Chapter 2 The Stranger

One of the joys of travelling is meeting new people, and on this particular adventure, I met Jared. Jared was a short man. Short of stature, short hair, short of temper, short of everything really. I wouldn't have cared really, if not for the fact that he could speak English and whatever it is the locals speak, Nepali or Tibetan I think. Probably both.

Seeing as I already had the month off, was already in the Himalayas, and the next plane home wasn't for another week, I needed supplies. Camping in a tent would be cheaper than renting a room, but I would have to leave the City as I got the feeling that they only tolerated foreigners. and if I was camping, I might as well go hiking.

This is where Jared came in. His name wasn't actually Jared, but he agreed that being called Jared was easier than listening to me butcher his name.

Stolen novel; please report.

Jared had a Taxi cab that probably wasn't a part of the local company and he was the only available one that spoke some English, or at least the only one I found.

I admit i didn't look too hard after I found the first.

He agreed to be my interpreter for the next few days for 2000 American dollars. Definitely a scam, but whatever, I'm on vacation right? At least I got him to agree to take the majority on completion. Drive me around to get overpriced gear, take me to base camp the next day, and stick around to pick me up a couple of days later after I came back down. Easy right?

Well he did all that, but he didn't sick around. I wouldn't blame him, after all there was a blizzard. And I was stuck in it. On a mountain. Alone.

Turns out that when he dropped me off at 'base camp' it wasn't the official base camp for the mountain I wanted to climb. I don't think it was even the same mountain that I originally planned to climb after thinking about it. At the time, I just thought it was empty because it was still early in the season.

I really shouldn't have trusted him as much as I did. I shouldn't have gone alone.