Day #22 - Everest BaseCamp
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Itinerary - Jaipur to Delhi
Final day in India. I met at 7:30am at the reception desk this morning so I could get over to the pharmacy location where I took my Covid test. I had a sense of uneasiness- were they going to get my results to me in time? Do they have my information correctly so they can get in touch with me? Well - I did what I could do - now I just had to hope for the best.
Returning to the hotel - I grabbed some breakfast, took a shower, and did my final packing. We left at 10:30am for the 5-hr drive back to Delhi. We did make a quick stop at the Laxmi Narayan Temple. This was a pretty cool Hindu temple on the way out of town. My driver and I did a short walk about.
I settled in for my long journey back - periodically dosing off in the back seat. The road from Jaipur to Delhi was extremely busy the whole way - with a lot of big trucks moving slowly. This experience was totally different than my road-trip from Delhi to Agra - where there was nobody on the roads. My driver let me use his hotspot to check my messages (and see if my test results were in). Great news - negative result!!!!! I just held my breath when opening the email. My fate was either flying back today or holing up in a hotel for 10-days in Delhi, spending tons of extra cash, plus missing out on a couple weeks of work. (There’s a lot on the line when it comes to these Covid tests)
My driver dropped me at the airport at 5pm for my 1:30am flight. I had to wait until 8pm before I could check-in. I then got a late dinner and vegetated at the airport until my flight left.
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It’s about 8am local time in Chicago. I’m 1-hr from landing. I’ve been on this plane for 18 hours - with a 17+ hr flight time. I didn’t see this trip on the Top 10 longest 1-way flights in the world - but it’s right there. 17-18 hours is about as long as they go. The flight has gone pretty well. Probably got about 6 hours of sleep, read nearly a full book (Beyond Possible - about the guy who climbed all 14 of the 8,000 meter peaks in the world in 6 months), and watched the movie ‘The Big Short’. I have a pretty quick turn around to Denver. Hoping to get into Denver around 12:30 pm local time on Sunday, March 13th.
I’ll do a quick recap later tonight. Here’s to the good ole USA!!!
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