We took off from Lukla in the middle of the afternoon. The Lukla airport is at over 9000 feet of elevation, and the runway sits at an angle as it climbs 2000 feet towards the side of the mountain. Yeti Airlines has four Twin Otters that travel the Kathmandu to Lukla route. These fly in tandem, two on each direction. The first plane left a good 10 minutes ahead of ours. After about 10 minutes into our flight an alarm went off inside the cockpit. The pilots pressed a few buttons and pushed and pulled on some knobs but remained calm. Eventually one of them made a signal that I interpreted as "let's turn around" however we were not turning around. Instead we were about to land on a dirt runway on top of a hill near a small village called Lamidanda. All I kept thinking was how bald one of our tires was. Yet we landed without incident.

We were told that weather conditions had deteriorated en route to the capital and that we would wait to see if conditions improved. A few minutes later the other flight landed. The flight attendant was  still in tears and later we heard that they had been in what one of the pilots called the scariest situation in his 18 years as a pilot. Finally we were told we would spend the night in the village.

We were escorted to a local business (more of a pub) where we proceeded to drink beer for the next six hours plus. We sang (no guitar this time), some danced, and drank some more. We had a great time, tourists and locals all mingling together. There was a group of Czech climbers from the other flight and they passed a bottle of Scotch around while we chatted and sang.

That night the weather cleared and we were presented with the starriest of nights. We retired to rudimentary sleeping quarters and woke up early, headaches and all, to take our flight back to the capital. We were able to see Everest one last time (from really far way) and after another slight delay (the airport in Kathmandu was closed due to poor visibility) took off. The first few minutes of the flight were tense due to turbulence. Every seat was now full as locals filled up the remaining empty seats. One person even brought a chicken with her. We spent one last night in Kathmandu and finally the time had come for us to return home. Nepal had been good to us but I had dreams of Buffalo chicken wings and bacon cheeseburgers so I was more than ready to come home.