Kilimanjaro day 2

Yes I know, so far I'm feebily missing my Thursday updates, and I STILL havn't managed to complete my Kili recount. But I'm sure you understand I'm busy being unproductive in a myriad of ways.

Just before we get back to Kili, here is a quick insight into the mind of medical student:
When asked, now that she was a final year, what hobbies she had time for, the medical student - lets call her Chuckles ( it will become apparent after a few posts), responded first by delivering a glare sufficient to melt steel and replying very slowly, in a measuredly cold tone "Breathing"


Day 2 - Shira camp 3856m
Today has been wet, very wet, while we were in the rainforest the clouds kept us damp, but this has been something else.

This morning we woke, to a cloud free camp, and Kili's peak jutting out from behind the edge of the rise we were camped upon. The day started well, even getting in at least 5 mins of sunshine before we were engulfed in cloud. In fact things were so good i had sweat beading on the forehead, I’m sure you really wanted to know that!
Our journey to the next camp would consist of a 5 hr trek largely through scrub and what I was reliably informed would be “light and intermittent clouds”, well we walked in light cloud for the first hour anyway. The clouds then began to thicken, mixing in very light drizzle, but we were already damp from sweat and continued in our t-shirts, warmed by our exertions. At the turn of the first hour our guide demonstrated remarkable psychic/meteorological powers by suggesting we put our rain gear on. I dutifully dismissed him saying my t-shirt was already wet from the drizzle, 5 mins later the rain started with vigour and I was forced to stop, eat my own words and suit up.

The guides response to the rain was quite unique to say the least, I have never seen a sight quite comparable to a man walking up a mountain, scrambling up rocks, while holding a brightly coloured golfing umbrella aloft. I did chuckle a lot, before once again eating my words, or at least chuckles, the umbrella covered both him, AND his pack, and as it turned out that my pack wasn’t waterproof it would have been a real boon – I simply hoped that while my pack was wet, my DrySacs within would prove their worth

After about 3 hours, the powers that be an Kili decided that light rain was boring, and that a torrential downpour would liven our day so much. I have never been in rain like it for that period of time, constantly hoping to find somewhere to shelter so that I could check my pack. Finally lunch time arrived, and we took a break under a large overhang rock face, thankfully my things weren’t too bad. The rain had just begun to penetrate through my sleeping bag sack, but the pause allowed me to with a great deal of force, to cramp everything that could get wet into one DrySac. I also decided to completely suit up as well, I was putting a lot of faith now in a pair of heavy duty waterproof trousers and jacket for the next two hours.

I’d finally finished faffing, just as the guide finished his lunch, I’d not even started! He simply shrugged, picked up his umbrella and toddled off into the undergrowth for a toilet stop.
Lunch was a simply fair, half a chicken breast and one leg, a boiled egg, a plantain banana (which I have just never been able to develop a desire for), a carton of mango juice and sandwiches filled with jam, the colour of the aforementioned jam could only be described as radioactive, but when your wet and hungry, you hope it will imbue you with superpowers!

I didn’t think it could rain any harder, but after we set off it did. The path was under a standing 5cm of water, torrential rainfall implies a fair amount of heavy rain. I have stood under less efficient power showers, for a hour we trudged, muddy to our knees, and water dripping everywhere, but under our waterproofs, thankfully still dry. After an hour the intensity increased still further, how I don’t know, by now it was hammering on our heads, and the guide said it would be about 45mins to camp. At that we picked up the pace to fair trot and made it within 25mins.

Upon seeing the tents, we actually broke into a run, so damp, demoralised and dreary were we. I unzipped my tent, and literally dived in, and then promptly found myself confined to the tent for 3 hours, and the rain and wind tried to lift up the tent. I honestly can’t impress strongly enough, if you’re climbing Kili, take some good books for times like this. You’ll be tired, wet, and you can only play cards for so long before going crazy.

After 3 hours the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started and I bolted from my tent, surely faster than I had dived in, sometimes you’ll only know true happiness when you are sitting on a toilet!

After the rain clouds had been blown away, they were replaced by a warming sunshine and the camp, looked like the area surrounding widow Twankies wash room. The Shira camp is MASSIVE. A colossal scar on the side of the mountain, it looks like a tremendous war was fought there and finished with an atom bomb and we were the first people to return to grown zero after the scrub had returned. The guide explained, it looks so bare, because in the summer, up to 350 people could be stopping here every night. I just couldn’t imagine how horrible that must be. As I wandered through the scrub, sun warming my back and cool wet grass pushing into my Crocs, again the feeling of discovering the mountain for the first time came back to me.

The view from our camp looks directly over to Mt. Meru and it is a terrific view, the mountain I have already climbed, looked so close – so much closer than Kili had appeared when we were climbing it. As ever the rains came back, not with any great ferocity, but enough to have us scurry back to our tents. I read until dinner was brought to the tent, happy to be resting my feet. Night falls suddenly on the mountain, and by 8:00pm the stars were full and not another human light could be seen.

Now the stars, I thought they had been impressive in the Serengeti, but here, probably due to the height and the reduction in the atmosphere above us, they were like nothing I have ever seen. The sky practically looked 3-dimensional, rather than some dark blue sheet with pin pricks on it. I spent 10 mins walked around, wrapped against the cloud, and eventually found myself standing on a cliff edge in the dark in order to be able to get signal to make my phone call home. I tried as hard as I could to explain the wonder that was right over head, and practically shouted down the phone as a storm broke out across the valley on the slopes of Mt. Meru. It was a night that will stay with me for ever, and after my phone call, as I watched the lightening, standing on the cliff edge in the dark, I had a small weep. I’d been away for 6 weeks. Longer than I’d ever been away from Nana and Pa in my life, and I dearly wanted to be able to show this sight to them, to have them experience it back in England, and it was at that moment, that I felt very conscious that I was in a group of one, and that I was alone. Standing somewhere I had dreamed of being my entire life, but that non-one was there to share it with me.

I walked back into my tent, curled up into my bag and slept like a log, one of the deepest sleeps I can ever remember