Do a google search for acclimatization and one of the meanings that it throws up says – ‘Acclimatization is the reversible process by which a person becomes adapted to a change in the environment. It requires adaptations to a variety of factors (e.g. temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure).Now keeping in mind the long journey that we have ahead of us (assuming that we may make it to the top 3), we decided on embarking on our very own ‘acclimatization program’! Do I see a smirk or a smile somewhere ?

When Thomas suggested that we take out our tent and practice pitching it as part of our preparations for the GDC drive, I was not able to see logic to it, because as per our travel route, pitching a tent in no man’s land was not in the picture at all. He was all excited and decided that the tent has to be taken out, dusted and pitched on our terrace! His excitement was contagious and I decided to play along.



But I still wanted to know the logic behind pitching the tent. And here goes the logic that I got – “Who knows whether we find a decent place to stay or not when we halt for the night?” But then aren’t we supposed to be going to places where there are decent hotels? (that’s my mind racing) “Also, you never know, we may just not make it to a town or a city and may have to pitch our tent for the night. And if we not prepared, then we may not be able to adapt to sleeping in the tent”. Well, I decided not to argue, as disagreements on various issues related to our trip was at its peak and I did not want to add one more to the list! So here we are with our tent pitched, trying to ‘acclimatize’ ourselves, getting everything ready so that unforeseen situations (if we encounter any) do not flummox us!