Day 6 - The Looong Road Down

     Yay - the last day! That was the only thing that got me through the long horrible night. We were on a terrible slant and I had to re-inch myself up every ahlf hour. At 0430 my legs were throbbing so bad I turned myself around and lay with them higher than my head. Of course lungs down isn't a good idea if you are recovering from pulmonary edema so I thought I'd try if and monitor my breathing. Ha! I fell asleep and woke up 40 minutes later - still breathing thank goodness!
     The last day was billed at an 18 - 20 km (depending who you asked) walk, mostly downhill. No mention of the word gradual today. I was doing the math during the night - my usual walking speed of 3km/h means a 7 hour walk, but that's on flat pavement. I'm way slower downhill and on rocky terrain so that's about 11 hours for me! I've never walked 20 km or 11 hours - I was starting to panic. Then I redid the math (apparently the part of my brain that can do math has been badly affected by my visit to altitude) - I actually walk at 3 miles an hour which makes 4 hours plus 2 hours for downhill. So now only maybe 6 hours - which if I had thought of first probably still would have made me panic but now seemed so much more reasonable after the faulty math scared me!

                                             Last view of camp already being dismantled.
          I started off pretty slow but large portions of the trail were actually gradual down hill paths and didn't make me scared I would slip, so eventually I did get a bit faster - sort of.

                                                               View down the trail.
 When we reached a bathroom point the guide told me we were "halfway". As this was only 90 minutes into our walk I was a bit confused. I decided he meant halfway to the lunch point.

                                                Bathroom stop at the "halfway" point.

     It took me 5 hours to walk to the lunch site. On the positive side I walked most of it by myself and listened to my summit playlist. I had asked my friends to submit a good song and promised I would think about them while listening to their song while summiting. Instead I spent time with them while descending. Probably none of them will complain that I was going down instead of up.
     I was developing huge blisters on my big toes - so when I got to the lunch point I immediately asked all my group who were already there for Tylenol, Advil and blister stuff, all of which was produced almost immediately! Its good to have well prepared friends. I doctored up my feet, slurped down a bowl full of vegetable broth and one potato.
     My BF was waiting for me and as soon as I was finished lunch we started walking down together. It took us 3 hours and 45 minutes to do the last 8 km. It was wonderful to spend the time together with just one guide (Damian) and reflect back on what climbing the mountain meant to us - good and bad parts. All in all I walked for almost 9 hours.

     Finally the mountain was over - what a sense of elation. But in typical African fashion it took over 3 hours for the rest of the people to come down or be driven out from the last contact point, to pay off the porters and have our baggage loaded. We sat around on the grass by the park gate and drank numerous pop or beer (depending on your taste), ate the most delicious Pringles ever and generally looked shattered, elated or both.
     The after party, which seemed like such a good idea months ago when we booked it, was not quite as appealing now. After the BEST shower in my life and dealing with an episode of chest pain in one of our group members, I finally made it to the supper. As is usual so far in Africa - vegetarians get short changed on the protein - no one seems to think beyond meat or eggs. Sauteed vegetable, fried rice and cold french fries were all that were on offer for me. I ended up with a bowl of ice cream for supper and went off in search of a good night's sleep - on a level bed - what a fantastic idea. AND - the bathroom could be reached in my pajamas!
     The mountain was over and it did change me.

Day 5 - The Wait

     I woke up at 2330 and thought of all my friends having a snack and getting ready for their summit push (I found out later they started walking at 2300h). At 0100h I knew they were on their way. At 0400h I imagined they would be getting tired and with no light yet on the horizon I was hoping they weren't getting discouraged. When the sky started to lighten I hoped they would be drawing strength from the knowledge they were almost or already at Gillman's Point and therefore finished the hardest part. Here is a picture of the peak when the sunshine finally hit it and I hoped my friends were taking one of me without knowing it as they photographed the sun coming up from the roof of Africa.

     I had a good cry right then as I was very disappointed that I was not seeing how happy my best friend was to be reaching the peak - little did I know what was really going on - that knowledge came a bit later!
     My cough is much better - I can go downhill without issue - climbing back up is a bit of a problem and I had to stop 3 times to rest while walking up from the breakfast hut - its about the same steepness but not as long as the Skunk Hollow hill we trained on in Edmonton.
     I have been trying to understand the popular look of the trekker shorts (pants with the legs zipped off) over top of long underwear. It seems to me if its cold enough for long undies then add them under your whole trekking pants. Today however, I became privy to the secret. When its only cold enough for only a base layer you need to a) cover the crotchal area if you're a guy and your undies don't look like running tights and b) wear the shorts for the pockets - otherwise where do you carry your toilet paper, hand sanitizer and camera (different pockets BTW)?
     I got a basin of warm water to wash the morning and the privacy of my hut to do so. It was fantastic! I stripped to skin - in sections only because it was 4ºC in the cabin and scrubbed with soap and water - heaven! Of course that only lasts for about 10 seconds until I had to put my dirty clothes back on but for those 10 glorious seconds each part of my body in turn DIDN'T STINK! Smelling stinky is a bit of an obsession with all of us. I performed an ultimate act of kindness when I leaned in very close, sniffed deeply and then was able to inform that person, in fact, I couldn't smell them. I think we are so overwhelmed with our own body odor we can't smell each others - OR I am the only one who actually stinks!
     People who are ascending the mountain by this route we are using to go down, sleep in the huts and have their meals served in community dining halls.

                                                                           My hut

 I ate my delicious breakfast there but all by myself when all the large groups were finished - its not like I don't have anything but time on my hands but there weren't any people in the dining hall who spoke English to join. After breakfast I packed my gear since I will be rejoining my group in the tent tonight but I also had the luxury of airing out some clothing and my sleeping bag in the sunlight. Or at least I did for the half an hour the sun shone. It feels "warm" in the sun although its only 8ºC. I am sitting in front of the cabin with my winter jacket on and considering adding some layers as with the sun behind the clouds and the wind gusts, its definitely not sun tanning weather.
     Here is a picture of the guys who rescued me yesterday. Mike is missing as he left very early to take the oxygen cylinder back up to Kibo Huts. One of these guys will be paid by the ranger to single handedly push the stretcher back up. This is a very hard job and takes an extreme amount of effort. The rest of the guys need to go back faster so they can be back in time to carry everyone's gear down. In essence they will make a quick trip up, pack up our group's gear and then come back down again with their 20 kg bags.

             Back L to R - Saleman Ally, Prospar Danielo, Ranger Jackson Mosin, Rammy Ndewario       (the chef), Yusef Nmtambo (my guide). Front L to R - Paul Mrema, Paul Shoya, Asanta Rabi
     Yusef told me my group would probably start arriving around 1330h, so I donned my bright orange/pink (opinion varies on what color they really are but consensus is I will never get lost in them and people seem to find them a bit cheery) pants so my people could see someone was waiting for them when they crested the ridge coming into camp and settled myself on a convenient rock.

     Unknown to me, two of our group had already descended and were waiting down at our new campsite. Unable to find me, they assumed I had been medivaced all the way to the town of Moshi.
    Our first group of people came in at 1622h. They were a small group who had decided not to attempt to summit, feeling they needed all the time available just to make it down to Horombo. The "3-4" hour descent (that I made in 1 hour courtesy of my taxi crew) took them 7 hours to complete. Even after such a long hike they were all smiles to see I was alive and well. Hugs all around!
     The first group that summited and made it down to the camp arrived at around 5 pm.

                                                           First elated summiters
The group continued to trickle in in groups of twos and threes. Everyone looked shattered and about 10 years older than they had the day before. Everyone had a story of what the summit was like for them and what they observed happening to the people around them.

                                      A & C - who got to summit in their own clothing!
    There was a dating couple in our group and we all had discussed the possibility that he might propose at the summit - how romantic (this can only be thought by someone who's not been to the summit I think). He did not propose as if he had, it would have sounded like, "Will you (insert vomiting noises here) me? Sadly vomiting copiously is a sign of acute mountain sickness and although his girlfriend was fine with no complaints (at least according to the eyewitness reports I received) he succumbed to copious "tossing of his cookies" as the guides call it.
   My BF came down a few minutes before sunset. I had heard of her adventures already. The elation I imagined her experiencing at the summit was in fact not what happened and she had experienced quite profound cerebral edema. I was so happy to see her "safe and sort of sound" at "home".
     Others of our group continued to trickle in long past sunset. Supper was a strange affair with some people deliriously happy and others too tired to do much but chew. A few people, exhausted or suffering diarrhea, managed only dry toast that was delivered to them in bed. Not exactly the celebratory supper most had imagined.

Day 4 - Not exactly what I had in mind....

     I slept slightly better - by which I mean I didn't look at my watch for 4 hours straight - so even though I felt I was awake most of the time, perhaps I wasn't. My hip was hurting and prevented me from lying on either side so I got another one hour on my stomach and I actually dreamed. A really weird dream about going to a tailors to have a skirt's kick pleat repaired - ?????
     I had an Eatmore bar and a piece of jam toast for breakfast - still nauseaous but at least I no longer feel like I need to throw up.
     Walk today was billed as 4 to 4 and a half hours. It took us four hours. We walked up a (sometimes) gradual wide open path with the mountain on our right and the sun on our left. At times the mountain looked like it was made out of chocolate.

     The walking was fantastic again - sometimes we were basically climbing up large rocks - but it was very meditative and I loved it!

     We crested a ridge and could see the camp which is very heartening - but due to the fact that we were on a ridge and had to walk a bit more up and then laterally quite a ways - the camp was actually quite far away. This is very disheartening. I really noticed I ran out of steam in the last half an hour but attributed this to the need for some food and a warm drink.

     Our tent wasn't set up when we got into camp and it started to mist over and become quite windy. I put on two more layers of clothes and had a bit of rest on the steps of the very, very smelly bathrooms. I was tired and sitting down wind, and since it was an actual level place to sit, I didn't move.

     Lunch was served after a bit in a hail storm! Macaroni and vegetable stew, no soup, which had become my favorite part of the meal.
     We had a great moment when two of our crew, A & C, got their luggage back. They had sky checked their Kili bags in London and didn't get them back in Addis Abbaba. They have been climbing the mountain with borrowed everything and not one complaint out of them! Their bags arrived here at Kibo huts about the time A & C did. A porter had spent two days hauling them up from the base of the mountain. All of us were so happy they finally had their own clothing. A made us all smell how clean his shirt was - which made us all a bit jealous as we don't have anything clean left.
     My HAC (high altitude cough) started on day 2 with just an occasional cough during the night or at other odd times. HAC is a dry cough that affects people at altitude, is irritating but of no real significance. My cough had been getting a bit worse and instead of a single cough, it was three or four coughs together and more frequently.Today I was having longer bouts - no problem when we were walking, but when we stopped I would bark a bit.
     At lunch, reaching for the hot water set off a bout and standing up from the toilet caused another. When I lay down for our mandatory afternoon nap the coughs started coming and didn't stop. After about 20 minutes of this I was having some expiratory wheezes and I progressively got worse until it was a lot of work just to exhale. I took a hit of Helen's Ventolin which helped almost immediately but only for about 2 minutes. I was now sitting up and still fighting to exhale. M went for the head guide at this point.
     I was still pink and my heart rate was in the 80s, so I was certainly in no immediate danger but it was steadily becoming much harder to breathe. My lungs were very wet sounding and I got a pounding headache - which may have been from the coughing or another sign of acute mountain sickness.
     The head guide and the ranger came and decided I needed to go down the mountain. Immediate descent from altitude is the cure for HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema) but first they gave me the nicest gift ever - a bottle of oxygen. I don't know what they had planned to set the flow rate at but M make them set it at 4L/min - oh sweet bliss! I immediately noticed that although it wasn't much easier to exhale I felt like I was getting a lot more oxygen. My fantastic friends packed all my gear, which of course was spread all over my portion of the tent in preparation for summit night.
     Two of the guides walked me out to the evacuation stretcher - which is a flat metal bed with metal railings over a single wheel.

They zipped me and my lovely friend the oxygen bottle into my sleeping bag and strapped me in. M had to insist they send the oxygen with me, which they were very reluctant to do - I later learned they had already evacuated 4 men that day with breathing problems and were running short of oxygen at the camp.

     The wind was blowing ferociously and it was raining and hailing. I said my goodbyes to M and Helen and we started down the hill. My entourage included my guide, my cook, the ranger and 6 other guys. They basically set off at a run with one guy in front, one on each side and one in the back. The first part was a steep descent on a wide path with only small pebbles. It was very disconcerting to be able to only see the sky and yet know you are going rapidly down a hill. When they reached the bottom of the hill they slowed to a more reasonable pace. After a while the guys would change positions - keep in mind these guys are also carrying backpacks with their gear.
     After about 20 minutes I started to feel better and stopped coughing. Another half hour after that Ranger Jackson turned off my oxygen. I was feeling pretty good and then they went up a hill. I started to feel the pressured breathing again but the steepness of the hill had me quite head down and almost immediately I was back fightint to exhale and coughing. The driver stopped and they stood me up in the stretcher and reapplied the oxygen - which I continued on for quite a while afterwards.
     My kakas (brothers in Swahili) stopped when they got to the helicopter landing pad so I could use the bathroom (very considerate of them since I really had to go but was not looking forward to them standing around while I used nature's bathroom). We had a short break, I fed them some of my summit candy and then we continued on.
     The path was horribly rocky and it was very hard for those strong men to get the stretcher over many of the rocks in the path. It would have taken me days to walk down that road in my condition. It took us just over an hour (by comparison it took my companions between 4 and 7 hours to cover the same ground the next day) to get to Horombo huts.
     We arrived just before dark and I was given a bed in a hut - which had 6 bunk beds on two levels, no heat, but did have electricity and a level bed. The bathroom building had running cold water, 3 stalls (one of which was an actual sit down toilet) and electricity.
     Ranger Jackson and Yusef (my guide) continued to check in on me through the evening.

The chef brought me a tureen of soup and five pieces of toast for supper (at my request - he wanted to make me something more substantial). I did my best to eat it all but I only managed about half of the soup which made my guardians very unhappy.
     Something as simple as climbing into or out of the top bunk (about mid torso level) leaves me breathless and possibly coughing. Everyone has assured me I will be all right and I believe them.
     I am drinking Milo laced with lots of sugar and then will be turning out the lights. My friends will be sleeping right now and be getting up around 10 to start their summit push around 11 pm. I wish I was with them.

    
  

Day 3 - I reach a new low point...

     I was sick through the night with rigors, stomach cramps and nausea. I decided it was worth a trip to the bathroom - just in case. M gave me 10 minutes, which in retrospect is never enough time to actually get to the bathroom, get your business done and get back to the tent in the middle of the night.
     You must realize that its a 20 minute trip to go to the bathroom at night. First I push my sleeping bag down to my hips and shimmy up hill out of it - then I put my head lamp on, climb over to the foot of the tent, remove my sleeping socks (because they don't fit into my boots), open the first tent door zipper, get my boots on, put my jacket on, open the second tent zipper without getting wet from the condensate, stand up, zip the inside zip, then zip the outside zip so my tent mates stay (sort of) warm, zip my coat up, go to the bathroom without falling over any tent lines or rocks, do the business, sanitize my hands and then return to the tent to repeat the getting out process in reverse.

                                           Frozen condensate on our tent in the morning.

     By the time I actually returned to the tent, M had already completed the laborious task of getting out of her sleeping bag and into her boots and was just unzipping to come after me. I started on Cipro for traveler's diarrhea since having rigors indicates I probably have an infection.
     This was another night I only had two sleep periods - one hour around 2 and another 30 minutes around 3:30, bringing my two night sleep total to 3 hours.
     The morning was a pretty low point and I felt horrible as I vomited up some bile. I really just wanted to go down the mountain to warmth, a shower and a horizontal bed.
     Breakfast was again Millet porridge, which I skipped today - the smell was just way more than I figured my nausea could handle. I stuck to some eggs, toast and a cup of hot chocolate. I miss warm toast - warm enough to melt the margarine....
     Brighton and two of his colleagues had the serious conversation with me on how I was doing. I gave them the gritty details and they assured me everything was normal. M assured me rigors are NOT normal.

                              The porters waiting to get everything loaded up in the morning.
     We started off at 8:45 - I was first in line behind the guide because there is much less caterpillar stop/start action the closer to the front of the line you are. Today was billed as a 2 hour gradual walk (all paths are "gradual" here). Again they were a bit off on their advertising and it took us 3 1/2 hours to reach the next camp.
     The first 2 hours were fantastic - I enjoyed the walking and felt good. I learned new Swahili words and really enjoyed myself. The last 1 1/2 hours really sucked! My guts hurt, my hip hurt, my right big toe hurt (reason unknown - perhaps just to piss me off) and it was a real struggle to put one foot in front of the other. I eventually resorted to counting steps just to keep my mind off my litany of aches and avoid a pity party.
     In the late morning or early afternoon the mist tends to rise out of the lower part of the mountain behind us and "races" us towards the top - this means it is usually quite warm when we start walking but it gradually gets colder as we ascend. It is very weird to see the mist chasing you up the path.

                                            The view from the camp site before setting off.    
The mountain was very beautiful and very, very close - it seemed attainable. The sun shining on it was fantastic and it is neat to look down the trail behind me and see the line of hikers on the way up and then to look up the trail and see the line of white bags on the porters' heads far up ahead.
     We spent 30 minutes sterilizing our water. The two water boys (responsible for getting water and filling our bottles) came over to watch us and ask questions. We let them try out our pen and shared some flavor crystals for them to try out.
     One of the water boys told me in a very pleasant voice, with a big smile that, "You are very fat"- it took me aback for a second but then I recognized it for the compliment it was meant as. Still, its very, very odd to have your excess adipose tissue recognized as something that increases your appeal. I started referring to my belly as my "African assets".
     In the late afternoon we went on another acclimatization hike - we left at 4 after the usual pm rain and it was billed as 90 minutes - which I was not really pleased to hear. If they underestimated, as usual, that would mean we would be coming back down after sunset - I don't like down and I don't like hiking in the dark!

                                                      Acclimatization hike - going up.
     It was a gradual ascent (again) and subsequently a "gradual" descent - nevertheless I wiped out and landed on my butt crack on a very large rock. We did make it down before dark - whew!
     I went to supper without my head lamp AGAIN - and had to stumble back to my tent in the dark. The porters and guides seem to have no problem walking about in the dark without a misstep. I suck in the dark and am not very good with my head lamp as I seem to lose all sense of depth perception.
     Bed time the whopping late hour of 8:20 pm.

Day Two - A Little Bit of Hypothermia

     As is so common when I travel, and even when I don't, I don't sleep well. I got two "naps" during the night, one for an hour and the other for 30 minutes. I had hip issues (old injury plus falling during the evening) and back issues.
     There were 3 of us in a "3" man tent - which meant we were very, very close to each other. My sleeping bag was touching the side of the tent and as the temperature dropped and we crossed the dew point, condensation was  all over the inside of the tent and consequently, soaked through my sleeping bag. I got colder and colder as the night went on. As well, we were on a drastic slant and I kept sliding towards the door. Every half hour or so I had to hoist myself up to the top of my sleeping mat - stop reading this, go get in your sleeping bag, and once you are all tucked in, try inching your way along the floor. Then imagine doing it uphill with your nylon sleeping bag.
     The guides didn't want to get us water the night before - we don''t know why, but they were very insistent that we could get it in the morning. We tried to explain how long it would take us to sterilize the water but they didn't seem to share our concerns. Water was finally delivered after breakfast, and, as we tried to explain, it took well over half an hour for everyone to get water and sterilize it. Some are using drops which you just put in the water and its ready in thirty  minutes but that isn't always effective against cryptosporidium. My group is using steripens, which sterilize a liter of water in 90 seconds, but considering three of us need 4L of water each, it does take some time. Nevertheless, our escapades convinced the guides we need water in the afternoon when we have lots of time to fool around with it.
     The walk was on a flat shaled path about 2 feet wide for the first three hours or so but then was steep with high steps up onto rocks. It was very, very hot in the morning when the sun shone but cold when the clouds closed in. I am really enjoying the walking, much more than I thought I would,  but I wish it had been over just a little bit sooner today.

  

  We ate lunch and sterilized our water and then sought shelter in our tents when the rain started.

One of the porters brought us some hot water in a basin to wash in, and just when we had a few bits naked for washing the leader sent out a call to start the acclimitization hike. The sun was now shining and because I was a bit flustered trying to go from bathing to walking, I mistakenly left my sweater and jacket on my sleeping bag instead of in my back pack.

     Of course, you can see where this is going. As we ascended the mist rolled up the mountain and the sky clouded over and the temperature dropped, It was OK when we were walking but then we stopped to hear some speeches. The idea is you spend some time at a  higher altitude and then descend to sleep to help with acclimatization. I can't really tell you what the speeches involved because the early stages of hypothermia were starting. I was shivering and a bit confused. Melissa kindly offered me her extra layer which I put on but was unable to do up - due to my size, not my lack of coordination.
     Finally we went back down (I don't like down very much, which doesn't bode well for the last two days of the trip) to supper. The pumpkin soup was hot and delicious. Tonight was pasta shells with vegetable sauce and avocado for dessert, which I skipped since my guts were a bit dodgy and I didn't think it was a good idea.
     Sunset was around 6 pm and by bedtime at 8:15, it was feeling quite cold out.

Thoughts on the day:
     I drank 3L of water during the hike and didn't pee once. I did pee after we came to camp and through the evening and it was clear like it should be, but I found it a bit worrying at first that I hadn't gone for so long.
     Diamox  symptoms - I've had none beyond the immediately noticeable increase in respiration rate when I was walking. Others are already experiencing the transient numbness in their extremities.
     I am also taking ibuprofen and ginko for altitude and adding tylenol at bedtime for aches and pains. I've not had any headaches and my feet feel pretty good, baring the ankle I twisted last night going to the bathroom.


Please, please let me get some sleep tonight.

Dsy One on the Mountain

Sunday February 10, 2013

      As is so true anytime a large group tries to do anything together – it's hurry up and wait. First we were to meet at 7:30, then it was 7 – so we showed up only to find out there was no meeting, just bring all your stuff down to the parking lot. Then it becomes take your stuff and go for breakfast, come back with all your gear after you eat so the trekking company can check out what you're planning to bring to ensure it's appropriate. We stood, and stood, and stood and finally loaded up, leaving at 9:11. Since we had planned on a 9:30 am departure, we were actually very, very early for African time.

      We were in two buses with a third empty bus. We stopped on the side of a highway in what I assume was a small town based on the number of people hanging about in their Sunday best and proceeded to pick up our porters for the trip. I'm not sure how they fit 100 guys onto that bus, but they must have done so, since that was about the number we ended up with. Each porter can carry 20kg plus his own gear up the mountain.

      It took about two hours to get to the departure point. My bus stopped for an "au naturel" pee break on the side of the road in some nice bushes, and the other bus stopped to pick up fresh meat for the trip. And no, it wasn't roadkill....I think....

      The drop off point is more waiting and waiting and waiting. We signed into the registration book and eventually got some boxed lunches to consume before starting off. What actually took so long is the dividing up and weighing of the gear. They have a large scale and all the baggage is weighed. They have it down to such a science that sometimes two cans of something will be removed from a bag and be replaced by a loaf of bread, or other similar changes.

      The porters pack everything into large woven plastic bags, tie the end shut and then place the bag on their head or on their shoulder/neck just above their back packs. The amount of gear being carried is incredible and not evenly shaped. One guy carries four tables that we will eat off of balanced on top of his head.

      There are 34 of us, and 104 porters and guides with us. They have to take everything we need up the mountain with us except water, which we get from streams at the campsites. That's a lot of food, tents, sleeping pads, chairs, propane tanks, stoves.....you get the idea how much stuff is going with us.

      These porters carry this gear and basically trot by us on their way up the mountain, all the while admonishing us to go “pole pole”, which means slowly, slowly. We need to go slow to give our bodies time to acclimatize and they need to go fast so they can have the camp set up by the time we get there.

      When we finally start up the mountain I get in last place in the line. I hate the thought of holding people up and figure the last place will be the safest for that. The path was wide and well packed down and I was able to chat with the guide. His name in English is “Living” and is something very similar meaning in Swahili – his dad wanted him to really live his life and named him appropriately. I learned about the 5 climate zones, the people who live in and maintain the park and in turn are able to farm the arable land near where they live. Corn, beans and something else are the most common crops around here. One of the villagers passed us with some plants under his arm, and Living stopped him and got one of the beans off the plant for me. It was about the size of a pea pod, but shaped more like green beans. It was reddish pink and the beans inside were white, similar to what we call Navy beans.

       We passed a "store" set up for the tourists along the side of the path that sold pop and a few snacks. The ground just past the store had a few plastic packages strewn around, which is unusual as this country has been very free of litter so far. These 2x3 inch flat envelopes of clear plastic hold poor mans' gin and can be purchased for about 500 Tanzanian shillings (TSH) which is about 30 cents Canadian. Rich guys can buy their gin in bottle but the poor man buys his like this.

      We hiked about 4 hours and the trail was gradual (every single trail was “gradual” according to the guides, which leads us to wonder if “gradual” is the only descriptive word they know or they are just laughing at us!)

     The campsite for the night is just a semi flat spot on the side of the mountain at a location called Simba or First Cave. Our tents are so crowded together I fell over the tie  down lines while going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I twisted my ankle and woke the people inside the tent.

     Supper is served in one of three dining tents on tables, with table cloths and small camping "chairs" - which are so small only one of my butt cheeks can be on it at a time. Since the mountain is not flat at this point everyone gingerly sits around the table and tries to move as little as possible, otherwise we will all go down like stacked dominoes. We have a vegetarian tent and only one male vegetarian. We always make him sit at the downhill corner to catch us if we  fall over. Supper is soup, a main course and fruit for dessert.. We are all tired, its late and eating is a bit of a chore even though the soup is delicious (cream of leek - made fresh because I saw the leek peelings).

     It becomes dark when we are eating and none of us had enough foresight to bring our headlamps to dinner. The porters don't use artificial light and can easily guide us to our tents even though I am in danger of falling over at any second.

     Glorious walking today on a wonderful trail!

African Arrival

Sadly I was awake at 0330h. Can't say I was particularly excited, just awake. Around 430 I gave up trying to sleep and tried to finish my library book - almost made it, will have to take it out again to read the last 20 pages.

We left home at 0900 and picked M up on the way. We  are flying KLM, with the first leg from Edmonton to Calgary operated by West Jet. The check in process seemed to take a fair amount of time but M and I ended up on the last two seats together so, worth the wait.

Our plane was delayed (imagine that) because they couldn't get the bridge out to the plane. After 45 minutes they decided to move the plane to another gate. This is the Edmonton airport we are talking about, its not like all the gates are full - they should have decided that after 10 minutes.

Thirty minute flight to Calgary, so barely enough time to get snacks and a drink of water. The bonus of sitting in the very last row is they give you lots of extra snacks. Fiona our steward said they were for the African kids we'll meet but we all knew there was no way the snacks would make it all the way to Africa. They did, however, make it to Amsterdam.

Our two connections at Calgary and Amsterdam passed uneventfully with less than an hours wait at each airport. KLM had very nice planes - the Airbus with a two -four-two seating pattern. They appear to be quite new airplanes and yet come with cigarette disposal areas at the rear of the plane. Both KLM flights were absolutely freezing!

I got about an hour of sleep on the first flight - missing dinner, and then a couple of 45 minute to 1 hour naps on the second flight, each of which were about 8 hours long.

When we arrived in Africa it was already dark, so no views of the mountain. KLM does have a nose wheel camera so you can see the ground as you come into the airport - it was very cool!

We exited the plane and walked across the tarmac to the building - no problems with the "bridge"here as the rolling stairs seemed to work well. Passport control took only a few minutes and I had a chance to try out my Swahili. The lady processing my passport looked tired and not all that enthusiastic about her job at that moment. When I took back my passport I thanked her in Swahili - that got a look straight into my eyes and a big smile. As I've found when travelling, people really do seem to appreciate the attempt to speak their language and "thank you" is a word you get to use a lot.

Eventually all 7 of us on that plane got all our luggage (although M, Helen's and mine was off in a few minutes) and we headed off into the countryside.

It is a highly rural area and about 100m from the airport there was only blackness all around us. They drive on the left here and even though I was in the back middle seat of a 10 person van, I still found it a bit freaky to see the cars coming towards us on that side.

They have a lot of speed bumps, or perhaps, in keeping with the Kilimanjaro theme, speed mountains along the highway - these are the widest speed bumps I have ever seen and often seem to be in the middle of nowhere.

We came upon one very bad car MVC where a smallish car (Subaru Legacy sized) had crashed mostly head on into a semi - the police men were examining the wreckage with flashlights and all the responding vehicles were parked with their blinkers on. No flashing overhead lights - which really looks weird. The policemen were wearing reflective vests, but no one was directing traffic or anything like that. I'm not sure if there were any ambulances in sight as I'm not sure what the emergency vehicles looked light beyond blinking lights.

As I am writing this I can hear the morning call to prayer which was quite faint at first but is now getting louder - as if they called everyone and now they are actually praying over the loud speaker. Very cool, although if I am sleeping tomorrow morning when it occurs I might not think so.

We arrived just passed 2230 local time (1230h on Friday afternoon at home) 27 hours after I left home. We were greeted with some freshly squeezed juice - passion fruit and mango maybe?

I am in room eight tonight by myself. It has two twin beds, which are made up individually with blankets and then pushed together. The beds are hard  - the only harder beds I have slept on were in Hong Kong. I took out my sleeping bag and slept on top of it for some extra padding. It didn't help much.

The air conditioning is a floor fan, which I promptly put on high. I woke up in the middle of the night and was cold, so had to get up and turn it off. While writing this morning I had it on low but that made me cold - weird as it is quite warm in the room My watch says it is 27 degrees in the room.

The bathroom has a flush toilet and since I am south of the equator I checked for rotational direction. It is clockwise, which may be due to the angle the water enters the toilet bowl. I was going to check in the shower last night but I couldn't figure out how to get hot water so had a pretty brief shower..

I slept for about 4 hours and have woken up at 0330, which is a frequent wake up time for me at home. Perhaps I have successfully made the time change.

Prayer is over now, I think I will have a snack as breakfast isn't until eight, and then start getting my gear packed for the mountain.

Kwaheri for now...