Jambo!! Once again, a 6am wake up call today! (4am UK time!!) Greeted with a lovely hot ginger tea, which I didn't particularly like the taste of, but it was lovely, as it was FREEZING last night/this morning! Also because I didn't really get much sleep last night, probably because I've never properly camped before!
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Our guides & porters!
Photo credit to Angela Carrabotta |
Once we'd woken up and had a lovely breakfast of porridge (which is so good!), honey on toast, and egg, we had a talk from our head guide - Ami, who introduced us to the fellow 70+ guides and porters who were making our trek possible. It was so nice to hear what they all do and all of their names as they all really are amazing people! I couldn't ever even begin to imagine being able to do what they do!!
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| Beautiful morning views! |
Then they all sang us their national anthem and also the anthem of the people of Tanzania - which they all looked so passionate about, it was touching to watch. Except it was a bit funny during their second song - as a couple people there did what we do as soon as we've passed the first verse of the National Anthem - kind of guess the words/ make noises that go to the tune so it sounds like you know the words - it's great to know it's not just us!
Once we finally set off, the sun had risen and it was getting a bit warmer, and the views were just beautiful!!! (Insight: I'm going to say this a lot!).
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| Yeah, a little bit steep (but not that bad!) |
Today was quite a steep day, we did a bit of scrambling up rocks and went through another change of terrain, although it's still kind of desert land kind of terrain, it's a lot different to our last camp - as that one was a bit more muddy and this one's a bit dry and dusty.
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Had to have a picture with the amazing view!
Photo credit to Gabbie Majer |
There was a point today where we'd all just finished walking up this really steep rock bit and we all just stopped to look back at where we've come from, and it was just amazing!! It felt amazing, looked amazing, and was insane to know how far we'd already come! (pictured below!)
One really funny bit of today was a point when Simon stopped to put some sun cream on, and the guides we were with found it really funny and we didn't really have a clue why, until they told us it was because of Simon's arm hair! We forgot that James had previously told us that out in Tanzania they don't grow arm hair, so they find it kind of funny to see! Which is great! and bizarre at the same time!
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Couple photo in Shira Cave
Photo credit to George Murphy |
After 6 hours of steep trekking we arrived at our new camp for the night and had some late lunch at 4pm - before chilling for an hour ready to do a little acclimatisation trek for about one hour and a half - on our way we saw Shira Cave and everyone took loads of photos in the mouth of it after Ami had told us about it and about how the porters used to camp in there, but they're not allowed to any more.
We then carried on up to Shira Peak, and when we got there the views were so beautiful, we could see Uhuru Peak in one direction and the rest of mountain immersed in clouds in the other direction and it helped a little with the headache and bad mood I'd gotten from the altitude. We hung out there for a little bit and took some more group photos (naturally) before trekking back down to camp! (Which, absurdly Simon & I led...)
When we got back to camp we had 'washy washy' and then our dinner - the food up here really is great! MORE amazing soup before pasta with beef sauce. Yum!
Now we've just packed ready for tomorrow - expecting to be getting a bit chillier as we go further up - we're doing 6km up and then 4km down tomorrow - so it'll be another long day again! (obviously!)
So it's time to try and get a good nights sleep!!
La la salama!!!
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