Sorry once again........I so cannot believe that this is taking me so long. I sure hope to keep up now. SOOOOOOOOOOOO.......................

Nov 1st

Thank god the weather has been beautiful. Today we left at 8:15 am. The beginning of the trekwas sort of nasty. Rock climbing again. We did alot of up and down on this part of the trail. Do not get me wrong. It is still an easy trek. Just a little bit more work than earlier.

Seeing as I cannot do much talking.........remember.....my new guide cannot speak much English...but my new guide is amazing. This part of the trail only takes us 3 1/2 hrs then we break for lunch. I met a few more people at the lunch break which was nice. We stopped for an hour......again we were waiting for the porters to catch up. I am always ready way to early and they need time to break up camp.

Well, I have definately lost my princess title here. Here they all call me "mama" . UGH!!!!!!! It makes me laugh as I seem to here this new name alot. That is how the other porters identify me. They are all surprised at how fast I am on the trail. I hardly ever see anybody else on the trail but I know that there are tons behind me and a few ahead of me. I am so proud of myself for this.

The Brit's arrive at 4:30 which was an hour and a half after me. Seems like only 1/2 of them are there. The others are still on the trail.

Back to the trail. The second half of this part of the trail is pretty much all up hill. I meet and talk to another guide who also has a solo client. We talk about the weather and he says it is looking pretty good. He and his client head off about 20 mins before me. At one point I catch up to them. The guide says........."NO way I can let mama pass me." This makes all of us laugh really hard. He of course speeds up. Now, they move pretty fast and I lose them again. Later I catch up with him again. He starts to run which makes us laugh really hard again. It sure feels great to be laughing this hard when working this hard. We get to the camp site at 3pm. This entire part of the trek took us 6 3/4 hrs. to complete. I was told that most people do it in 7. Guess I am normal.

Camp is at Bakaku huts but there are not huts in site. We only have out tents. This camp site it at 4900 m. A little less than a 1000 m to go. I am very happy and sad at the same time. My dream is almost over. Just one more sleep.

I think of Dad and Maria alot on this trip which brings me to tears. Tonight I will see Maria's star. I should feel like I can touch her as I am so close to the stars here. (for those of you that do not know....Maria is Rofino's youngest sister that passed away with ovarian cancer in Sept. She was only 28. I bought a star in her name for their family to keep her alive.) I am also sad as I am about to finish my dream alone. This is something I have also come to terms with. Yup! I am starting to think that I am suppose to be single so.......I will just enjoy it and carry on doing what I do best.........traveling.

I have also been thinking that trekking to altitude like this is about over for me. I will still trek as I love it but going really high??????? Been there. Would I do this trek again.......if someone wanted a partner.......sure.......alone.........nope.

Enough of this. My face is seriously starting to feel wind burnt. I do not have anything I can put on it. Sure hope that it does not get worse as I go higher.

I need to be gettin up at 11 tonight to head to the summit. I am sure that I will not get much sleep but I need to try.