Fun puja ceremony, but sad departure of Blake

The Puja ceremony is the traditional blessing a buddhist monch delivers to climbers and sherpa’s alike. The stone altar, which sherpa built from rubbles in the camp, had been fitted with gifts for the gods including coca cola, sherpa beer and all sorts of food (none of which would be wasted in the end). We also put some climbing gear down for blessing (me: summit socks, ice axe, helmet and mittn). At the end we all handed over R500ish in pur white scarfs (the money would then magically disappear) and received pur blessing. All good then.



It was the first day where we were ‘allowed’ alcohol on the hill. Beer, chang (local rice wine) and rum shots got us going though our group is certainly not the party animal type.
While we had our puja, it emerged that Blake’s ankle situation just didn’t get better. He decided to head home instead of risking his live on the hill with a pre-existing condition. Tough, but wise choice of one of the strongest climbers in our team. Bad news is that his insurance doesn’t provide cover for this. Good bye Blake and a swift recovery! 

After Blake left Jon, Rory and I headed over to celebrate another Puja with the indian army. Many were well pissed by the time we arrived, but it was fun. They have 14 climbers of which 10 will go without oxygen. Good luck. It won’t be easy, but then they are all some sort of special forces and well trained.