Dec 22, 2008: The night was blistering cold, with both Kerri and Ryann awaking throughout the night, to make airholes in the tops of their sleeping bags which were tied around their heads. Despite the sporadic sleep, we both felt pretty well-rested and raring to go on today’s hike.
After dining on mysterously murky gruel, bananas, muffins, plums, eggs, fried tomatoes, cucumbers and toast, we set out around 9am and began the very steep climb to Shira Camp. We stopped for lunch after several hours (notice the trend here?), where we dined on toasted white bread, green pepper, and tomato sandwiches and hot tea. The afternoon continued through the rain forest, entering in to more scruff-like areas as we continued and terminated on a moon-like surface, at a camp with many other trekking groups.
Our group of 7 had our afternoon tea and popcorn and then walked for another hour to see the Shira Caves, the purpose of which was to help us acclimatize by ascending to 3900 metres, before descending again to our camp. Upon return, we ‘bathed’ again, changed, and went for dinner. The sun came out briefly tonight, and we had a spectacular view of the top of Mount Kilimanjaro above the clouds. How far away it still looks!
It is exceedingly cold all the time and we are having a hard time staying warm enough, despite our many layers. We have taken to drinking hot water to stay warm, and now ask Solo, our waiter, to boil water for us at night, which we store in 1.5 litre plastic containers, and use as bed-warmers, bringing them in to our sleeping bags and hoping the tops don’t leak. Sleep is important tonight as tomorrow, we begin the toughest day (summit day excluded) of our hike, climbing to 4600 metres.
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