Kilimanjaro Troubles

I now have 17hrs until I leave for Mt. Kilimanjaro, I have tried in vain to pack my bag, having opted to leave the task until the sun has gone down. That said I have spent the rest of the day making energy bars for the trip and doing my washing, so still unfortunately voiding the sun.

The way I felt when finally descending Meru has come back to haunt me to some degree, in packing my bag I am trying as hard as humanly possible to keep the weight down. At the moment, my bag is standing at 12kg. But I think it may hit 14kg by the time it is packed, which is something I’m concerned about. I want to be able to carry my pack again on Kili, if for no other reason that the heat which I will generate when carrying it, but I’m not sure if in attempting to I will cause myself problems. Will I actually be able to carry that weight, up Africa’s highest mountain, and will I be able to do so for 6 days. The three things that I am holding onto in that respect are that i) I have actually managed to climb Meru, successfully, ii) I feel much fitter than before I did Meru and before I got here – since arriving I have probably run 100km, only on Wednesday I ran the 12km from my hospital back to the house in only 1:39hrs, and with no significant difficulty, and most importantly iii) everyone keeps on saying that Kili is much easier than Meru, and is a much shallower hike apart from the summit day. I certainly hope that they will be correct; one thing that is certain is that before Meru I was jumping around and raring to go, today, it’s a solemn trepidation.

I keep returning to a piece of advice I read somewhere, “Respect Kilimanjaro for he can kill you”