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In a remote mountain village in the heart of Nepal, Martin discovers that things aren’t always as they seem when he inadvertently uncovers an international conspiracy.

The Great Namche Pizza Conspiracy

Martin
2003-11-11 22:20:56

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Namche is known for many things. To mountaineers, it’s the gateway to the Everest region of Nepal, a village that every climber must pass on his journey to the summit of the world’s highest mountain. For the local Sherpa people, Namche hosts the famous Saturday Bazaar, which brings together people from the entire region to buy and sell otherwise hard-to-find supplies in this remote mountain area. But to me, Namche will always be remembered for its pizza.

I had been to Namche twice before, but it wasn’t until my third time that I uncovered the Great Namche Pizza Conspiracy. After three weeks of trekking in the Himalayas, I was on my way down from Everest base camp. High altitude trekking had taken a toll on me. For days, I’d been living on a basic diet of rice and vegetables, walking up to twenty miles a day, and at 15,000 feet, breathing only half the oxygen of sea level. My body ached, my stomach groaned, and as I approached Namche, I was already thinking about the incredible pizza I had eaten there on the ascent. That made it the logical place to stop for the night.

I checked into the Khumbu Lodge, the same lodge where President Jimmy Carter stayed when he climbed to Everest base camp in 1985. Of course, his expedition was somewhat more elaborate than mine. I was traveling on my own, with a backpack, guidebook, and a basic trail map I’d bought in Kathmandu. He arrived with a legion of secret service agents, porters, his wife, and a Nepal guide named Pasang Kami Sherpa. Rumor has it that Carter was the only one who finished the trek. The young agents dropped off one-by-one as they succumbed to altitude sickness, while the 61-year-old president continued all the way into base camp at 5400m. A faded photograph of Carter still hangs in the lobby of the Khumbu Lodge.

The daughter of Pasang Kami Sherpa led me up a steep wooden staircase to my room on the second floor of the Khumbu Lodge. A bronze ...