Monday 20th September 2010
Grateful that the morning is finally here, I get up at seven thirty and have my last shower for next six days. The breakfast is short and sweet and then we all meet in the reception, just before half past nine. Oh, btw. the morning is cloudy again so although Kibo IS there, we still can't see it! Our luggage is weighted in the reception; mine is 15 and half but still pass without re-packing (little sigh of relief!)
The cars that are taking us to the start of the route are already here and we also get pre-packed lunch boxes. The atmosphere is a bit rushed so nobody has time to be worried or scared. Until... there is a lady sitting in one of the armchairs in the reception room and she wishes us good luck. She is also saying that she had to come back from Kili the second day because she woke up in the morning blind! I am doing my best not to freak out. Blindness?? She was told it was due to the altitude sickness but really? Trying to think logically I am calming myself thinking that nobody ever mentioned blindness to be a symptom of an altitude sickness and on the second day morning she couldn't even be in a very high altitude? The next think she says - and it's an advice too - is to be prepared that from day one we will be covered in dust and dirt. Before we even have a chance to ask more, her sister comes to the reception - unfortunately another unsuccessful story; she came back on the third day because she couldn't handle the dust and while now safe in the hotel, she still can't talk properly and her coughing is right scary. Right, ten minutes before setting off, two bad stories are something we don't exactly need... But it's too late for anything anyway, we are being called to get into the cars as all the luggage has been loaded.
According to the itinerary we were supposed to go first to the Marangu gate where everybody entering the Kilimanjaro National Park needs to register. Marangu gate is about twenty minute drive from the hotel. As we're now driving for more than a hour (the driver estimates two and half), I don't think we're going to stop there. As it turns out - we don't bring us to Marangu but Marangu brings itself to us. At the start of the Rongai route - at Nale Moru village - there is an officer waiting for us and we all have to register into his ledger book.
The drive was about hour and half after all as some parts of the road are now tarmac and therefore easy and fast to drive on. Still the last bit coming to the village was quite rough and we were all quite grateful for our 4x4. So here we are. It's around eleven in the morning, it's us here, another group from Exodus company and many porters and guides who are sorting the luggage. We have some time so we take the opportunity and offer our best smiles for a group picture:
Please meet - Salma, Jason, Nilam, Nadia, Sonja, Denise, Darina, Ryan, Paul, Gary and Katherine. All happy and smiley :-)
Soon after our registration, Niagara guy - who is here with us but is soon coming back to the civilisation and beer - is introducing our dream team: lead guide Obote and three of the other guides, Dixon, Robert and Salomon. We greet them happily and I am thinking that these are the people in whose hands our lives are now. For some reason I feel ok about it.
We set off around 12 noon. We're currently at 1950m amsl. Our today's guide is Salomon. The porters are still sorting luggage and other stuff they need to carry while we're on our way to the first camp (2700m). Salomon assures us that the porters will soon catch up with us, pass us and then arrive into the camp hours ahead of us. No wonder, as from the first minute we walk very, very slowly. While it can look strange to some, I think it's a clever way how to get us used to walking slowly before we get to the high altitude.
We are walking through a forest - I could say a common forest and we could be anywhere in the world. It's strange to be walking on Kilimanjaro but still we didn't see any of its peaks. What's even stranger though is the fact that our conversation turns to the topic of toilets (don't ask). Salomon is teaching us new vocabulary - apparently on Kili you don't say you need to go pee (or otherwise). You say you "need to send an email" (or "make a download") and the toilet is a "cyber cafe". Very neat! Needless to say it doesn’t take too long for us to implement this system :-)
From the forest we get on the path leading us through corn fields where we also come across some of the villagers. The field is the place where the dust first introduces itself. The lady in the hotel was truly right. The dust is soon covering everything we carry (including ourselves). Thinking back about our preparations we realise that in no book or blog we have encountered anybody complaining about dust or warning us to be prepared for it. I wonder if that’s because we are in the middle of the dry season…? Maybe?
We stop for a lunch in another forest and can see monkeys in the trees (apparently waiting for what food we leave behind). There is also a first attempt of some of the ladies to use the famous SheWee device, I’d rather not go into any details as I am risking some leaking myself as at the memory I still have to laugh hard… From there we continue slightly uphill on a neat (dusty) path, small trees and bushes around us. It’s like a Sunday afternoon walk, no rush, just a slow pleasant walk. We arrive to the camp in the late afternoon, Salomon says it’s called Simba camp. There are other groups of climbers too, already settling for the evening. We only have a brief rest before Salomon takes us for a short acclimatisation walk, up to 2850m. The path is now mainly bordered by bushes and grass and we can see that soon we will be walking in and above the clouds.
Our first evening on Kili starts with green bowls. In the Kili language they are called “washy-washy” and apparently these green bowls with warm water are our new shower system. It’s hard to use the water from the bowls to wash all of the body, fortunately we have more than plenty of wet wipes which are working perfectly (at this altitude at least; later, when the dust gets too deep into our skin, the wet wipes only re-distribute the upper layers of the dust but don’t actually clean much :-))! Another funny business is our toilet tent. Oh yes, we have our own toilet tent – which is basically a bucket containing chemicals with a toilet seat over it. Believe me, compared to the “general public toilets”, ours one is a luxury!
Satisfied with the result of the evening hygiene routine I join the others in the dining tent. We have popcorn! Unbelievable. I don’t normally eat popcorn but this one tastes soooo good. For dinner we have some sort of vegetable soup, fish and roasted potatoes. I am not sure what I expected but this food has definitely exceeded everything. Yum! After the evening Salomon comes in the tent to greet us and tell us about tomorrow. Apparently, the second day is very hard. Actually somebody says that there are two very difficult parts on this trek. The second day and then the summit night. Hmmm. Shall I be worried? So far I’ve been feeling great. And we stil haven’t seen either Mawenzi or Kibo peaks!!!
Soon after the sun sets, our tent is in the dark. Turns out that Niagara guys forgot to bring lights so we’re sitting by the candlelight. Very romantic! Unfortunately it makes us asleep – at least I feel like that – so soon we separate and go into our tents. But before than we are warned that the camp has an armed guard (I believe this is because we’re very close, if not on the border with Kenya) and if we have a need to visit a cyber café during the night, we should have our torches with us. This way the guard will know we belong to the camp and won’t shoot us… Touching, non? J
I feel asleep but cannot sleep. There is noise coming from the other groups’ camps and the porters are awake till late night. When I finally fall asleep it feels like a few minutes before the morning knocks on the tent…
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