Approaching Tengboche Monastery
Nearing the eighth day into our trek at close to 16,000 feet, we began to descend. It was a huge relief. I had been popping the altitude medication Diamox just to keep my head from splitting open. Yes, you can train and condition yourself to do well at altitude. But when the time comes, it's not like you can say "Ok, done here. I want some air." There isn't any. Throw on some food poisoning at 15K feet and you have the makings for some bad travel nightmares. Oh lord. I was still so sick at this point. I think I could only walk about 20 feet before having to stop and sit.
Here come our yaks - about to pass me and I don’t care
Watercolor sketch of prayer flags on a stupa. I said many prayers
On our way down - the Sherpas are kindly waiting for me to catch up
Fast forward to our arrival in Tengboche to the Monastery where we were to have tea with the Lama.
Our monk friends hamming it up for the camera
Being indoors, sitting down on furniture, was a welcome relief for our aching and weathered bodies. It was time to rest, and our travel was getting easier as we dropped a couple thousand feet.
We heard a helicopter overhead and glanced up. It was pulling something dangling from it. We overheard our Sherpa guides talking about a Japanese tourist who had died from altitude sickness - probably edema of the lungs. They were flying him out. At such high altitude, your lungs can fill up with frothy blood and you drown. These elements can be brutal. If you aren't prepared, the mountains will get you. The Sherpa hold high reverence for their power.
Sunrise on Mt. Everest - follow the cloud cover as it heads up Lhotse Face (the little bump in the dip between the two peaks). That's the trail to climb Everest, the peak just to the left.
This was the first view of Everest we had on our trek. It was mind boggling and humbling. However one says its name, Chomolungma in Tibetan, Sagarmatha in Nepalese, Everest is a mountain that commands respect.
Rinpoche Lama was expecting us at Tengboche’s Monastery to give us blessings for the remainder of our journey. Constructed on a hill high above the confluence of the Dudh Kosi and Imja Kohla rivers, this monastery is an important stop for expeditions on their way to Base Camp. Lama Gulu completed the original monastery in 1916. Rinboche Lama who welcomed us was born in 1935 in the next village, Namche Bazaar, on the same day as the Dalai Lama. He is supposedly the incarnation of Lama Gulu from so many years ago. Educated in Tibet, Rinpoche returned to Tengboche in 1956. Legend says that he is one of only two reincarnated monks in the area; we were told Rinpoche is now living in his 13th reincarnation.
Thyanboche (looks more authentic) monastery is the spiritual center of the Khumbu, where Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzin Norgay Sherpa stopped on their historic quest to climb the summit in 1953.
In 1934 an earthquake demolished the monastery, reconstructed, but then destroyed by a fire in 1989. Ever since, donations have poured in to rebuild. We visited just after its completion. If you are so bold as to attempt Everest's summit, make sure you visit Rinpoche Lama to get your blessing. You will probably need it.
His Holiness
Sometimes you can feel that a person is good – difficult to explain. It’s a vibe you get, a sense of tranquility and peace that this individual is not troubled by earthly suffering. The atmosphere around him was calm and untroubled. My head stopped hurting. Immediately. Nothing bad would happen to us when we were with Rinpoche Lama.
Tea with Passang Sherpa and Rinpoche Lama
Rinpoche offered tea and talked with us about our trek, how overwhelmed we were seeing "The Mountain," and where else we would travel when we returned to Kathmandu. Then we got down to business. Getting a lama's blessing is not free, which is fair, considering the monastery still needs donations to keep it running. We were honored to contribute.
The blessing that changed my life
I bowed down, and after a prayer Rinpoche Lama tied an orange chord around my neck for protection, and then wrapped a scarf called a khata around my neck. That was wild! I felt a sudden sensation of relaxation and mental clarity that relieved me of all the little things and irritations and plagued my mind. Nothing mattered. I was alive, and we were headed down the mountain. I could do anything.
View of majestic Ama Dablam from the teahouse behind rows of faded prayer flags
While the Lama blessed the others, I looked out the window and took this beautiful shot of Ama Dablam (elevation 22,349 feet), another of the region's monster peaks that defy logic by attracting adrenalin junkies to its summit. No thanks.
We spent the day here at the monastery with lots to explore and things to see. We thought we had a perfect yak photo opportunity. One was resting, so my husband casually walked over to pose with him. That beast charged!
Resting yaks will charge - learned the hard way.
What is the significance of our lama blessing, after the fact?
I was drawn to the Himalayas for some mysterious reason, suffered through incomprehensible hardship and illness to make this pilgrimage, received this blessing, returned home, and went on with my life. I was never in my wildest dreams prepared for what happened next.
After six years of struggling with infertility including seven failed IVF attempts, 14 months to the day after the Rinpoche Lama's blessing, I found out I was pregnant with triplets.
Believe it or not (and I do), it makes a hell of a story.
Be careful what you wish for.
Yeti country
illustrations ©Johanna Westerman, 2016