Day 6 - DAY 4 OF THE CLIMB!! - 26th August

Baranco Wall!

Jambo! Today has been a pretty rough day if I'm honest. Woke up feeling ill again and with very little appetite (to the extent that Simon forced me to eat some orange slices just so I'd gotten some sugar), but that all went away when we started walking. (Trekking up a beautiful mountain is a pretty valid distraction!)

Selfie at the top of Baranco
Wall!

We began the day with a climb up Baranco Wall (the one bit of the 'climb' that is actually climbing!) and it was great fun!! It was hard though as there was also hundreds of porters trying to get past us, so it kind of makes you feel a bit pressured to get a move on, and sometimes they took different routes, which was pretty scary to see... But I suppose they're used to it... Rather them than me! But nonetheless it was great fun, and really satisfying to complete!! And when we were at the top, we had sooooo many photos! And the girls all had a 'sports bra' photo, which I couldn't really participate in because my layers were a little tight... My bad!

After we had our little break at the top we continued on our walk to the next camp site, which is where we were going to have lunch at. That's when it got hard - we were high up and could see the camp, but little did we know it was going to take 2-3 hours to get there!! We had to walk down into the valley and then back up again - going down was so painful, it really got me down, when we got to the bottom, we had a break and I had a little cry as the frustration of my pain got to me and I started doubting whether I could really climb Kili. But Daudi advised me "stop crying, it'll give you a headache!" and I stopped anyway and then we cracked on, up the hill to camp for lunch!

Once we got up there I felt a little better, just by sitting down for lunch, and we even got a little cheer from the team when we arrived (as we were about half an hour behind everyone else).

Carrying on to camp!

Then we cracked on to camp, which was about another 4 hours away, and it was still rough, with ups and downs along the trek, along with a headache I had coming and going, which was delightful. But we finally got here after a painful slog and got some dinner and our briefing before heading to bed. So I'm currently sat in my sleeping bag, knowing that at 1am I'm going to be woken up, ready to set off up to Uhuru Peak at 2am. I am praying I wake up feeling good, as headache/sickness is last thing I need!

Dinner was great tonight, as even though we were all tired - we were all having a good laugh... Asin we'd laugh at something simple and then couldn't stop laughing until it hurt - probably from the lack of oxygen we have!! But it was fun nonetheless =)

I'm going to try sleep now. Biggest day of my life so far tomorrow, requires energy!!

La la salama!!

Day 2 - Nairobi to Moshi! - 22nd August

One of our views out the window

Jambo! Today has been another long day! We travelled approximately 7 hours from Nairobi to Moshi in a minibus, it was interesting to see how different the scenery and the people looked from place to place - it was amazing how quickly everything changed.

There were lots of street side sellers which was pretty scary when we were at the Tanzanian border as they tried really hard to make you buy things, and it's something I'm obviously not used to. One put a bracelet on my wrist and tried to make me have it, so Simon had to come and give the bracelet back to her and take me to the bus as I got a bit out of my depth! It's hard being a ridiculously polite Brit sometimes!

After we passed the Tanzanian border we stopped off for a loo break at this lovely little shop, they were selling lots of wonderful things, but I didn't want to spend any of my money yet. Simon bought some things and it was funny as he tried to haggle and the man asked for a pen (which Simon didn't have), and then for his T-shirt (to which Simon was awkwardly a bit like "but I need it...") and then for his walking boots!! (to which Simon was like "I need those too!") So the man let him have it at the price he said and told Simon not to forget to bring his shoes with him next time!! (Simon wasn't sure whether he was joking or not!).

Our first glimpse of Kilimanjaro!

 As we carried on our drive we saw lots of little sand storms - which were pretty cool! We also saw lotsss of goats and even some gazelle and camels at one point!
We also saw our first glimpse of Kilimanjaro!! We spent a lot of the drive guessing it was different mountains, being like "do you think that one's Kili??" Until we finally saw it hiding in the clouds and Jo told us that's the mountain we'll be climbing tomorrow!

There was a lot of speed bumps on the way here, so the ride was a bit rough. But I couldn't help but enjoy the casual nature of our driver as he overtook everything in our path! Even the other minibus we were with he overtook!

Overall though it was a good ride with frequent naps and lots of thinking as I compared what I saw outside the bus to what we have in Britain - we're so privileged and we don't even realise it!!!

Anyway, when we got here we put our stuff in our rooms and got briefed on our coming week on Kilimanjaro - exciting stuff!!! We're setting off at 8.30am to Machame Gate, I'm looking forward to it as it will only be approximately 6 hours walking tomorrow, which I'm sure will be blissful compared to the coming days! - I'll say more about the climb when I'm actually doing it!

It's really nice here at Midlands lodge, I'm sharing a room with Tony (Antonia). Our room is really nice! - I enjoyed my last shower not long ago, and tried to make the most of it before baby wipes is the only answer!!

Right, time to finish my packing and get myself to sleep for my early start tomorrow!!!

Lala Salama!!