It was 1992 and I had decided that I wanted to do something extreme to keep life interesting 🙂 I chose a walking trip to Mount Everest Base Camp. It was a four week adventure that I still remember very fondly. It was all done on foot and one of our destinations was the ancient monastery of Tengboche. It is a beautiful place in the Khumbu region. A big white building with colourful ornate windows. On the afternoon of my arrival, some monks were leaning from the window, staring at the new group of trekkers walking, or rather: stumbling in my case! into the village.
Descending or ascending…
I remember this trek as a pretty difficult section of my adventure. I had hurt my knee at the start and found that I had changed my mind about what I liked best: ascending a mountain or descending. In the beginning I loved to descend. I went like a mountain goat, but had no walking technique whatsoever and my knee suffered for it. So after 2 weeks, I found much more peace and pleasure in the climb. It was like meditating. The trek to Tengboche initially seemed unsurmountable, pun intended. “All you have to do is descend 1 kilometer and climb back up another kilometer”, said our guide with a beneficent smile. As if that was the easiest thing imaginable. It was not, believe me! Descending required the utmost care with regards to my injured knee. And climbing, at an attitude of almost 4 kilometres, required me to stop every 10 minutes to catch my breath. I was still learning….
When I went for a walk with my camera, I was able to capture a shot from afar of the monks hanging out of the windows, observing us. It was not a clear picture, but good enough to use as the basis for a painting. As the painting developed, the monk turned out as a moody character…
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