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.
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.
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 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!
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.
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