Thursday, January 21, 2010

Kilimanjaro 2010 Day Three



Got up, had breakfast, packed up and headed out for Baranco Camp after our high point over 15,000' at Lava Tower.



It was misty to start with, and increased to good rain. For lunch we stopped just below Lava Tower in the shelter of overhanging rocks. I didn't have peanuts today, yippee, after giving mine to Zakariah yesterday, which surprised him a bit.



TIP: If you have a food allergy, you're probably wasting time to talk to them about it. The desk people don't talk to the guide people at all, because of the tip situation, the cook and waiter are somewhat insulated from the clients and hotel/tour staff, and with the language barrier (the cook didn't speak even one word of English) it's overall pointless. If you have a food allergy that could result in death, and you're not able to manage it in the wild, you might want to consider some other hobby.



After leaving lunch we got to the top pretty quick, Lava Tower, 15,190'.



The terrain had changed quite a bit over the day, becoming more desert and arid. As we descended the rougher terrain to Baranco Camp, below the Baranco Wall, we passed the unique Joshua tree looking plants that we had to stop and take pictures under.



We got to camp, and I was pretty tired from the descent with my boots too loose. Managed to avoid blisters, but still sore. We sat down to a hot snack of popcorn and roasted peanuts. Since I had my doubts that any form of separation was maintained I avoided the popcorn tonight. Matt chowed down pretty good and ate at least my share of both ;)



That night, Matt puked a few times, and gagged a few more, and I was peeing pretty heartily (maybe due to the filling of my platypus by the kitchen staff with brownish looking water that eventually turned clear over the course of the day - maybe iodine?). Tonight I managed to get some "fresh" water from them, and it wasn't boiling hot. Hmmmmm. Used my Steripen on all full bottles tonight and the rest of the trip (except for my "stolen" water, which I knew to be good).

So between us I think Matt and I had about 6 hours of sleep in 45 minute chunks.

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