The Internet has created something called Throwback Thursdays. You’ve probably heard of them. They are usually headed up by a #hashtag. Every week on said day, my Instagram and Facebook feeds are chalked full of posts and photos from memories past. I’ve never contributed anything to the bank of nostalgia that is Throwback Thursday, but I always enjoy seeing what friends decide to share, and thought it’s never too late to start myself. So I’m basically going to use Thursdays as a day to share entries from my Nepal trip that have been written/half written, but haven’t been posted yet. I feel guilty about that. They need to be liberated from the ever-expanding “Trip Journal” folder on my mini laptop, and set free from the pages of my notebook.

PS: Fittingly, the event described in this first post actually happened on a Thursday! Bonus!

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It was a happy coincidence that the last day of my Everest Base Camp trek was a Thursday.

Thursdays are market days in Lukla, the most popular jumping in spot to the EBC trails. I was anxious to experience bustling market life in a new country. No matter where I go, they’re always home to an eclectic group of people, and I love watching the vibrancy of the gathering spot.

The Lukla market is right next to the airport runway. On my way down the air is sucked away by the rotor of a helicopter. I walk a little faster. When a plane comes in to land or take off, the sound of the aircraft reverberates around the stone courtyard, making it sound as though the aircraft could at any minute come bursting through the wall.

Vendors sit on blankets spread out over the dirt. Piles of oranges, ginger root and tiny sugar bananas are being sold everywhere, and form a maze for walkers to navigate. The smell of citrus fills the air, as peels are tossed to the ground, squirts of juice spraying into the surrounding air.

Up top, I watch in a trance as butter is unwrapped from a block the size of a small stool. The block is carved away at with a metal spatula, scraped into pink plastic bags, and handed over to its purchaser. There’s dry butter, too, in the form of cubes that look like tiny ginger candies, or Narnia’s Turkish delights.

Bamboo baskets line the walls, awaiting the loading of the day’s purchases, anticipating the walk home. Women and men carry roosters and chickens with their feet tied together, yelling over poultry squawks into mobile phones.

I am hypnotized by the butcher section of the market. Large wood tables are lined in a row, with hunks of buff sitting on top. Men chop at the red meat with crude knives, particles of bone and ligament flying through the air. It’s weighed on a tiny metal scale, like the ones we used in elementary school to learn about measurements. A woman counts paper rupees on top of one of the carcasses, which are now vaguely smelling in the humid mountain air. A dog with swollen nipples sits under the table, in a prime position to snatch up any and all parcels of meat that fell below.

Next to the buff table, goat carcasses sit at ground level. There is a live goat overseeing the scene, an irony which is both amusing and sadly foreboding.

I’ve been to many markets in Nepal since this Thursday in Lukla, but none can compare to the buzz of a local village market. You get a sense that it’s a special event each week, one that invites camaraderie, as women and men walk hours from outlying villages to stock up for the week ahead. The smells, the sights, the people – it was the best “welcome back from spending 20 days in the mountains” party I could have asked for.