Today was another scheduled rest day to allow us to acclimatize. Nelly and Travis wanted to head out early, but Nelly caught a bit of a cold overnight, which delayed them a bit. We shared breakfast and gave them some metwurst as a parting gift (yes, I over-prepared, we had waaaay too much of the stuff!) Our guide soon took us on a short trip onto the ridge of the mountain vally. Beautiful views, but Kempy also insisted we go high enough so he could play with some snow. When we finally got high enough, I turned to take pictures of the view and promptly got hit in the backpack with a snowball…. but being on the edge of a cliff I thought it prudent not to retaliate. Kempy quickly started building a snowman. Once his artistic flare had run its course, and we’d documented it with photographs, we headed back down. I read for a while and Kempy puzzled over some soduku. At about 14:30 we decided to go over to the local medic station and hear their talk about AMS. Most of the information I already knew, but I also learned some interesting bits and pieces. There’s actually 3 types of Altitude sickness: AMS, HAPE and HACE. AMS (accute mountain sickness) is your most standard altitude sickness. It essentially makes you feel hungover and only requires rest (in the early stages) to settle down. HAPE (High altitude pulmonary edema) causes issues breathing, especially when lying down. It requires immediate decent and treatment, and is essentially fluid in the lungs. HACE (High altitude Cerebral Edema) makes you seem drunk, and much like HAPE requires immediate decent and treatment. Victims of HACE often have very impaired decision making. While most of the time all of these are precoursed by very light AMS (tiredness, lack of energy, headaches, loss of appetite, vomiting) both HACE and HAPE can happen without warning. Scary stuff, but good to know. Diamox is a bit of a wonder drug for all kinds of altitude sickness, especially as a preventative. It’s also really good to help sleep more deeply ~ one of the biggest symptoms of altitude sickness is not being able to sleep deeply due to the lack of oxygen. Half a tablet of Diamox with dinner fixes this for most people. Of course, diamox does have some side effects: Mostly pins and needles in the fingers, feet or on the scalp, but also not being able to taste carbonisation in beverages. I paid 100R to get a O2 saturation test, which is at 84% and my resting heart rate is 72 bpm. When we returned I read some more while Ryan played soccer with the locals. I showed our guide some basics of the Ambitious card routine too. All in all a fun, informative and relaxing rest day.