Day 5
Have I told you that every morning we are woken up with tea? Since neither Andi or I drink tea, it has been an interesting tradition to start. But I say yes because I am constantly trying to take in any liquid I can for hydration.
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| Nothing like stepping out of the "internet cafe" as our guide James called the toilet, to this view. |
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| Sleeping above the clouds. |
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| We will be climbing up this rock wall on the right. |
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| These beauties. |
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| The sun rising over the mountain. Astounding. |
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| And the sun starting to brighten all the land. Oh. Beauty. |
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| They are just tall mountain palm trees. And did I mention how fashionable I was the ENTIRE time? And yes, it was cold even in the sun. I was at 13,000 feet people. It was cold. |
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| You can see a little building on the left and that is where we came from. I loved this rock climbing day!!! |
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| Our daily hiking picture with the mountain behind us. |
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| Resting at the top of Barranco Wall. We made it up! All that is left is a little up and down and up before the next camp, James told us. I can do little hills. No biggy. |
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| Hello Mountain!!!! |
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| Headed towards the clouds. |
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| I am sorry, James. You said a little up and down. That is WAY DOWN AND UP. You mean that is my camp up THAT hill? I feel tricked. So down to Karanga Valley we go. That means peanut valley because some folks grow peanuts at the end of the stream in the valley. |
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| Oh, but wait! There is soup waiting for us there! At this point we have stopped trying to please Douglas and James with how much we eat at meals and we have started to be just plain rebellious. We just cannot eat enough for 3-4 people! |
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| We did get to see inside of the cooking tent. Amazing what they guys could cook with such simplicity. And yes, Douglas our "stomach engineer" is currently cooking soup. |
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All of us: Top Row - Me, Job, Obediah, Le Kumo, James, Visent, Genardson, Douglas.
Bottom Row - Patrick, Amani, Benson, Bonaventure, Andi |
Every morning and afternoon they bring us warm water and soap to wash up. Had I known that, I definitely would not have brought 2 huge packs of wet wipes. Oh well. At least I was semi clean.
3.5 hours of climbing a rock wall. More bouldering then rock climbing to get us to 13,500 ft where we slept at Karanga Camp. This was the most fun day by far! Except for that "little" valley we had to go up and down to get to our camp.
Day 6
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| Again, you all… we slept above the clouds. One of the best parts of being up at that elevation. |
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| A little bit blurry, but hello sunrise on the horizon. |
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| Camping in the shadow of the mountain. |
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| There were times we hiked alone, but as we got closer to the top there were tons of people all heading to the same point in Africa. Maybe the highest point? :) Maybe. |
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| These were friends we made from the beginning of the hike. Gretchen was hiking with her parents. They were an amazing family who just kept going day by day. It was just so wonderful to see them going every day. |
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| I just love when I get to camp and I can see where I came from. So incredibly different from all the hiking that I do in trees in WA. |
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| And we have made it to base camp. This is where we will head out at midnight for the summit. Say what?!?! No body told me that! |
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| And no body told me I was a little crooked! Andi! Clearly I am trying to win beauty pageants for hikers! |
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| All these people waiting to get to the top. |
3 hours of climbing to get us to 15,200 ft where we slept at Barafo Camp. And by slept, we took a 2.5 hour nap after lunch, woke up for dinner, and then took another 2.5 hour nap before we woke up at midnight to start our assent to the summit.
