Waking up at 6.30 hasn’t been a strong point of the team. A few of our team (Starkey, Chris and Danny) have needed an extra kick up the backside to get up, (joyfully administered by Dean). We were told that we had an armed guard with us last night to protect us from bull elephants and wilder beasts, which was a good thing too, as on our short safari a few of the animals looked like they were eyeing up our youngest member (Danny) for a light snack.
Anyway, after being awoken, we were given nice hot drinks and a hearty breakfast to chase away the nights chill, and to get us ready for the next step. We’re told that we are to ascend up towards a bunch of caves at about 3450m high. At this point we all have a rest and admire our surroundings; above us is the Kibo Peak towers, and the eastern ice fields clinging to the mountains’ crater rim. We thought that we were going to make camp upon reaching this point, but little did we realise that this was only the 2nd cave that we’d reached, and joyfully had another one to make it up to before we could settle for the night. At this point Edith shouted “sacre bleu” as she’d already opened up a bottle of wine for the night but had to disgruntledly re-cork the bottle.
After reaching camp (about 3800m) we finally got to set-up camp, our team are doing well with no one flagging behind. Even our youngest Danny, who refused to eat his vegetables, was making progress well up the mountain. Our rough walking time was 5-6 hours, taking it at an easy pace to acclimatise best to the thinner air. Our team is still enjoying themselves and can’t wait for the next leg.
