Thursday, 13 July 2017

'Life is an adventure, not a walk. That's why it's difficult.'

7th July 2017
Sunset and moonrise in the same photo
After the best sleep for a long time, I only woke at 11.15 for a pee and then at 5am when the camp guides and porters were starting to move about, we were up at 6.30am for breakfast at 7 and in time to set out at 7.30am.

The thing about walking up a mountain is that there is an awful lot of walking up hill involved.  But there are
also awesome views.  We got our first proper view of  Kilimanjaro today. 

Amazing to think that is still looks so massive when we have already climbed so far.  Today we climbed 2831ft over 5.57 miles. There were lots of steep, rocky paths to be negotiated, the boys didn't whinge at all.  Towards the end we crest


ed a ridge line and saw a snow capped Kilimanjaro from our campsite!  We are 'walking high and sleeping low' to help with acclimatisation - so we had 600ft of descent in our walk.

We arrived at 1pm for a hearty lunch and the afternoon was spent resting, but not sleeping.  You don't breath as deeply when asleep which means that you don't get enough oxygen.  

Tomorrow is an 'easy' day in that we don't gain mug elevation over the 10km but it will but it will be our first day walking at significant altitude (3610m and above). 

(The quote that I used as a title for this post is from 'A boy made of blocks' by Keith Stuart)

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