080916 - Day 4 of the trek. It was freezing cold when we woke up. As you can see in my photos, I put the buff over my nose and mouth, and have to put another buff over my ears. I was waiting very badly for the sun to appear. In the below photo, I am actually posing next to the toilet and holding tightly to a warm flask as I waited for my sister to use the toilet.
Today, my mucous and phlegm have turned green. It was gross as I spit them out. Thick stuff. And it rolled away in the cold. It did not soak into the ground.
Today's breakfast starts at 8.15am. It is a late breakfast because it was going to be a short walk today to Karanga Camp. In most itineraries, one can opt to walk further on from Karanga (after lunch break) to Barafu Camp, which is the Base Camp for Kilimanjaro. If one decides to proceed on to Barafu, on the same night, one will start the trek to the peak. For me, that is too stressful and I won't have sufficient rest. I am not capable for that. Hindsight, good thing I did not do that because I fell sick and I will be pushing my body across the edge.
For breakfast, it was bread, pancakes, vegetables, sausages and when you thought that was a good breakfast, a plate of fried eggs and bananas came in. Super filling. And I spent some time sending a long message after breakfast. Hehe.
The destination today is Karanga Camp. 3,995m. 5km. Sounds like a short distance. I mean, I run 5km in 35 minutes. Haha. What a drastic difference. To get to Karanga Camp, we have to do an almost vertical climb up the Baranco Wall. The route here is narrow and we are advised to give way to the porters.
We start the trek at 9am.
Check out the line of people waiting to walk up the rocks and cross some narrow ridges. This was a tough one for me. I was trying to inhale a lot of oxygen as I pulled myself up but my mucous was blocking my nostrils. So, I have to exhale through my mouth. And the cough that comes along with it.. Gawd. I was telling myself constantly - I am getting to the top eventually. Plus, with the lack of oxygen and the continual increase in altitude was definitely not on my side.
Have you ever tried running or do a physical activity with a flu? Then, you will know what I am talking about.
Can you see Baranco Camp? It is the one with the green roof.
Finally. 3,900m (from Baranco Camp) to 4,120m (on top of Baranco Wall). After close to 2 hours but just 220m distance. Look at the view of Mount Kilimanjaro. It is stunning. It looks so surreal.
We stayed at the top of Baranco Wall for 30 minutes and descended. It was such a pleasant walk descending. We saw the water that flows from the melting glacier. Then, it became a flat trail and I got tired.
The trail goes downwards again but it was so dusty as one descends and made heavy footprints to stop themselves from falling or slipping. Billows of dust was smothering me. I put my buff over my nose but I found it difficult for me to breathe because of my flu. So, I tried to keep a distance from my guide. But I was still inhaling dust.
Then, the trail continued upwards. Gawd. We walked really slow. My sister had a headache as we ascended, and she popped a Panadol. We waited for a while.
Yay! We did it. Karanga Camp. 3,995m. 5km. 4.5 hours. 1.30pm. Just in time for lunch but registration first.
And from our tent, is a view of Mount Meru and the clouds.
Behind our tent is Mount Kilimanjaro.
There was a designated tourist toilet not far from our tent, but I walked pretty slow. There was a dug up hole in the toilet but some messages were not sent completely. Get what I mean? Oh I forgot to mention, Eden refers to toilets as Internet Cafe which makes more sense to send messages. Haha.
Our solar light getting charged up. Eden hooks one up in our tent at night. It is made in China, in case you are wondering.
Erick, the chef is cooking our lunch.
This is our waiter, Roman. He transfers the food from the kitchen tent to our tent. Such a brave person to face the cold. Before he unzips our tent, he will greet us from outside with a "Jumbo" and we reply "Jumbo", and he unzips the tent. Jumbo means Hello. He may also greet us "Mambo" which means "How are you" and we reply "Poa" which means "Cool". Or he will wait outside till we respond. And it is cold if you wait too long.
Our lunch consists of fries, fried chicken, vegetable salad and stir-fried vegetables.
After lunch, I washed my 'disgustingly-filled-gross-yucky-thick-sticky-mucous' handkerchief (I brought a handkerchief thinking I will wipe myself with it but it was used to wipe my mucous goo) in a small basin of warm water. Of course, I scrubbed it with soap which Erick gave to me. It was a small bar of soap from Keys Hotel (the hotel we stayed in Moshi where Trekking Hero puts all their customers in). I hung my handkerchief on the tent and it got some good amount of sunshine to dry and kill the virus.
We got to see a beautiful view of the sunset from our tent.
For dinner, it is vegetable soup. Vegetable gravy. Rice. Filling.
Tonight, Eden tells us stories of his tribe, the Chagar tribe, the people who live at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, the mountain people, and possibly the tribe has one of its own who first touched the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro but was never recorded, He tells us about the Maasai tribe too. It was a good story telling session.
He also told us that there was a robbery the night before in the same location where our tent was located. He told us to be careful when we go out to pee and if we hear any noises at night.
With that, we wished each other "lala, salama" which means "Sweet Dreams. Good Night".
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My sister did a video of our 7-day Trek in Kilimanjaro. You can watch the video here (https://vimeo.com/184126352) or click on the below video but the quality is not as good as the one in the link (because the upload size is limited to less than 100MB). Hopefully it works.
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