Chapter 29 - F**K you Surke .
The ride to everest.
Alvaro and I set off on our Don Quixotian quest to chase down windmills toward Kathmandu. The road was dusty, muddy, and full of drunk lorry drivers intent on running us off it. As I swerved around loose chickens and a souped-up tuk-tuk, a two-stroke motorcycle suddenly flew past, two-up. The rider was clearly Western; I could tell from the build and the full-sleeve tattoo. He was riding in jeans, a long hunting knife on his belt, and behind him a slight Nepali clung on for dear life. He left me in a cloud of dust.
My ego was bruised. The red mist rose. How dare he overtake me, a world traveller. I couldn’t take the affront. I gave in to anger and competition.
Fuck him. It was on.
We chased each other for two hours. I caught him on the straights, he blasted me through traffic. Eventually, we stopped at a roadside restaurant on the outskirts of Kathmandu. I’d lost Alvaro somewhere behind.
Then rolled in Carson and his ragtag group of USMC veterans charging through Nepal. Carson was a tech millionaire who’d settled here and invited his Marine buddies for an adventure ride. They were all the clichés rolled into one: big bears, bigger tattoos, fuelled by beer and nicotine. I fit right in.
One of them, clean-shaven and cauliflower-eared, introduced himself as Richard, thick Home Counties accent, beer in one hand, rolling a spliff with the other. It was 11 a.m.
Rich was an erudite wild man in his early thirties, intent on bringing MMA to the Indian subcontinent. He’d trained a few teams in India and was now relocating to Nepal. We traded BJJ stories in the shade of the restaurant. I did my best to turn down the offers of booze and weed, still trying to walk the middle path after Vipassana.
Their energy was intoxicating. We promised to meet again in Kathmandu if the gods decided so. They tore off in a storm of dust while I rode slowly into the city to find Alvaro.
Kathmandu hit like a fist, potholes the size of the Mediterranean Sea, fumes, horns, and every kind of vehicle trying to kill me. I found Alvaro at a simple backpackers’ hostel in Thamel, where we could finally lock up the bikes and start planning the expedition.
We spent the next day shopping through the bazaars, a maze of fake North Face and counterfeit Arc’teryx shops. Kathmandu was a vibrant mess of fumes, noise, would-be adventurers, trustafarians, and partygoers, all being preyed upon by hash peddlers and greedy tour guides trying to make a few rupees. We stocked up on fake gear, Diamox, and diarrhoea pills.
Alvaro was testing my patience. His complete naivety toward the upcoming climb was starting to grate on me. I wanted to do this alone. At no point had he acknowledged that he’d invited himself along. His clinging to materialism, he was a real estate agent back home, grated on my sense of asceticism, or maybe reminded me how far behind I was from the world I was running from.
My friend Dave was also in Kathmandu. We met up with his soon-to-be wife, Priti. The last time we’d seen each other was at Burning Man, in a very different kind of desert. Dave was a cross between James Joyce and Paddy Mayne, a Northern Irish firebrand with a mind as sharp as it was wild and compassionate. He’d left the army over ten years ago and now ran several companies providing security services across the Middle East. I admired him, his intellect, his drive. It was bittersweet to have a glimpse of that world again, a reminder of who I’d been.
The next day, Alvaro wanted to sleep in. I got irritated. I wanted to punch out of Kathmandu traffic as soon as possible, conscious that our first leg was a 600km ride across country to the start of the Khumbu region. We weaved our way out of the city and began to climb. The air turned clean and crisp, the roads decent by Nepali standards.
The second half was brutal, a 300km stretch of riverbed, heat, dust, killer trucks, and landslides. Finally, we arrived at the entrance to the Everest region. We turned north and started the motorised climb from six hundred metres to two and a half thousand. We’d left at 07:30 and arrived at 17:30 with one break. As we crested the final mountain to our guesthouse, the Himalayas opened before us. As the sun set over the blooming rhododendrons, we finally saw it, Mount Everest in the distance, faint and golden.
I woke early to watch the sun rise and burn off the mist that had settled in the valley. I sat against a rock and meditated quietly. When I opened my eyes, the world’s highest mountain glowed before me. I called my aunt and shared the moment with her. Happiness, I realised again, is always better shared. Alvaro was still sleeping.
We set off toward the town of Saleri, where the road ended and the track to Surke, the last accessible village by vehicle, began. Robyn back in Pokhara had told us the access had only opened a month ago, but no one had actually ridden it yet. No maps, no reports. Red flag to a bull. We had to try it.
Saleri was the first Sherpa town I’d ever seen. I’d met Gurungs and Tamangs, but never Sherpas. There was a distinct Tibetan feel: the faces, the architecture, the smells, the high clean air. Buddhism dominated here, a shift from the Hindu lowlands.
As we rolled into town, Alvaro noticed he had a flat tyre and no spare tubes. It sent him into a tailspin of panic and frustration. I felt supportive, but part of me hoped it might strand him and let me get on with the adventure alone. We found a mechanic who fitted him with a 19-inch tube for his 18-inch wheel. ChatGPT said it would work.
We snooped around for the start of this new road. A few incredulous locals tried to talk us out of it. We ignored them. According to the data we had, it was only 58km to Surke. With the lost time from the tyre fix, we still thought we could make it. It was only noon when we set off.
What followed was the toughest off-road riding I’d ever done. Steep cliffs, gravel, mud, sand, jagged rock. The going was brutal, but there was no turning back. I felt alive again, all senses sharp, focused on not dying.
Alvaro was struggling. He wanted to turn around, find a safer way. Part of me wanted that too. But another part was glad not to be doing it alone. The higher we climbed, the worse it got, bouncing over boulders, dodging beetle-powered trucks through remote mountain villages. Six hours in, we’d barely covered thirty kilometres.
We finally stopped at a small tea house perched on a cliff, a painted truck full of rocks parked outside. Exhausted, scared, exhilarated, we ordered tea. Around back, two Nepali truckers were slumped over a table, at least twelve empty beer bottles between them. One of them stumbled up when he saw the bikes.
"Hey bai, let me drive your bike!" he slurred, grinning.
"Fuck no! Look at the state of you!"
Affronted, he muttered something in Nepali, staggered into his cab, and somehow managed to start the truck, wobbling down the rocky track toward Saleri.
Exasperated by the road and fading light, we pushed on until we reached Bupsa, a tiny mountain village clinging to the ridge. We found a trekking guesthouse run by a stern Sherpa matriarch. Dal bhat, warm milk tea, a short meditation, and sleep.
By nightfall my anger had eased. Alvaro and I were in the adventure now. We’d survived the first half of the climb, bonded through hardship and fear. It’s strange how quickly frustration turns to brotherhood once you suffer together.
We woke at 0600, porridge for breakfast, ready to roll by seven. Clear skies, snow-capped peaks towering above us, rising beyond seven thousand metres. Straight back on the trail, more rocks, more mud, narrow paths with sheer two-hundred-metre drops on each side. It took us an hour and a half to ride ten kilometres. Finally, we caught a glimpse of Surke, a cluster of roofs at the bottom of a steep valley. Above it sat Lukla, where small single-engine planes landed on one of the world’s most dangerous airstrips, bringing in trekkers from around the world to begin their Everest adventure.
We whooped when we saw it. We’d made it. Just a few more kilometres, a thirty percent downhill, rocky washboard track. I had Tara’s clutch fully pulled in, foot hammering the rear brake, but we weren’t slowing. A hairpin loomed ahead. If I couldn’t stop, I was going over. My mind raced through options: drop the bike into the cliff, let it roll, or just pray.
Then I heard it.
"FUCK YOU SURKE!"
Alvaro flew past me, eyes wide, shouting the same madness.
"FUCK YOU SURKE!" I yelled back, and we both burst out laughing, wild, nervous laughter echoing through the valley as we somehow made the turn and rolled into the village alive.
Surke was the start of the logistics trail into the Khumbu Valley. Most hikers were flown into Lukla twenty kilometres uphill. We were the first tourists ever to make it there by motorcycle, the locals looked at us like lunatics, but with a mix of curiosity and respect.
We parked the bikes under tarps and found a local guesthouse owner to watch over them. All the frustration I’d carried toward Alvaro was gone. He’d earned my respect. He was my brother now.
We’d done it, together.
Backpacks on, we shouldered the next leg of the journey on foot, stepping into the shadow of Everest.
