Armed with an oxygen mask and a particularly big parachute, a 29-year-old British woman plans to make the jump next month, leaping from a plane several hundred feet over the world’s tallest mountain, gliding past the peak and landing in a 12,000-foot meadow. “I’m excited, confident, scared, all in one,” she told Reuters. I would just be scared.

The subject of our latest up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: Rob Verger, who wrote Slumming in Rio and narrated a slideshow on favela tourism for World Hum. His email landed in our inbox just hours ago.

Where in the world are you?

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The last week has been particularly eventful at the top of the world. Near-perfect conditions at Mount Everest prompted a rush to its icy reaches, resulting in a record 75 climbers reaching the summit in a single day. (The highest previous total was 63 summits, in 2002.) One of those 75 climbers was Apa Sherpa, who also set a record of his own by summiting for the 18th time. According to the CBC, Canadian Andrew Brash was also among the 75. Brash became a minor celebrity two years ago when he gave up his first Everest attempt just 200 meters from the top to rescue a fellow climber.

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The airport closest to Mount Everest, previously known as Lukla airstrip, will now be called Tenzing Hillary Airport in honor of the first climbers to summit Everest, the Nepalese government announced. Sir Edmund Hillary died last month; Tenzing Norgay died in 1986. Most visitors to Everest land at the airstrip. “It is a dramatic introduction,” the BBC notes, “as the plane has to drop steeply between the mountains and then lands on a runway which slopes steeply upwards.” YouTube has some great video.

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As unlikely as it sounds, signs abound, according to a story in the latest issue of The Economist. The Nepal Tourism board has encouraged travel for stag weekends and put “beautiful Nepali belles” at the center of at least one campaign. 

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Sir Edmund Hillary has died at the age of 88. He was the first climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, and he went on to devote much of his life to exploration and humanitarian work in Nepal. In a 1998 profile of Hillary for Salon.com, Don George placed Hillary in the pantheon of great adventurers: 

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As the autumn trekking season winds down in Nepal, a Swiss man hiking near Annapurna says he was beaten by Maoists when he refused to give them money. And we thought they simply wanted “donations.”

It looks as though Lakpa Tharke Sherpa, the first man to stand naked on the summit of Mount Everest, may also be the last. Mountaineering authorities in Nepal are calling for a ban on nudity, and on any other attempts to set obscene records like the one set by the Nepali climber last year. From the AP story: “Ang Tshering, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, says the people who live at the foot of Everest worship the mountain as a god and mountaineering authorities have asked the government to ban disrespectful stunts.” Hard luck, ladies. If Nepal follows through, this could be one record that’s never matched by a woman.

Related on World Hum:
* ‘Climb Everest for a Discount Rate’
* Everest Base Camp: ‘The Himalayan Version of Burning Man’

Photo by star_trooper via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Two goats, to be exact. The airline did so in front of a troubled Boeing 757 in Kathmandu in order to appease the Hindu sky god Akash Bhairab, Reuters reports. Apparently the plane had been suffering from electrical problems.

Related on World Hum:
* FAA to Airlines: Speed Up the Boeing 737 Inspections
* Everest Base Camp: ‘The Himalayan Version of Burning Man’

That’s the headline on a Reuters story about off-season discounts for climbers headed to Nepal. A tourism official told the news agency, “We are working on proposals to give a 50 percent royalty cut in the autumn and 75 percent during the winter climbing seasons.” Now, I’m no climber, but when you’re risking your life to climb the tallest mountain in the world, should you really be that considered with scoring a bargain?

Related on World Hum:
* Everest Base Camp: ‘The Himalayan Version of Burning Man’
* Peace Deal Helps Lure Travelers Back to Nepal
* Everest Base Camp in Tibet: The Himalayan Bangkok?

Photo by Ben Tubby via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Oops. An advertisement (pictured) developed by the BCF agency of Virginia Beach for the Virginia Tourism Corp. features two hands coming together to form the shape of a heart, a playful reference to the state’s long-time slogan, “Virginia is For Lovers.” The gesture, however, is also associated with the Gangster Disciples, “one of the most violent of four African-American gangs that hang out on the south side of Chicago,” according to an FBI report. The FBI also notes: “They are known for their violence and the distribution of crack cocaine.” Apparently Virginia does not want to associate itself with gun play and illegal drugs, and thus will be removing the image from its new “Live Passionately” campaign, according to the Virginian-Pilot. 

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Never mind that members of the Los Angeles-based Latin-funk-rock band Ozomatli oppose just about everything the Bush administration stands for. At the behest of the U.S. State Department, they’re touring the Middle East and beyond, from Jordan and Egypt to India and Nepal, as cultural ambassadors. “Our world standing has deteriorated,” saxophonist Ulises Bella told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m totally willing and wanting to give a different image of America than America has given over the last five years.”

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