090916 : Today morning, I woke up to see ice formed in one of our water bottles. That is very cold. When I went to Everest Base Camp in September 2013, there was no ice formed in our bottles. Same month we went. Different locations. But ice at Kilimanjaro Trek.
A photo of me and my sister in our tent. It is actually a small tent. Can you see the solar light hanging? On the right of the photo is the the exit of the tent. I zip and unzip the tent frequently because of my need to pee, and doing it in the cold night does not help, resulting in both of my thumbs' skin became coarse, peeled skin and took 2 weeks to heal.
Breakfast time - pancake, bread and egg. The pancakes really stuff us up. The light blue thermos was really a life saver. It contains hot water to warm us up every morning and night.
Today, we are headed towards Barafu Camp, 4,673m. The base camp of Kilimanjaro. We left at 8am. It was just a straight route with a gradual ascend. Despite it being a straight route only, the thinning air was making it difficult for me to breathe with my 'mucous-filled' nose. The route was filled with lots of rocks. There were barely any plants. I looked in awe at the porters who were carrying all the items on their back but still moving at a steady pace.
This was just 100 meter to the camp but that distance took me 25 minutes to reach to the first tent. It took me another 15 minutes to reach the ranger's hut. I was breathing really hard at every step.
See the green roof? That is the ranger's hut. Almost there..
There were so many tents set up at Barufu Camp. Some were down the mountain slope and I thought that I will be tired walking from the tent to the ranger's hut itself, even before starting the trek to the peak.
Yay! Barafu Camp. 4,673m. 4km from Karanga Camp. 4 hours.
It was a 8-minute walk from the ranger's hut to our campsite. Our tent located next to the toilet. Yay!
I washed my 'disgustingly-filled-mucous' handkerchief again. I am pretty sure I will be using it a lot tomorrow during my journey to the peak.
Lunch was macaroni and vegetable sauce, banana, oranges and watermelon.
For the first time, I see a tiled toilet in the mountains. The hole is small to send a message, and hence, one must aim properly. Or you may see some messages scattered everywhere especially when one sends a long message. Ew. *just ignore the sight and smell*
Another memorable picture of me. Sun burnt. Wind burnt. And soon to experience the worst sun burn and wind burn tomorrow. I thought I can't get any worst than this but I did. Haha.
For dinner, it is vegetable soup, bread with margarine, spaghetti and vegetable sauce.
Eden tells us to rest after dinner and to wake up by 10.30pm tonight because we will start our trek to the peak at 11pm. He tells me not to bring my hydration pack because the water will turn into ice at the mouth piece. He will carry our daypack for us and told us to pack our water bottles, our snack which the chef will prepare for us and our important documents.
We slept with our trekking attire because it will be too cold for us to change that night.
The heart is anxious.
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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.
2 comments:
I wonder if the ground was prepared in some sort of way at the camp site? It looks like the floor if the tent is without any uncomfortable bumps.
Since it is a campsite, most of the rocks would have been removed by previous groups. Also, there is a sleeping mat in the tent.
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