Altitude sickness was always the big worry for us on this trip. Global terrorism paled into insignificance in comparison. This had nothing to do with the fact that we had twigged the Americans had made the whole concept up (terrorism not altitude sickness, although I'm confident they had something sinister to do with that as well!) but that's a discussion for another day. We had read and heard numerous stories about headaches, vomiting and hallucinations. I was actually looking forward to the last one. And so to mentally steel ourselves against these worries we got our hands on a bucket load of DIAMOX, an anti altitude sickness drug. There is, as far as I know, no drug for global terrorism. Although you never can be sure when those bloody Americans are involved.
The reason I mention the altitude issue is that today was the hike that would take us up to the highest altitude we would get to, bar the summit day obviously. So any slight headache found itself compounded with stress, a dash of nausea and a smidgen of panic. Reading stories about how others are effected by altitude is never a good idea. No one ever has a good thing to say about it. You will never read anywhere- "At high altitude today, felt invigorated and was actually able to understand quantum physics for the first time". Although of course now you just have. We were quite willing to dine totally on DIAMOX if it meant that we'd make it to the top, by totally I obviously mean as well as popcorn, soup and beef, oh and fruit and hot chocolate. So after taking this drug it did prove a bit of a worry if we started getting headaches still. Naturally all knowledge of altitude ill effects were a closely guarded secret. If asked had anyone headaches, all eyes would jump around each other waiting for the first to crack. I think the worst admitted to in the first few days was 'the beginning of a headache that never arrives'. I mean what the fuck is that?? Whatever it is, it kept us all nicely in a bubble of everything is grand, or to return to our American friends for a bit; "Nothing to see here folks, move along!"
So today began a little later, 6.30am, as we only had a short but steep hike ahead of us. I would like to point out that a 3.5hr walk is not short, ever. I think it gets called short so that the 12hr one that would appear later can just about get called 'long' when it should be labeled 'insane'. We went trough the usual routine and were on our merry way by 8.00am. You could feel the altitude today, in so far as any over exertion really had you gasping for air. There was one section where we had to climb up over rock outcrops that left us all out of breath, by all I mean the 3 of us. The guides were preforming back flips around the place, while the porters had ran past us hours ago and were probably sitting around at the camp at this stage waiting for us. I should point out that the technical name for this type of climbing is called Bouldering. We learnt this from a carpet carrying asshole of a French Canadian, but I'll leave it there as Ash has made me promise no more character assassinations. Although I think even altar boy Ash by the end of his company was ready to do some real life assassination...
We arrived at camp at 11.30. It was a cool place, set in a hollow right at the base of Mawenzi Peak (see photo). There was a small lake, which I WAS NOT ALLOWED swim in, which provided drinking water. Actually to call it drinking water sort of implies that it did not need to be boiled 17 times or that copious amount of chlorine tabs didn't need to be added to it. This was not the case. The 3ft of green fungus on the banks of the lake gave that game away to be honest. The plan for the rest of the day was to get a quick kip, have lunch, do a acclimatisation walk, more food and then sleep. Conor went for a kip, while myself and Ash worked out the distance we needed to be from Conors tent, NOT to hear his snoring. 200ft. This is the first and only time I'm not exaggerating in this blog!!. After vigorously shaking Conor awake, we went for another little jaunt up to 4550m supposedly to acclimatise. I'm now of the opinion this was just to watch us search frantically for oxygen. There was brilliant views from the top of our walk all across the plains we would walk along tomorrow and back down to our camp. There was a brave attempt made to up the pace on the way down, but we successfully fought this level of madness and returned to our crawling pace back down, pausing only to stare in complete bewilderment at some caves Ash had decided looked like a skull??
We returned with enough time before dinner to blag a set of playing cards from the Australian trio we had met the first day. One of their group was suffering quite badly with headaches and had spent the day in her tent. Just not to worry everyone, she recovered by the following day but we have no idea how they got on as they had their summit day one day before us. We had dinner (beef pasta followed by banana and custard) and then proceeded to play some watered down version of Gin Ash had invented. I think we sorted the rules about 10 sec before we stopped playing. It was around this point that Conor pulled the famous water on sleeping bag trick and assured himself of warm nights sleep for the rest of the trip. And what timing... cos just as we were getting ready for the sleep zone it started to thunder & lightning followed by SNOW..... We were in bed by 8.00pm but only cos it transpired that our mess tent was also the sleeping quarters for the porters. They were tired, god bless em.!!
Oh Jesus, I nearly forgot. Ash, our delegated fossil and wildlife expert came across a new type of rodent. The Mountain Mouse. Its name being derived from the fact it was a mouse that he saw on a mountain. He's also laying claim to being the first to encounter, The Mountain Bird, Mountain Goat and Mountain Man!!!
Day 3. Kikelewa Camp (3679) to Mawenzi Tarn (4303) 3.7km 3.5 hrs!
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