Baggage @ Namche Bazaar

Our always-smiling-guide greeting our baggage arrival at Namche Bazaar
- very glad we didn't have to carry that lot ourselves, leaving us with day-sacks to hold essentials for weather change along with water and snacks.

These animals, a cross between a Yak and a Cow, are looked after by our Yak-Man who packs them up every morning and drops our bags off at our next tea house!

'In Nepal, Yak/Cow hybrids are bred using Yak bulls on domestic cows or, less often, domestic bulls on Yak cows. The Yak-Cow females are fertile, the males are sterile and the meat is considered superior to beef. In Nepalese, the hybrid is called a Khainag or Dzo (male)/Dzomo (female). A Dzomo crossed with either a domestic bull or yak bull results in an Ortoom (three-quarter-bred) and an Ortoom crossed with a domestic bull or yak bull results in a Usanguzee (one eighth bred). As a result, many supposedly pure Yak and pure cattle probably carry a dash of each other's genetic material. The Zopkio (also from the Nepal region) is a sterile first generation male crossbreed of a yak and a cow usually used as a beast of burden. Testing of the Nepalese Dwarf Lulu breed, a humpless form of Bos taurus type cattle (i.e. "domestic type"), found them to be a mix of European cattle, zebu and yak.'