xinjiang’s signature “dishes.” Everyone was super excited and participated in the roasting process. They were very delicious! I ate about 7-8 sticks of lamb (which lead to some consequences later).

Preparing the meal.

Put them in sticks.

Start roasting.

It gets all smoky.

On fire.

Coat them with cumin powder (very spicy).

Almost done.

There's more than enough.

Happy eating.

Tomorrow (7/11), we begin our second acclimation climb, which is the most crucial part of the entire trip.