Congestion on the trail.
One thing to be aware of is that the locals who interact with you will do just about anything to ingratiate themselves with you in the interest of building up "tip karma". If you really are a clueless clod I suppose that grabbing your stuff and shoving it in your pack with no sense of order might inspire you to give them more money. Unfortunately that doesn't describe me by a long shot. TIP: keep your stuff out of sight from them and pack up early so they won't try this game.
It started raining after about an hour on the trail. Our rest for the night at Shira Camp was a mudhole with running water under and around the tents. They dug trenches around us with sharp rocks (handy and ever present) and gave us a tarp for a front porch and reduce mud getting into our tent. Very wet.
Shortly the sun came out for the evening and we could see the top of Kilimanjaro through the clouds.
We ate our soup and other courses, and prepared for bed. Again, they told us that we had to wait for morning for water so that it would cool after boiling, but luckily I was ahead a couple liters from my 4 liter start, so I was okay. I also figured out a way to "steal" water. LOL.
A minor disappointment, since the ZARA website mentioned you would need 4 liters a day to climb and they were only giving us 2 liters in the morning and none in the evening.
Its strange that they are limiting your water so much. Good advice about the packing your own gear business.
ReplyDeleteSPOILER ALERT: (do not read if you don't want a spoiler)
ReplyDeleteThe "boiled water" is the excuse. They have to haul all the water from springs, and they are supposed to boil it, but they have no way to store boiled water, and don't want to carry the fuel to boil it, so they pretend they boiled it, and by morning it will be cool enough to put in our bottles.