Altitude: 3,976m (13,044ft) to 3,995m (13,106ft)
 |
| Porters setting off to Barranco wall with Summit ahead |
Today the group conquers the great Barranco Valley and up the Barranco wall, this stretch of the route is often called the Breakfast Wall on account of the fact it’s the first thing you do after a hearty breakfast. Our breakfast this morning consist of big bowls of African millet .. not my favourite meal up here by a long shot and today I definitely don’t eat enough food, despite Sera’s encouragement that this stuff is good for us.
He tells us African women eat it because it makes them big and fat …. At which point all four girls decide we’d rather not eat! Surely one of the benefits of climbing kili is that little black dress might just fit by the time we get back, right?!!!
Looking
up at the sheer wall over breakfast has us all feeling a little nervous! This
imposing cliff is actually only 257 meters but it seems a lot higher standing
at its base! Even the porters tackle this stretch slowly and that tells us
something!
 |
| These guys always amaze! |
The route appears precarious and the only way to progress seems to
be to clamber on all fours clinging to the rocks for dear life, without looking
down! The porters joke about the part they call the kissing wall, where the
only way to pass is to cling onto the rock and hug it, close enough to kiss it,
the only other way is a long way down!!
The
trick is to go slowly and make sure of each footing you take. Be deliberate and
use all four limbs to scramble up the wall.
In
reality it’s a LOT of fun and not nearly as scary or dangerous as we all
anticipate and after an hour we’ve already reached the kissing wall where we
all happily give the Barranco Wall a huge hug and plant a massive kiss on the
rock as we pass. The drop isn’t nearly as bad as the porters would have us
believe! Cheeky, pesky, windup merchants!
At the
back of our minds I think we had all been conscious of the impending Barranco
wall so by the time we reach the top we are all feeling pretty smug and kinda
invincible! Come on Kilimanjaro is this all you got!!  |
| Big Smiles |
We
stop for lunch knowing that we have a short afternoon before we reach Karanga
Camp and by our calculations it’s not much of a climb either.. So far a great
day!
We
have now reached the arctic zone of Kilimanjaro and the landscape is dusty,
lunar and very cold! Our excitement at lunch over an easy afternoon is
curtailed when we realise that even though our next camp is not much higher
than where we’ve just eaten lunch we have to climb deep down into a valley and
back out again to get there. However our delight at surviving Barranco hasn’t
quite worn off and the four girls in our group plough on. We are strong and
resilient women! …. Another of our mantras!
 |
| Long way down |
Our
fifth group member and the only guy in the group, Jitu, has found the cold
increasingly difficult to deal with and over the last few days has began to
fall behind the main group. Despite our attempts to stick together over the
last few days it becomes harder and harder, and the girls forge on in an
attempt to stay both warm and sane. It would appear our sympathy for a whinging
bloke is also waning!! Geez oh Man Up .. we’re cold too but standing round
debating it sure doesn’t help! We’re also aware our constant mutterings of ….We
are strong and resilient women! Slow like an elephant! Strong like a lion! Is probably getting on his nerves
too!
 |
| Sheer Rocks |
Bear in mind we still have two nights of
camping to contend with, we need enough water to keep us hydrated for the
summit night trek and for all our meals for the next two days as well as our
all important hot water bottles to fill at night! It is at this point, as the
terrain gets tough and the cold really starts to bite that we all realise just
how important a lifeline our porters are to us in this barren landscape. There
is no way conceivable we could have come this far and we certainly wouldn’t
last the next 72 hours without them.
 |
| Pole! Pole! |
This
is the 1st afternoon we are all quiet and reflective…. I certainly
start to feel very small on this vast mountainside… and more than a little
vulnerable! Making it to the summit is no longer about my own ambition but
making it up there for all the great people we’ve met up here that are making
our own dreams a reality.
Weirdly
I don’t remember much about Karanga Camp other than we arrived early afternoon
and had time to rest, this was one of our shortest days. My excitement for this
camp must have gotten side-lined by the fact it was the only evening my
travelling companions allowed me to convince them to let me get out my magnetic
scrabble board. The porters had carried it all this way after all; it would
really be a shame to not have at least one game.
 |
| Besties .. Summit looking closer! |
I was either too engrossed in scrabble or maybe just too exhausted to register the summit peak loomed so large over us that it seemed close enough to touch, I only know this after looking back at my photos.
Day five is over and we all can’t quite believe that tomorrow night is the night we will be attempting to summit this hulking mountain.
We just have to get through day 6…..
No comments:
Post a Comment