Namche to Pengboche

I was a little worried about how my body would react to the day’s travels. We had to do a few hundred-metre descent and then go up another few hundred. It had been said that the day was a little harder than the arrival in Namche, as there is a big climb up into a monastery in Tengboche where we were to have lunch. I’m pleased to say that the day went quite well for me. Still no medals, but things are much easier when you are not sick.

We had a lot of downhill movement at first, which was hard on my knee (making me a little worried about the way back) and then a steep uphill. The feeling was that I was not looking forward to going up, but was looking forward to not having to go down! We had our first real views of Ama Dablam (consensus most beautiful mountain in the World). What a site. Everest is impressive because of its size, but Ama Dablam is just what you should think about when you think mountain. It was in and out of view all day. We also met a Dutch lady on her way down from Camp 2 on Everest. She had frostbite on her hand and decided that she liked her fingers better than a summit attempt. This is quite a brave approach as most people are $60,000 in the hole when doing a summit push and that often clouds these types of decisions. She was disappointed, but proud of her effort.

We arrived in Tengboche for lunch and hammered down multiple plates of spaghetti! It was excellent. A few of us headed over to the temple to see what it was about. It’s a Buddhist monastery that houses 35 monks. None were around at first, but eventually we saw one and he graciously let us in to the area where they pray. Beautiful. The artwork was so detailed. However, it was incredibly cold and each seat had a big blanket folded for the monk to use. We spent about 15 minutes looking around and then headed back to grab our bags and finish the day.

We then had a 2 hr trek into Pengboche where we would have a rest day. Another great meal and off to sleep.