One of my college friends is a documentary filmmaker. He dragged me along as he followed a group of glaciologists up to a high-risk melt lake in the Himalayas.

One of my college friends is a documentary filmmaker. He dragged me along as he followed a group of glaciologists up to a high-risk melt lake in the Himalayas. Somewhere above 16,000 feet I got altitude sickness and headed back to Kathmandu ahead of the group. I got stuck in the city for two or three days waiting for my flight, under the supervision of the team's local fixer. This guy had his finger in every pie: tourism, automobile importing, etc. I wound up at lunch with him because his assistant wasn't available to play tour guide. Edit: I'll add that I got lucky getting sick. Shortly after my flight out a large earthquake struck, stranding the rest of the group in the Khumbu for nearly a week.