Monday 16th April – Day 18 – The Puja Ceremony

 The Lama with his little hand drum chanting prayers. Beside him sits one of Our Sherpas with an upright knife wedged in a mug of rice to ward off evil spirits our team of sherpas. Bob is on the left with me beside him standing under the prayer flags infront of the khumbu icefall

We woke up early to have breakfast before the puja ceremony and the sun hadn’t appeared over the top of the mountain yet so it was absolutely blitz. We ate porridge with jackets, gloves and hats on freezing and shivering. At 8am the sun came out and we started to warm up a little although there was a freezing cold wind.
For the puja, we had to bring all our climbing gear; ice axe, helmet, big climbing boots, crampons and kitted harness to the big stone built chorten. All our gear was set at the chorten and the Lama was already in front of it chanting his prayers. The smell of the burning juniper to the gods was really nice. Lots of things were offered to the mountain gods, biscuits, flour, rice, beer and even a snickers bar. It was really amazing to watch and be a part of as you didn’t know what was going to happen next. We got to take flour and rice and throw it at the chorten and we drank Chang (rice wine) and beer at 10am with biscuits. I like this kind of ceremony. Then the Lama called me and Bob over and we each received a charm around our necks for good luck and safety on the mountain. The ceremony lasted about an hour and a half. We were really cold at the beginning but as the sun got warmer we thawed out towards the end. I think the warm, sweet Chang may have helped as well.
This afternoon, the WiFi routers were set up and we have to pay an extortionate price for the WiFi cards. I bought two cards of 1GB which cost me 100 US dollars.
Also it turns out that the throat thing that our kitchen staff and Sherpas are coming down with is phlarengitis and the doctor here said it’s highly contagious. We are actually really worried as they’re handling our food, plates and cutlery. We can not afford to get sick. Our Sherpa Sirdar (head climbing Sherpa) Ang Galou is also now sick and going to see the doctor.
The frustrating thing now about the WiFi is it’s not working. The routers are up, we’ve all bought extortionate WiFi cards but there appears to be teething problems.