Wednesday, 14 Dec 2011

Distance: 7 km
Duration: 6 hours
Altitude reached: 3840 m

We were the last to be ready! I think our group members started to recognize our trait then. Malu!

Our chambres.

Another long day of walking in the rain. The vegetation gradually changed into a mix of heath and moorland which gave a different impression. I felt like being in a magic forest. Enchanting! Was expecting to see some magic mushroom and pixies (Thanks to Enid Blyton fairy tales).

It made my heart wrench every time I see the backbreaking hardworking porters passing by us. Can you imagine the hard work for just 7 USD per day!

Do remember to drink a lot! I also read somewhere that it was not advisable to walk and drink at the same time so I only drank during breaks to avoid AMS (also know as altitude sickness) at all cost. We only used water purification and neutralizer tablets without any flavoring. And still I managed to drink about 4 litres of water everyday! (That’s Agrey, one of our guides taking a break next to me)

It was really lovely except that the rain which made us cold. So, those cheap ponchos were worth it!

Can’t really remember how long we walked, perhaps about 4-5 hours (6km). The paths were rather steep but truly scenic moorland. There were streams and waterfalls. We had to go all the way up onto the Shira Plateau!

We trekked until a height of 3800m, descended and then camped at 3800m again.

Upon arrival, our guide suggested a short acclimatisation walk up to 4000m. It took about an hour and most people suffered from a mild headache due to the altitude while up there except me. Yeah! But I did walk really really really slow as I was afraid of being sick (remember my bad experience in KK!). At the end of that trek, I earned the nickname ‘moon walker’. Someone even asked me if I have asthma.

Poor Chris didn’t join us as he wasn’t feeling too well since the morning trek.

We missed the usual popcorn and tea session as we took too much time cleaning up (using baby wipes only!). Had the usual soup, rice with sauce for dinner and special treat of Belgian chocolates from Chris after. Yummy!

Toilet was again behind our tent. Easy access!

Tuesday, 13 Dec 2011

Distance: 12 km
Duration: 6 hours
Altitude reached: 3000 m

Chaotic morning! We had to check out, put our stuffs in the storage, grabbed our rental walking poles (we were so picky that they just gave us brand new ones), ate breakfast etc… And we were late as usual. The bus almost left without us!

The group was finally complete with Charlemagne from Spain (works for UN) whom we met in the bus.

After quite a ride, I think about 40mins or so (with a last minute shopping break where I grabbed a bottle of juice to be used as pee bottle – useful for men!), we arrived at Machame Gate. There was a lot of hustle and bustle going on, porters distributing and packing stuffs. Thinking we were gonna set off immediately, we quickly wore our gaiters and strapped on our day pack but only to be instructed to go register ourselves at the front office. We took a classic picture with the Machame Gate board. 

Then we waited for quite a while (luckily I used the nice clean toilets twice because upon entering the park, there were only bush toilets). We chatted with everyone a bit and got to know each other better.

We also got insulted by a German couple of our new shoes. Anyway, we didn’t only had new shoes, we had new everything! We were truly novice climbers!

Finally, our guide came to get us and we set off. Near the entrance of the park there were still a lot of activities going on. The porters had to weigh the loads they were going to carry on their back as they are only allowed to carry a maximum of 18kg nowadays but man, that’s still heavy!

After trotting for about 10mins, Michael told us that we should remove the cover of our walking poles. Hehe, newbies!

We started our journey walking through the rain forest. It was beautiful and enchanting until it started pouring. And pouring. And pouring. We used the rain cover for our backpack and put on the poncho (useful to have!) to protect us from the rain .

We continued walking in the rain for hours. At lunch break, we huddled closely together under the trees and chomped on the lovely lunch box provided (bun, egg, samosa, cake, juice, peanuts). During this time, we realized Alfredo was totally soaked. He forgot to bring his rain gears and the poor guy was shivering. Mr Fudge offered his jacket or poncho but Alfredo couldn’t accept them. In the end, we asked the guides for any extra rain gears which they kindly provided including a whole new set of clothes change for him too. Phew!

The walk was more than 10km and it was really tough for me especially with the rain and cold. At the end, Wilson (our own guide as we are doing the 7 days program instead) offered to carry my backpack for me which I gladly accepted. I still struggled but managed to reach the first camp after a long 6-7 hours. Yeah, happy faces!

We got assigned to our tents and found a portable toilet erected next to us. Luxury camping! They gave us some warm water for cleaning (in which I managed to wash my sweat-filled hair too).

Next, was tea and popcorn time then followed by dinner (soup, fried fish, meat sauce, rice). We had to go to our mess tent for all meals. It was always cozy there!

Monday, 12 Dec 2011

A long drive of 6 hours awaited us, but we were excited to go to Moshi to meet with the rest of the group. So, we left Sopa Lodge at sharp 10am and arrived at Springlands Hotel at 4.30pm. We will do the climb with Zara Tours which was selected by Chris and his friends. Zara has a good reputation so I was not too worried about that. They are the largest climbing tour operator in Moshi.

We quickly checked in and joined the evening briefing for the climb at 5pm. Met Raymond who is the head guide for our group, a soft spoken guy. He briefed us on the route, various camps, portable toilets (yeah!), gears, minor details and answered to our questions. We also met up with part of our group – Adam from Atlanta (Professional euphonium player), Sarah from Melbourne (Medical trainee, doctor-to-be), Alfredo from Spain (Veterinarian) and Chris (Banker), our friend. The rest were due to arrive that night.

Also, made a quick trip to the rental shop to get some stuffs which we needed (walking poles for 10 USD).

We had dinner at the hotel (9 USD). Food was quite ok, self serving. 3 more of our group members arrived – Michael and Clarissa (Bankers) from Hong Kong, Melanie from Melbourne (another doctor-to-be, yeah!). What a diversity!

We retired early to our rooms to pack and rest for the big day.