Day 2 - Forrest Camp to Shira 1 Camp

Tuesday 28/08/2012

9,222 ft - 11,520 ft

Today's Stats From My Garmin
(Note: I forgot to switch on until around 20 mins after we set out)
8.12 km
7 hrs 39 mins
1741 Calories

We had a lovely start to the day when Wilbert had all our crew line up so we could fist introduce ourselves and they in turn introduced themselves - all 23 of them, yes that's right, 3 climbers and 23 crew to get us to the summit. They have so much gear to carry and they don't skimp on anything. Of our crew , the ones we are constantly with are our Head Guide, Wilbert, Second Guide, Hosea and our personal porters who carry our day packs. My personal porter is Umbwe (also responds to Charles) and so far he is doing a great job for me.

After all the introductions, the Kiliwarriors burst into song, real foot stomping, body grooving stuff that you couldn't help but get into with them - we didn't know the words but managed to pick up on some of the repeated choruses. They sung and danced to more than one song and Wilbert later explained this was like an offering or prayer to the mountain and wishing of good luck to us climbers. It was really special.

Today was a very hard day - we all agreed on that! And, I reckon 90% of it was uphill and fairly steep.

We started in the Rainforest zone and after about an hour moved into the Heather Zone. The Rainforest is spectacular and one feature that struck me was the amount of moss and and Grandfathers Beards hanging from the trees.

The sun was out but because of the dense forest we were mainly in shade and caught patches of sunshine here and there. It was a beautiful way to start the day.

The forest ends quite suddenly and charges to the Heather Zone, so within a few steps you go from towering trees to Bushes of Heather about 4ft tall and Tussock Grasses.

Up until our lunch break we had lovely sunshine. At lunch, clouds came rushing in at a noticeable speed and engulfed us. So we set off from lunch walking in clouds - such a nice and peaceful feeling. However, not too long and it started to rain lightly and then we had hail stones, nice- not! The hail didn't last too long but we had intermittent rain for about 2 hours and it got very cold.

I started to suffer the first signs of Altitude Sickness. I had a headache by lunch time and took Digesics but it wouldn't go away. By the time we reached our camp, the headache was still there but not a strong one, however I was now also feeling nausea. So I took the Altitude Sickness medication, Diamox. After half an hour there was no change so I popped some more Digesics and this also did not have much effect. Nick & Seth then brewed me up a herbal tea that they reckon would do the trick and Nick offered me some raw garlic. I politely passed on the garlic but took the tea which was quite pleasant. About 30 minutes later I started to come right. I don't know if it was any one of the remedies or the mix of all three but it worked so all good....I will be ready to climb on tomorrow.

This evening when the clouds cleared, we got our first look at Kibo on which is our summit point, Uhuru. It was too dark to get a photo but Hosea said tomorrow should be clear in the morning....so fingers crossed.

It is absolutely freezing, I have merino long johns and top on, normal trousers and a merino outer layer top plus my heavy duty fleece, a merino head scarf and I am still cold. Tonight I am sleeping in two layers of merino long johns and tops and my fleece, socks and gloves!!! And this is only day 2... that means it gets colder from here. God I hope I've enough clothes to keep layering on.

That said my fingers are about to freeze so I need to sign off and get my gloves back on....nite, nite.