Up to Chukhung & the dreaded Khumbu cough strikes

Since my fever I have had a blocked up and runny nose. It seems to be more of an allergic reaction rather than a cold. Up until yesterday I had prided myself on going sufficiently slowly to breathe through my nose and had hoped to maintain this strategy up to Base Camp. I've also been wearing a buff (a tube of material worn around your neck a bit like a small scarf) over my nose and mouth to try and keep some of the dust out of my lungs. 

Today I had no choice but to breathe through my mouth and by the time we reached Chukhung I had developed a dry hacking cough! It's extremely frustrating as we are only one week into the trip and I know from past experience that it will only get worse. People have broken ribs from the constant coughing higher up. 

The walk up took us one hour and fifty minutes to walk the 5 kilometres and 400 m height gain. 

Most of us felt lousy and quite lethargic on reaching the lodge 'Yakland' - it's ok Disneyland need have no worries. 

Four of us decided to push on up for another hour and 150m as tomorrow, subject to the weather, we plan to climb up to 5500m. At the turn around time the cloud descended and we returned in a full blown snow storm. It was just like being up in Scotland! 

What I did notice during this bit of the walk was that my cough stopped and I put this down to breathing through my buff. So I now look as though I'm about to hold a bank up as i'm wearing inside the lodge - I may look odd but I'm not coughing! 

After lunch I retired to our room and gave Bruno a fit of the giggles as I put on a builders dusk mask that I have brought out with me. Like the buff it must just raise the temperature and the moisture content of the air I inhale. 

So we are now waiting for dinner and I've got a typical mild AMS headache. Hopefully it will be gone in the morning. As you can probably tell not feeling great at the moment.