We woke up this morning to snow. Which is hardly surprising considering it was snowing when we went to sleep. It would have been very surprising if we woke to find there was no snow and lets say, as an example, also no mountain. But this didn't happen so I'll just park that one there. We were allowed a lie in this morning as we only had a 4hr hike today and there were no plans for one of those silly little acclimatisation walks once we got to the next camp. It sounded like heaven. Now I'm no expert on heaven, and I feel letting me go off on a tangent to guess what heaven actually looks like might cause offence on a scale not seen since that fella Salman Rushdie decided that he needed to sell a few books. So I'm just going to carry on by saying, at that present moment in time I would have settled for heaven looking like a place with our tents set up next to the mess tent, and no one looking for us at 4pm to go for a walk. That's if there is a heaven of course, right right right I'll leave it go...... Oh and just while I think of it, people say (who these idiots are I've no idea!) that you should never discuss religion and politics at a dinner party where you don't really know your fellow guests (heh that sounds a bit posh). Which surely only leaves as subject matters how dumb everyone at your table is and what a crap party it is anyway. I don't see how openly discussing either of these will avoid the conflict you were hoping to skirt around it the first place. But then again maybe its just me....Where was I, ah yes, we woke up. Albeit slightly later than normal. It was actually quite cool (no pun intended, although now that I have, what a pun it turned out to be) to get up and stand outside our tents sipping hot tea under a large mountain covered in snow. The mountain that is, not us. We dawdled around packing which turned out to be a mistake as we got caught to return the playing cards we had borrowed from the Australian trio last night. And then IT happened. Ash discovered his canteen had lost the cover seal and was leaking. I quickly suggested insulating tape in a vain attempt to avoid the obvious conclusion to this story that was hurtling at us like a freight train. Let me explain.... Ash, as well as knowing almost everything about alcohol, and I mean everything, is also an expert fashioner. Coincidentally, New Zealand and Fashion are the only two words that become new words when er is added to the end of them. Fact. I hadn't mentioned it up to now but we were already witnesses to the prolific fashioning of a clothes line from trekking poles (inside a tent I might add, well actually at this stage I have added) as well as sunglasses holder uppers from spare boot laces. It wouldn't have been quite so impressive if the laces weren't spare!! So when myself and Conor (I refuse to type Conor and I) saw the sun reflect off the piece of rubber Ash was pulling from his back pack (a good fashioner can make black rubber reflect no worries!) we knew we were about to be part of something special. Drawn out but special. Various thickness and lengths of rubber were fashioned. Even different rocks and knives were used. The first couple of attempts didn't quite cut it, but I'm led to believe that this is the way of the fashioner. But at last possibly the thinnest, but most accurately cut piece was put in place, the cap tightened and the canteen tipped to test. Perfect. High fives were flying all over the place. And then just to revel in the perfection of it all we tipped it again, at which point it leaked.... So we just hung it off the back of Ash's bag and headed on off towards heaven!!!
After the first hours walk, which brought us up a further 200m, it was a nice steady descent to Horombo huts. The only unfortunate thing about the descent was that it also meant we had to pick up the pace to just slightly past crawling. No, to be honest we were quite capable of picking up the pace the second it became apparent we were heading downhill. Anyway we walked on, passing a signpost showing the different distance to various routes and landmarks, which struck us as odd enough to take a photo of but which I suppose is actually quite normal in a weird middle of nowhere sort of way. We took a rest at a place called Zebra rock, which, you guessed it, was a black and white rock face. To be honest it was quite interesting, just sort of imposing its own strangeness on you. Speaking of strange, it was here we met a group of Finnish or Swedish or somewhere cold anyway (I might be turning into a xenophobe???), who were doing some sort of research into the oxygen saturation of your blood at altitude with a yoke that slipped onto your finger. I use the term research in the loosest possible sense. Here's the thing. (i might have some of the terms wrong but it really doesn't matter as I'll show at the end)
- At our normal altitude if our oxygen saturation fell below 97% we'd be rushed to hospital.
- At high altitude it goes to around 85%, but all is well.
And that's it. That's all they had. They took measurements on anything remotely moving, which gave them readings (only if held at the correct angle, and if your hands weren't too cold, or hot or possibly attached) that said most people were around 85% and not in any shape or form needing to go to hospital. Brilliant. No reasons as to why, not even a mild guess. They might as well have said "At home I drive a blue car, up here its red, isn't that a scientific miracle!!??" As an aside Ash scored strangely high at this test. Further proof that the man is indeed a physical freak of nature. I think to be honest the reason the whole thing got up my nose so much was at this point my brain was trying to pound its way out of my skull.
30 min later we were at Horombo huts, which is like a central hub for all the routes. We popped a few of Ashs panadol (Conor was joining me in the great attempted brain eviction) and went for a sleep. Got up had a bite to eat, bought a set of cards from another guide and hung around the mess building all the trekkers who were staying in huts rather that tents used (snobs). We were actually so filthy at this stage that people thought we had already climbed it and were on our way back down! We restarted our card playing after dinner, and once it got dark Ash fashioned a light for us using a head lamp. Which I suppose is already a light but it was the way he hung it that was impressive!!! About a hour before we headed to bed I think it dawned on us that tomorrow was d-day, and not too coincidentally that was the time the mild sense of panic filled the tent. I'm assuming it was panic, but at this stage we were after an awful lot of eggs.....
Day 4. Mawenzi Tarn (4303) to Horombo Huts (3741) 10.1km 4 hrs!
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