The climb: Day 2

I’ve been putting off writing this for a little while now, partly because it meant actually re-living some of it, and partly because once I have finished writing it, that’s kinda the end – I will have shared my adventure with the world and it will seem a bit final. And, to be completely honest, I’m not sure I am ready for it all to end. But, I can’t just stop at day one, so here goes…

The morning of day 2, I awoke with my tent camp mate bright and breezy at 6am. A shout from the porters outside the tent of “good morning, good morning” followed my ‘eugh, it’s too early I’m going back to bed’ hopes and our tent opened. Now at this point in time I was far from fresh and raring to go. However, to say I was thrilled, when I was greeted with “Tea? Coffee?” is a complete understatement. “Coffee, please, milk and sugar” was my reply. I was going to need it.

Day 2 started off pretty well, we were going at a pretty good pace and ascending really quickly, it felt like a matter of minutes walking and we were in the clouds. The 1.5 hours in break-point provided the perfect opportunity to take some photos and really admire the views before the sun got even hotter and my face became a big sweaty mess. (eugh.) If I’m being completely honest, I can’t remember that much about day 2, other than the fact I enjoyed most of it much more than I did day 1 and I managed to not arrive last at the camp site (something which did become a bit of a theme as the trip went on!)

As I was finding this much easier than the 1^st day I took the opportunity to get to know a bit more about the guides and porters we were with. I don’t think there is anything, or enough, that I could say about them that would do them justice. They were 100% amazing and so lovely. Our Head Guide had climbed Kili nearly 500 times. (I lose my breath just thinking about this!) Even now I can’t imagine doing it ever again, let alone a further 498 times! One of our other guides was also a safari tour guide. I joked with him that I can imagine that he prefers safari guiding to this, but to my surprise he actually said he prefers guiding groups up Kili as he gets much more time to himself, and the people on the treks are a lot more appreciative and interested in him and his opinions than on Safari’s. I can totally see where he was coming from, they are all hero’s in my eyes, and there was no way I would have reach the summit it if hadn’t been for them!

That evening ritual of feet washing, sweet tea and popcorn in the mess tent, and a hearty supper of food that I didn’t expect to taste anywhere near as good as it did, became to feel like every day ‘normal’ life, and was definitely something that I looked forward to once we had reached the camp. What I didn’t look forward to, was knowing that day 3 was about to be here and this meant acclimatisation was nearing, altitude sickness was fast approaching and I almost definitely was going to cry again!!