"We have built up the documentation. Hopefully, we can soon go home," Robin Mendoza, a public relations specialist in Manila, told The STAR in a long-distance phone interview yesterday.
Mendoza said he and Abenojar have been busy in Kathmandu and in Lhasa meeting with all the people they need to meet to settle all their "unfinished business."
Mendoza said the meetings were physically demanding for Abenojar, who is still suffering from gangrene on his left big toe. Doctors said there is a great possibility that the toe would need to be amputated.
"The traveling is very difficult for Dale. Fortunately, he has been able to cope. He said that if he was able to climb Mt. Everest, he should be able to take going around Kathmandu," Mendoza said.
He said Abenojar has begun "healing physically and emotionally" from the ordeal of climbing Mt. Everest, the world’s tallest mountain at more than 29,000 feet above sea level. It rises between Nepal and Tibet.
"He has started the process of healing. I think he is doing okay," Mendoza said.
Abenojar, in an earlier interview with The STAR, admitted that the doubts over his claim that he scaled Everest first brought him pain worse than the injuries he sustained from his climb.
"The loneliness here has helped him contemplate a lot of things. It has even helped me. But it’s very hard because we often get homesick," Mendoza said, adding that "the highlight of Dale’s day is when he calls back home and talks to (his wife) Lisa and his kids."
Abenojar, despite having no experience in alpine mountain climbing, said he had reached the summit via the more difficult "north face" of Mt. Everest, which is located in Tibet.
He earlier presented a certificate indicating that he had reached Everest’s peak on May 15, two full days before the first of three other Filipino climbers reached summit on the south face, or Nepal side.