It is seriously raining today, occasionally turning to sleet and snow. Apparently the Nurbi valley, where we are, is known to be very wet. This morning Woodie and I were guided through some technical stuff as we prepare for the more technical aspects of the expedition – the main message being stay attached to the rope!! So we did some ascending on fixed lines, belaying, how to do things in the right order, so we would always be connected to the line.
The big event of today is our Puja, a religious ceremony to ensure us safe passage on the mountain. Due to brutal rain we did most of our ceremony in our dome tent, and finished it at the Puja outside. The Sanskrit the lama is reading and chanting is classical Tibetan, which no one understands. The ceremony lasted 70-80 minutes, involving the mostly the lama chanting, beating a drum and clashing symbols, and occasionally throwing various food objects (sacrifices) over the altar, presenting us with a white scarf and string necklace, then throwing flower over the outside Puja, and we all getting “blessed” on the face with flour. Very cool ceremony, quite the honor to be involved in, and extremely meaningful to the local Sherpas.
The plan is we stay at base camp for quite a while, and do our acclimatization and training from here. We may sleep at Camp 1 and Camp 2, but we won’t move up until after a storm currently forecast for Sept 25. Everything, of course, is subject to change!!
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