Sleep, what sleep! I managed to get 2hrs sleep last night, which will no doubt begin to tell during our 13hrs of walking today. 13hrs just the number sounds draining on its own even without the attached exercise, and it’s not much better looking at the numbers which make up those 13hrs: starting in about 45mins we have a 5 hour climb from Saddle Camp to the peak, which will hopefully have us at the summit for 6am and sunrise. We then trudge back down mountain track for 8hrs before finally collapsing in our LandCruiser, our only break coming upon return to Saddle camp, allowing for a change out of our cold weather gear, and for a spot of breakfast
Let me just briefly explain how I managed to get into bed at 6pm and still not sleep for 4 hours. First off, the storm was quite effective at keeping me awake; I love to be in storms and to be able to experience the power that they hold. I think that in that respect we have been really lucky while in Africa, experiencing everything from the torrential downpour of the tropical storm, to the electrical storm brooding in the distance. So I was more than happy to lying in my bunk listening to the storm lash the hut around me and pound relentlessly on thin tin roof. After the storm, the next distracter from sleep would come from the wildlife.
First off are the crows; mutant crows might be a better description. These beady eyed blighters are about a foot in size, having a curious white collar around their neck and a propensity for walking around clacking their claws on the tin roofs above our head, and just to make sure that you were aware of their presence, they bang loudly on the roof with their beaks, which if you are not expecting it, and finally just beginning to drift off sleep, can give quite a start.
Mutant Mt. Meru crows!
As well as the crows, there was also *something* snuffling around the base of our hut, banging into the wall at a level with my head. After the beast had given up foraging near to my head, it was replaced by a slightly odd noise, sounding like something IN the wall. Grabbing my head torch, I gave a quick scan under the bed and confirmed that in fact my concrete floor was sealed firmly to the wooden wall and that whatever was in the wall was going to stay there. Maybe 10 mins later a similar sound came, but I could have sworn that this time it was in the room. Again I scanned around the room, and as if looking for an African equivalent of the Bogie Monster checked under my bunk.
Only the remains of an old chocolate wrapped could be seen, along with a ball of foil which had contained my sandwiches, but again, the wall and floor were solid. With that I turned off the torch, and turned over. 5 mins later the noise came again, my checks revealed nothing, again, but there was now a flake of foil next to my sandwich wrapped which I don’t recall seeing before. The scientist in my head woke up, and decided that an experiment was in order, if only to prove I wasn’t going mad. The foil ball was placed in the middle of the floor and again the room returned to darkness, and with it, a light sleep.
At 11pm I was woken again, a rustling now coming from the corner of the room near my feet. I bathed the room in fluorescent light, to find that the foil ball missing, and the rustling emanating from a large mouse. The mouse was half backed into a hole in the corner of the room, a hole, which I had previously convinced myself did not exist. The rustling was coming from the rodent’s efforts at attempting to pass a 10cm ball of foil into a 5cm hole.
Oddly enough at the advent of the light the mouse did not return to its hole, merely looking at me with a surprising level of indifference before returning to its task with the foil ball. The mouse bolted back into its hole when I disturbed the foil ball with a stick, but only so far in that its head was no longer protruding into the room, seeming content to sit and watch me from within the safety of its hole. Now the mouse itself I have no issue with, however there was plenty of food stored within my pack for the morrow and it is the potential nocturnal activities of the mouse I DO have problems with. I did not relish waking to find my bag peppered with mouse holes, thus I took the foil and carefully crammed it into the hole, hopefully blocking my nocturnal friends entrance back into the room. My task completed, the light was extinguished, again, and again I turned over in an attempt to sleep for the final hour before midnight.
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