Day 5

Today was day five and as usual, we got up at 6 o’clock started with tea, washy wash, and then breakfast. For breakfast we had millet, toast, no toast bread of some kind pita and eggs. Eating is difficult as your appetite diminishes in altitude.

Today’s an exciting day!  We get to face the Barranco wall. I’m feeling quite anxious as I can see it from camp and it looks terrifying!  We left camp going a slow downhill to a bridge. It’s so cold, the little waterfall has ice around it and icicles. We crossed the little bridge and started going up. Unfortunately, I forgot to start my watch at camp so I’m missing what I guess is about 1km.

The Barranco wall is interesting. You go up rocks, then down steep rocks with people helping you.  You arrive at this, let’s call it platform, where there’s a big opening.  You put your right foot on a rock and then you’re supposed to cross your left foot on the other side of the opening… that was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I had a little bit of a panic attack but it passed fairly quickly. I’m grateful to have Remi and a supportive team around me. A bit later, you arrive at a thin ledge and a huge rock called the kissing rock. Kissing rock is a very narrow ledge with a big rock in the middle that you sort of have to hug on your way across the ledge. Let me tell you that was not fun. I did, however, hug and kiss the rock as I went by. Again very thankful for the team around me.

Next part was going up rocks, but it was easier than crossing the wall and the one we had done before. I got to the top of the mountain or whatever that was rested for a little bit started making our way down. The descent started pretty smoothly, slow grade, but all of a sudden it was a steepest hill. On the way we passed a large section that burned in a forest fire. The down section was extremely steep and slippery, because the ground is covered in a thin dust. Poor Ken fell on his tail bone. He was a trooper. Got up and kept going. I hope he didn’t break his tailbone.

As we’re going down, we get to a point where we see all the people going up on the other side of a ravine. When we got down to the bottom, there was a very small little creek of glacier water. We rested for about 10 minutes, and went again up, up, and up.

This part of going up we’re short but steep switchbacks. I wonder why they didn’t make them longer so they wouldn’t be as steep. We were climbing up rocks, slipping on pebbles and sand. It is absolutely gorgeous and well worth all the effort. When you got to the top of this climb, you finally reached camp for tonight. Looks like we will spend the night in the clouds. This means a cold night.

At around 6:00, the wind picked up. I got to watch the sunset behind a rock wall. Beautiful! 

As an aside note: today we saw many porters who were really struggling. I hope they know how important they are in our journey. We would not be here without them. I handed skittles to all the porters I saw struggling today. I hope I was able to make their day little better. Some passed us with a little pep in her step after eating skittles. I’m very grateful for them.

A second a side note: we spend approximately half the day in the clouds.

Oxygen level: 90

Something that scared me: the Barranco wall

Something that surprised me: Unlike in Peru, I am not suffering from headaches and only minor shortness of breath. 

Lunch: Leek soup, spaghetti, vegetables, bread and mango. 

Dinner: 

Music group - finesse

Day 4

Lunch: soup, Vegetable tatila, watermelon 

Today's hike made for a very long day as we walked for almost 10 hours. We started by going up to 4600 m where we acclimatized while having lunch. This took place at lava tower.  

After lunch, we came back down all the way to Brian Cole camp we saw different trains for walking somewhere in Sandy, good times very rocky and technical.

Overall, I think it was a great day not very difficult, but just very very long. We are all very tired and just looking forward to going to bed.

Thankfully, he is feeling much better at 70% so that’s great.

It’s a very cold night.  Interesting how when the sun is out, it warms up nicely, yet as soon as it starts going down, multiple layers are needed.  I'm very thankful for my good quality sleeping bag!  

New people- John carried my bag last bit. 

New food: Vegetable tatilla- wrap of some kind. Quite good.   

Oxygen-82 

Dinner- rice, veggies, chicken, soup 

Day 3

We got up this morning again at six, had our washy washy which means they bring a little tub of warm water so you can wash yourself, had tea, then had breakfast. 

For breakfast this morning we had toast, crêpes, eggs, millet, which was actually not bad, some fruit that looks like grenadilla-  passion fruit is very sour, but tasty and some bananas.

Remi is feeling worse than ever so I asked Experience, one of the guides, to come and see him and assess him. He gave him some sort of powder to help rehydrate him. Rémi found it helpful and by the end of the day he looked more like himself.  He also started his antibiotics for diarrhea. 4 days is long enough! 

We have guides that bring your backpack if you are sick or are you just too tired. Remi didn’t want the guy to carry his backpack but he didn’t have a choice. Which is kind of lovely as it gave him the chance to muster up his strength. When he was “feeling better “, he wanted his bag back and the response was no. I was happy about that! 

The walk today was about 9 km. It took us over four hours. It was a gradual climb, much less technical than yesterday. Beautiful weather, not as hot, but now that we’re at camp is very very windy.

We’re getting ready for lunch. It is 1:15. Lunch is at 1:30. Looking forward to seeing what’s for lunch. I bet we start with soup! 🤣. So far, the food isn't bad. I wouldn’t say it’s five star, but we are camping after all. 

So... I’m back after lunch! We have... drum roll... butternut soup, chicken, potatoes, salad, and watermelon. Once lunch was done, most of us went for a shorter hike to acclimatize a little more.

It was a beautiful little trail. Those who didn’t come, no worries they will see you tomorrow.

On this hike, we learned about this plant that opens during the day and closes at night.  In the plant, you can find "water" so little birds and insects can drink.  This plant lives for 7 months.  Once it dies, it looks like a big pineapple! 

We’ve now have our washy washy time and are heading out for teatime. Then we will just hang out and rest until dinner.  Dinner was soup, macaroni, vegetables and steak. 

New food: millet and fruit
Something I find interesting: how the landscape changes.  We are still in moorland but there are less trees, more smaller shrubs and tons of everlasting flowers. 

Someone new: Godlistens -he is one of the guides. Richard, a porter.

Birds- white necked raven 

Saw a moth and quickly a lizard

Oxygen 80

Day 3: Siky Tatu

Day 2

Get up at 6:30 for tea time and breakfast at seven. We left at around eight. Barely had any sleep - too much snoring all around.  

Started with very steep trail away...which went for most of the day!  It was an extremely difficult hike. Very hot and sunny... plus a very technical trail. Beautiful views. When we turned one of the last corners, the tears were streaming down my face at the sight of the beautiful Mount Kilimanjaro!  Seeing the mountain for the first time... priceless!  It's interesting how you can see the next camp... which looks like it could be about 15 minute walk... turns out to take at least an hour to get to!  

The hard day was well worth it! 

Lunch was spaghetti.
Dinner was chicken and rice.

The evening is very cold. Hope to sleep tonight!  Not sure how much longer I can go without any sleep!

Oxygen, 87

Saw beautiful flowers…  Went from Montane Forest to Moorland.

Protea Kilimanjaro

after the flower has bloomed, it looks like a wooden flower

everlasting flower

Day 1-

This morning we took the bus and drove for three hours to the Lemosho gate. Beautiful country side, where we saw giraffes and zebras.

We arrived at the gate and registered. Apparently, you need to sign in at every camp. For lunch today it was boxed. Inside was an apple, peanuts, what was supposedly a sandwich, a little banana, some crackers and chocolate.

We started walking up hill right away. It’s incredible to see the porters doing the same walk but with so much weight on their shoulders/heads. They carry 20 kg of stuff.

The day was not extraneous, nor was it easy. It really was uphill the whole time

with some steeper climbs. When we arrived at camp, they brought us a container with water for washy washy time. After you’ve cleaned yourself. It’s teatime with some popcorn.

Cathy and I went for a walk to see where they got the water. It’s about 1 km from camp up and down two hills. I can’t believe they do this with a bucket full of water on their heads.

For dinner we had tilapia, potatoes, vegetables, zucchini, soup, and for dessert oranges.

Time came for everyone’s health check. My oxygen was 90. Remi’s oxygen was also good at 92.

Rémi must’ve eaten some thing at the lunch as he’s not feeling great. Hopefully it passes quickly. It is 7:08 time for bed as we have not slept much since we have arrived.

Early start tomorrow we get up at six start moving at eight.

People - Duma, Experience - 2 guides. Benjamin our tent guy, Godffrey- chef 

Animal- white black monkey   

Last Day at Plantation

Jambo Jambo! 

First, we have to start with last night’s adventure. One of the workers of the resort came to start a fire in our fireplace. What a disaster! As he lit the fire, we could see some smoke coming into our room I thought well, he will open the flew.  He left. Shortly after, our little cabin was filled with smoke. Our eyes were burning, we couldn’t breathe and we felt like we were in the BC wildfires. We re-open the windows and the door to try to let the smoke out. It did not get any better and so off I went, in the dark, to get someone to come and help. 

When the man arrived in our cabin, he quickly said “oh! no good!”  He proceeded to take a towel and started to fan the room to get the smoke out.  Rémi joined in to help as I was outside laughing.  All of a sudden he started twirling the towel and saying I’m a fan!  At this point we were all laughing hysterically. We got most of the smoke out but we had to sleep with an N95 masks as the smell was just too much to handle. 

I forgot !  This man took the burning wood with his bare hands and brought it outside.

We had an OK sort of sleep with waking up quite a few times to go to the bathroom but overall it was an OK night.

We got up at about 8 o’clock in the morning, had breakfast and had our briefing with our guide for the climb.  He went day by day, telling us sort of what to expect. It’s less of a mystery now and I think those who were worried are feeling much better.

Rémi and I opted to do a local tour with a guide. We met up at two in the afternoon and off we went. Our guide’s name was Victor and as we cross the gate, a friend of his met up with us and joined for the tour around the village.  His name was Noël and he would like to be a guide some day. 

On our tour, we saw a banana plantation where we learned all about bananas how they grow and learned it takes nine months to grow. We made our way to a sugarcane plantations, followed by a coffee plantation.  

I saw a sign for a school and I asked if we could go and visit. Our guide wasn’t sure, but we made our way to the school just to see. It was a bit of a process, but in the end we were able to go in and have a quick visit. We met the headmaster before being introduced to the teacher, who gave us a quick tour of the place. There is about 800 students at this private school. We were shown the new garden project, where the students will take care of chickens, ducks, goats, perhaps a pig among other things. We also had the opportunity to visit one classroom of children who would be in about grade 2 in Canada. As the door opened, they all stood up and greeted us with a good afternoon visitors. The classroom had some paintings on the wall like the alphabet and such and they each had a wooden desk set in rows.

After visiting the school, we made our way back towards our resort. The unofficial guide lives right across the from the plantation. He brought us to his house so we could visit his family. When we arrived, his mother was sitting on the cement slab, filled with beans where she was separating them by colors. There were many children around, his sister and neighbours. They were fascinated by us and kept touching our arms and our skin. They all wanted to try Rémi’s sunglasses and so I took a picture and show them what they look like. They were all very happy and smiling.

 Noel‘s mom told him to show us the rest of the yard where there was a cow, a goat and some ducks. They offered us dinner, but we kindly refused as we were having dinner with a group. We made our way back to the plantation where we rested for the rest of the day. This was a fabulous day.

Looking forward to leaving for the mountain in the morning! Nighty night! 

Weather: around 23° and sunny in the afternoon.

Food: potatoes, rice, pasta, beef, pork, desserts

New Swahili words:

•  coffee, Kahawa,
  
• See you later- kwaheri
• Mambo. How are you 
• Popow. Fine

plant: avocado tree
New bird: Ibis, something
New people:  Prosper, who works at the hotel Noel, the young man that joined us for our tour some thing that made me laugh: at the reception. I heard the sound of a bird I asked what is that? She said we call it a bird, new animal for today a horned chameleon

Moraivo Plantation

We have finally arrived in Kilimanjaro!  This humongous plane arrives at this tiny little airport. I was so

excited to finally be in Africa. There might’ve been a tear or two from being overwhelmed. Finally, a lifelong dream coming true.

 We arrived this morning at about 730.  The airport is very small, there’s a one large room, one bathroom and that’s it. When you arrive, you line up outside, they take your temperature and you move inside.  In the large room, it’s loud as everyone is talking- there’s a guard who asks to see your visa. He ruffles through your papers, hands them back to you and says “sign here date here”.  Afterwards you go in a line and wait to see the officer to get your passport stamped and your visa verified. 

Once that chaos was over, you moved onto the next step: the belt to hopefully get your luggage.  That was fairly easy as there’s one airplane, one belt. We were all very happy to see all our bags made it to Tanzania!. Once we had our bags, we had to move onto the next step, which was to place our bags on another belt to go through the security. Lord only knows why you would do this when you arrive in a country, but we did so and moved on outside.

We were met by Jerry, our guide for the climb. From there, they loaded our bags on the roof of the bus that was to carry us to our hotel. We climbed on the bus and off we went. Let’s just say that it was a very interesting 45 to 1 hour ride. First off, they drive on the wrong side of the road. I was sitting behind the driver so I could see everything that was going on ahead. There are motorcycles, buses, not many cars, people walking along the road there is people everywhere. Goats, chickens, cows, people, more people! We pass buses, we pass these little tuktuks, full of hay and every time it’s a bit of a harrowing experience.  We got a first good look at Tanzania: tin homes, “mud homes”, no doors on many home, only a curtain. 

Our “resort” is just lovely. It’s a coffee plantation.  there are about 30 little cabins and it’s just beautiful, our bed has a net around it to protect us from the mosquitoes. The grounds are absolutely breathtaking. Vegetation, birds, monkeys, bush, babies, beautiful flowers, beautiful plants, interesting insects as well. 

Remi and I went for a walk in the morning while everybody else went for a shower and a nap. Some people slept till 3 o’clock in the afternoon if you can believe it. We enjoyed a beautiful walk on the trails around the plantation we took our time, and saw so many beautiful things.

The day was just a lazy day of relaxation and enjoyment. Later in the afternoon, the owner of the resort, came to our group and asked to see Rémi Roy. A little worried and he says that’s me. The man proceeds to tell us his passport is at the airport!  Rémi didn’t even know he didn’t have it! We are not sure how this happened but we are very thankful that whoever found was honest and handed it in. That airport was so chaotic I’m surprised it was even found! 

A group member was arriving tonight, the aiport personnel let them bring the passport to us. Happy we didn’t have to do that interesting ride again… although I wouldn’t have minded much as that’s the best way to experience things. 

Lunch was between spaghetti or fish. We went with spaghetti. We had a lovely dinner- buffet style. There was soup, saffon rice, wedges, different massalas, chicken, desserts. It was delicious!  

So far, it’s a very friendly place and people.  Everyone seems genuinely happy to see you and want to to help you.  My best example is my search to find a monkey. Walking along one of the trails I saw a young man dressed in green. I’m told he was sort of like security.  I asked him if there were monkeys. He responded yeah yeah and off we went on a monkey search. We looked and looked and couldn’t find one but all of a sudden he found a bush baby. A bush baby is sort of like a flying squirrel except it’s bigger and it has humongous eyes. I was so excited to see this bush baby. Another fellow joined us, and we kept looking for monkeys but did not find any. One of the guys who was dressed in a beige outfit, took us with him to find monkeys and we did find a whole group of them, vervet monkeys. That has to be the highlight of today seeing these monkeys having so much fun up in the trees looking at you, right in your eyes, as it was eating. They are very curious! These little creatures just want to see you.  By the time I got back to my room, the monkeys had made their way to the bamboo behind it. These folks were just so happy to be able to help me find what I was looking for.

I can’t explain how blessed and lucky I feel to be here. I absolutely have white privilege. That is neither good or bad. As a white person, I can’t deny this simple fact. 

Weather: mostly cloudy, 20°C - sun came out at around 4pm and warmed us up. 

New food: baobab juice 

People: Jerry the guide, Sara the guide’s boss, Victor the monkey man

Something that scared me:

Something that surprised me:  it’s cold- locals are wearing jackets and hats. 

Birds  today: beautiful sunbird, peregrine falcon, other unknown birds

Wildlife: bush babies, vervet monkeys. 

Plants: poinsettia (who knew they grew in Africa)

Places: plantation 

Swahili words that I remember:

•  1- moja 
• hello - jambo
  
• Thank you - asante
• Very much- sana
• 8- nane
• You are welcome- caribou