Everest Base Camp Trek 2010- Daily Dispatches

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23^rd April 24, 2010

Day Five: Tengboche to Dengboche

We started the day with Good Morning tea and cornflakes and eggs for breakfast at the Tengboche Guest House.  Don started out not feeling so well, but with fluids and pharmaceuticals, he lives to walk another day – and several more thereafter.

Tim walked off from Tengboche without his camera, not realizing it until we had descended down to the river.  He and Mingmar dashed back up the hill (Tim stopped dashing around rounding the bend) and retrieved the camera.  Tim, Mingmar, and Tendi then double-timed it to catch up with the group.  Tim said he must be famous on the trail now because every Sherpa he passed would laugh.

We were fortunate to participate in a Puja ceremony at the Pangboche monastery.  Lama Geshe gave us the following wishing prayer:

Give up all intention to harm others from your heart

And do your best to benefit them all

If each and everyone feels the universal responsibility to do so,

We will all enjoy the feast of peace.

The Lama gave each of us a blessing, tying a cream silk kata and an orange lisle thread around our necks for good luck on our trek.  He also gave each of us a card containing a story about Jomo Langma  (Everest) with his name and our name written on it in Tibetan.  It was a moving ceremony, and we all felt a lift in the step as we climbed out of Pangboche.

We had lunch in Shomare – potatoes, spinach and bread like an unsugared elephant ear.  The altitude is starting to sap our appetites but the starch was good to get us going.

From lunch, we still had about   l,500 feet to climb to Dengboche, not counting dropping down to the river again.  After climbing up from the river, we crossed a tree-less landscape of rock and low juniper.  Ama Dablam towers overhead, showing a different aspect from Tengboche.  Nuptse now obscures Everest.  Island Peak fills the valley above Dengboche.

We are settled in at the Hotel Family Dengboche, around 14,400 feet in elevation.  Tomorrow is another “rest” day, meaning we hike our tails off, but get to come back to the same beds.

Source: 23rd April, 2010- Tengboche to Dengboche