The moment has come! Sickness, cold, pneumonia, diarrhea, dehydration we faced them all. Unfortunately, Misha’s heath does not allow him to make effort at higher altitudes without a bag of pills, as he is daily vomiting, in a battle with his bitter gall. He will stay in the Basecamp, hoping to recover in the next days. For the rest of us, today we leave in the most difficult, abrupt, provocative ascent so far! We have ahead seven days of unpredictable weather and extreme cold… Tibi and Adi Rusu will help us with daily weather reports for the following seven days to know when to leave each camp towards higher altitudes. The Ultrabook will join us, as we’ll test it on one of the highest peaks in the world, using it to record our ascent. Patience, passion and a lot of power will be key in the next days, and your support has been a huge part of this :). Today, we leave the Basecamp for the last time before the Khan Tengri Peak. The countdown begins as we head towards Camp 1… 
The Moment Has Come
Altitude Today – 5500m
Altitude today: 5500m As some of you already know, in the basecamp the guys got together with another Romanian Alpinist – Daniel Toader, also known as “Harciogu” among friends :). They are together now, heading towards the Khan Tengri Peak. According to the latest news, they already finished installing Camp 2 (5500m), where they spent last night. For the next 3 days they will continue the aclimatization in the BaseCamp. They are complaining a bit about the unpredictable weather but as always the attitude and the morale are good :). 
Adi’s cold has passed but now Misha is facing some digestive issues. On top of this, last night was quite hard for the boys because of the 100km/h wind and the 1 meter of extra snow brought by the blizzard. However, the next 3 days should bring some relaxation and give them a chance to recover. Next stop after aclimatization – Peak Chapayev – 6371m (on the way to Khan Tengri Peak). Good luck guys!!
Finally Some Good Weather
Finally some good weather During the past days the boys climbed to Camp 1 and then Camp 2. They had to endure constant snowing, crazy wind and large amounts of fresh snow every morning (approx 1 meter). Today, the message from them said they finally had a day with good weather and, after a climb of 7 hours, they are now in Camp 3 (5 900 m). Misha is communicating with the boys from the base camp, giving them weather information, learning Russian and making wind turbines :). Let’s hope for good weather in the following days! Adi, Dani & Harciogu, good luck guys! 
Camp 1 – 4750m
CAMP 1 (4750m) After a couple of eventful days we are back with updates… This week, Adi Rusu experienced first hand what it means to get medical treatment in Kyrgyzstan. Fortunately, he is now safe, back home and he will recover soon completely. The last day he spent in the basecamp with the guys it snowed 40cm. Snowing did not stop yet, but the forecasts predict tomorrow should be the last day, then the weather should be kinder to our boys :). This will allow Dani to re-join Adi Fako and Misha with the first helicopter flight up the mountain as he descended in Karkara together with Adi Rusu 3 days ago. At higher grounds, Adi Fako and Misha already prepared the tents in Camp 1 (4750m) and spent last night there. Even though Adi Fako was as well a bit sick he is better each day. They did complain about the really salty food, but the guys liked the base camp (4200m)… Adi Fako said it is one of the best ones yet :). The morale is good. The guys are taking it step by step getting prepared for higher and higher altitude. Fresh snow means a higher risk of avalanches so they will have to wait for a few days before heading upwards, which will also give Dani a chance to get his body accustomed with the altitude in Camp 1. Adi Rusu said even the locals told him this is one of coldest, snowiest years Kyrgyzstan has seen yet… so we hope our boys will feel better the next days and that the weather will allow them to reach the summit. Starting with Camp 2 (5400m) the satellite signal should be better and the guys should be able to tell us more themselves :).
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
We landed in Kyrgyzstan at 5:30, local hour, after a very nice flight with Turkish Airlines. Although we didn’t manage to sleep much, we have eaten well and we’re all feeling good.
From here a van is taking us towards Karkara today. The translator was present only at the airport and now we’re stuck for 6-8 hours with a driver that doesn’t understand English or us at all and we don’t understand anything from him either…
The joys of traveling with an agency and not being able to pick your own driver or to spend how much time you would want buying things in the bazaar. However, the Mercedes Sprinter we’re travelling with does have enough space for us and all our bags and we did manage to buy everything we needed.
Today we will have partial GSM signal and starting with Karkara we’ll need to find a satelit solution to at least let you know that we are ok. This means that you’ll have to wait for the pictures, the movies and the story details until we’ll be back in civilization :)… in just a few days…
Istanbul – passing by in another expedition to Asia
Istanbul
Thanks to Cosmin (from FreshHolidays) and to having the Ultrabook (from Intel) with us, we managed yesterday to finish with all the craziness with the visa quite fast, spending afterwards our time in the beautiful Istanbul.
We had a good night sleep at a hostel 10km away from the airport and now we enjoy this great city for a few more hours :).