Oct 30

This is the second day on Mt. Kilimanjaro. My guide is still harrassing me. I am done with him already. Just so you know what he was expecting.......$15 a day for the guide.......for 6 days is $80. The porters are expecting $7 a day each. There are 5 of them for 6 days.....that is $210. In total it would cost me $300 in tips alone. Now I know how hard they work but I do not have that kind of cash to hand out.

Ok, enough of that. Dinner last night was great. They make the best homeade soups. It was really weird to be having dinner in a tent c/w tables and chairs on a trek. I am getting alot of reading is as I have nobody to talk to but my guide. Seems like when I am in the mountains I do not sleep well. It could also be that the ground is pretty hard and my hips are getting sore. The good thing is that I am up at the crack of dawn packed up and ready to go.

Today we left at 7:40am. We were not meant to leave till 8:30 but I was up and ready to go so we went. At 10:30 we stopped for lunch. I was so far ahead of the porters that we needed to wait 45 minutes for them to catch up. I would have prefered to get to the destination spot to wait but the guide did not want to do that. Guess he had nobody to chat with as I do not have much to say. With this wait everybody else was catching up with me and then passing me. That also sucked.

I did get to actually meet some people. Yup! A group of 7 British men and one women. She is one of the first females I have seen so far accept at the gate.

Good news. Well for me. Guess that is not very nice but my guide is coming down with altitude sickness. He is dizzy and has a really bad headache. He really does not look well. He is talking about heading back down. He is talking it over with the assistant guide who's English is not very good. Hey, what so I care. We will manage. He says that this is the first time ever for him getting sick on the mountian.

It rained on us today. Not for very long thank god. I am go glad that I got my rain gear this year from Mountain Hardware. It was awesome. I also learned a lesson from this. Always and I mean always, carry the rain bag for the backpack. I have it for the big back pack but did not have one for my day pack. Needless to say I will transfer that one tonight so that it is with me at all times.

At 12:30 we arrive at the camp. This camp is called Shira camp. The first camp was Machame camp. I am sure that I forgot to mention that. This camp site is at 3900 m. I spend the rest of the day reading, eating and waiting to crash. Needless to say it was yet another early night. Good thing I brought two books. I almost did not cause of the weight.