Sleeping at base camp has been a bit rough for me. Night 2 and night 3 at BC I have suffered from sleep apnea which is a very uncomfortable condition where your body constantly wakes you up feeling like you are suffocating. Your breathing slows down (or it actually stops at times) until your brain wakes you up so you breath more! It feels horrible! But it sometimes is a part of acclimatization. I went to the doctor today to check my blood pressure, just to make sure it wasn’t my pressure getting too high but it seems to be normal so the doctor just recommended to take acetazolamide (commonly known as Diamox) before going to sleep to allow me to get some rest. Diamox essentially makes you breathe more which helps with acclimatization and it should help with that horrible sleep apnea condition. Acclimatizing to 5300m (17,500′) is no trivial matter! There is a reason no human beings live permanently anywhere in the world at this altitude. The highest permanent settlements on earth are all below 16,000′ and they are here in the Himalayas and in the Andes in Bolivia and Peru.
This is obviously no place for a human to live. There is only rock, ice, and snow around here and I suspect the only reason there are crows and a few other birds is because of human presence at Base camp and the food leftovers the sherpas leave for the birds.
Yesterday, we had the Puja ceremony. This is a very important religious ceremony for the Sherpas to bless the expedition and keep everyone safe. Many westerners think of Buddhism as a philosophy and not as a religion but it is very clear to me in places like Nepal where the population is largely Buddhist this is truly a religion and not just a philosophy of life. The Puja is a perfect example where the sherpas ask their gods (such as the goddess of Everest, which has many names including Chomolungma) and presumably Buddha himself to keep them safe during their expedition. They obvioulsy believe there are gods who can control what happens to us during this expedition.
The ceremony is very colorful and interesting. A very high lama travelled all the way from Tyanboche where we were on April 7 to perform this Puja and two more for two other Everest expeditions here on base camp.
All sherpas and expedition members are “encouraged” to make a payment for the Lama from their bottom of their hearts (with a suggested minimum of $1000 rupees or $10 dollars). Our expedition has 14 members and 30 sherpas so we were quite the profitable Puja! And then he had two others so obviously it was very worth it for the Lama to walk all the way the way from Tyanboche and back.
The sherpas erected a stone altar with several multicolored decorations. The Lama had one of the sherpas as a helper to read with him the phrases spoken by them. These phrases are hundreds of years old and are used in Pujas all over the Khumbu region and possibly in Tibet (don’t forget many of the sherpas of the Nepal side of the Himalayas are the same people as many of the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama is their highest figure). Incenses is burned during the ceremony. Prayer flags are erected from a wooden pole in the middle of the stone altar and then stretched in the four directions (north, south, east and west) with very long ropes that cover part of base camp and stretch to the Khumbu glacier which is right next to our camp. The setting of Everest and the 7000 meter peaks around us, the ice fall and these colorful prayer flags waving in the wind, with the sounds of these buddhist chants, the incense and the bell that the lama uses during the ceremony plus the rice wine being served to everyone in generous quantities (don’t forget we are at 5300m or 17,500′ high where your tolerance to alcohol on the second day there is minimal!)create a very surreal atmosphere! It is truly the most spectacular setting for a religious ceremony I have ever seen!
The ceremony includes lots more alcohol beverages. They then bring you a bottle of Rum where each person has to do a ceremonial three cap-shots. Snacks are passed around along with Tuborgbeers and the rice wine starts flowing and they do not let you finish your cup before someone keeps topping it off. As you can imagine all the sherpas and us low landers ended up very, very drunk! As far as religious ceremonies go I gotta give it to these Khumbu Buddhist for having the most fun! And that is the ceremony itself! Not counting the after party! We were pretty drunk by 10 am! The sherpas kept drinking all day!
The Lama continued on to his other Pujas while the drinks flowed!
Sure enough so much alcohol facilitated a fight between two sherpas later that evening (from different groups that are now working together) but amazingly enough by 2 am the next morning these sherpas were all business and all friends as they crossed (now blessed by the Puja) the infamous Khumbu ice fall and made their way to camp 2 to drop tons of gear to establish our camp. The sherpas are a lot better acclimatized than we are since they have been here for a month establishing base camp and doing work, and of course these are famous people for living high and having a very superior ability to handle the extreme altitude.
I took lots of photos of the Puja which I look forward to sharing with you all!
