We left the hotel early and arrived at our start point in good spirits at 9.30 a.m. to begin our adventure. Lunch consisted of a hotel packed lunch, which contained a nutritional breaded roll, 6 quartered pieces of carrot, a really disgusting small bag of….I suppose they were crisps, the tiniest banana in the world and 4 biscuits!!! But it seemed to do the trick and fill us up and none of us lacked energy.
The day was boiling hot and the scenery absolutely stunning. We were walking through heavily forested areas then came into some tall heathers. The views of Kilimanjaro were spectacular but it is still some way off!
We arrived at the camp site late afternoon (3,600 metres) and it was already set up with our 3 tents and separate dining tent. All very organised indeed. So we washed in some bowls of water although Craig insisted on putting his dirty great big feet in my bowl, as well as using one for his face! But we had that replaced anyway so that wasn’t really a problem, just very funny at the time. It was a very hard day but superb. Back feels good, boots are good, legs are good, head is good – so that’s all good!
There was also a private toilet tent and we learnt a nickname of sending an e-mail or sending an e-mail with an attachment and I am sure you can all imagine what that means! This means however, that we don’t need to say we are going to the loo anymore! One of the guides informed us of this, which we found quite funny.
The food was really excellent we had some zucchini soup, fried fish,vegetables and nice roast potatos and some fresh fruit for dessert. We gave it a 7.5 out of 10 and really quite beyond what we were expecting. We then played a bit of Uno, had a laugh and decided to turn in for the night. Given that 3 of the lads had never camped out before they all did very well.
None of us slept very well. It took me about 3 hours to get to sleep, which is definitely something I am not used to. Eventually got to sleep and got 4 or 5 hours, woke up but went back to sleep fortunately for another hour and when I woke up at 6.45 a.m. everyone else seemed to be awake too. Had a cup of tea in bed, which was nice and now we are getting ready for the next day.
The slightly worrying thing was that the breathlessness seemed to set in when we were resting and you could feel your heart pounding away and breathing quite quickly and even with the breathing exercises it didn’t really calm it down
The amount of water and liquids we are drinking together with the Diamox (prescribed to the guys to help with altitude sickness) meant there were frequent visits to the special tent, although some lads have discovered another use for the empty plastic water bottles!
Remarks of the day so far are from Richard P who started off the morning by saying ”Well, wasn’t that the worst night ever!’ He was also quite amazed at how dark it is, no lights whatsoever. His observation was that even when you go around your house and you don’t switch your lights on, there are still lights from the microwave or the street lights etc. but here absolutely nothing.
Other remarks stated so far are:
Stuart – ‘He is just sorry for everything he has done!’
Neil – ‘ This flipping blog is taking an awful lot of effort!’
David – ‘Great food, shame about the accommodation!
The sun is just rising and is absolutely spectacular and it looks like it will be a nice sunny day again. The feeling at camp in the morning is that we are all kind of up for it, but probably a bit jaded from lack of sleep.