Everest

Today was our 2 hour Puja Ceremony - a ceremony resided over by a Lama who sings gregorian chant while his assistant hits a drum and the rest of us choke on the smoke coming from the burning branches on the Puja Tower. Funny enough at about 1 hour the Lama's cell phone goes off with a nepalise dance mix song... he answers it.

Otherwise our gear, ourselves and our beer and rum were blessed as you can see in the pictures the beer and rum took the forefront our boots are on the otherside of the tower! We also spent a bunch of time throwing rice, flour, drinking beer, rum and Nepali chang - I think AA should visit basecamp? It was actually quite nice and our team gathered together for a group picture in our team jackets shown below. Our camp looks way more colourful now with the prayer flags stretched over all of our tents from the Puja Tower.

Now that the ceremony is complete- on Tuesday- the Sherpas and John and myself will be making our way to Camp 2 for 4 days on our next acclimation mission. So signing off til I return from Camp 2.

Puja Cermony blessing gear, food and us

Park for Puja Ceremony

RUM??? on Puja tower to be blessed along with my crampons

Naturally Everest Beer also makes the cut along with the ice axes

Puja Tower

John and I and our team of sherpas