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Diabetes at Altitude - Broad Peak 2004 Report 1 - 18/5/2004 Here I am, the second day in Pakistan - having had a long journey time from Wales to Peshawar and then by minibus to Rawalpindi, where we are staying at the Hotel Shalimar. Sara and Giampolo (Expedition Leader) are at the moment in the Ministry Office in Islamabad sorting out our permits for Broad Peak, our trekking permits, permits for satellite phone, permits for this that and the other! It is very humid here with temperatures over 30 degrees.
The flight from Milan to Doha (Qatar) was very exciting as we were accompanied
by the legendary Kurt Diemberger who is also trekking to K2 Base Camp
with another Italian 50th Anniversary K2 expedition. Road travel in Pakistan is very 'exciting' - there are no road rules (seemingly to the Western visitor anyway) and the Darwinian Law applies - those who beep their load, vibrato horns the loudest are usually the more successful in getting to their destination - however in some cases their arrival in 'heaven' may be quicker than anticipated. Every square meter of the highway is busy with something going on, from council workers cutting grass (well, using a manual 'mower' to cut the various clumps of greenness aomgst the mounds of dirty soil) to workers putting up billboard posters (not in the usual way of wallpaper paste and ladders, but using 10 men and a hoist made of ropes slung over frmo the other side), to bicylces overloaded with piles of material to sell waiting to be overbalanced. We are apparently unable to get a flight from Islamabad to Skardu as there have only been two flights this week and it is heavily overbooked - so we are gritting our teeth, crossing our fingers, and will be travelling on road via the notorious Karakorum Highway from tomorrow. The group had the first briefing last night from Giampolo to ensure that everyone was familiar with the ins and outs of the three high altitude alpinists with diabetes - myself, Marco Peruffo and Daniele Mirolo. We have 3 small sub cutaneous gadgets from Minimed that will be used by us throughout the trekking and at altitude to continuously measure blood glucose levels which will then be downloaded to a PC which will give us a daily profile of our blood sugar levels. There are a total of about 30 of us, 11 high altitude alpinists and the rest trekkers who will be trekking to Base Camp at an altitude of 4800m and who will then, weather and conditions dependant, will be trekking over the beautiful high pass of Gondogoro La down to Hushe. We visited Raj Bazaar yesterday afternoon. We emerged from our protective air conditioned vehicles to be greeted with humid air mixed with a mixture of sweat, spices, fruits, diesel fumes, open drains and coffee - and as we seemed to be the only Western faces in the locality at the time - were something of a spectacle for the locals. The bazaar lead us down narrow squeeze alleys filled with narrow shops containing everything from recycled aluminum cans to mounds of coloured herbs and spices, tinsel and ornate headwear for weddings to cloths of silks and cottons of a myriad of colours. We were followed by numerous beggars who had a variety
of different English words asking for money from "plis, syr"
to moans and whimpers from those who were unable to speak. This was
quite difficult to deal with especially as we obviously had lots of
money and objects e.g. cameras that were worth more than they would
ever possess. |
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