- If I remember one thing from this trip for the rest of my years it'll be a little pearl of wisdom Ash shared with us at some stage on the mountain. 'You never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from'. Very profound. Deep guy our Ash. I've no idea why I felt I should say that now, nothing involving any sort of luck happened today. It just sort of popped into my head so I decided to give it a mention. I suppose despite my overly optimistic assertion at the start, I'm worried I'll forget it and spend my days wondering what that great thing Ash or someone said somewhere, possibly on a mountain. Of course if I forget that I typed it here... I could of course get it tattooed on me somewhere, but I don't really like tattoo's written in English which throws up the problem of, in later years, not being able to translate whatever it is I've permanently added to my skin. On another note, I've noticed that the later it is when I type this blog the more stupid stuff gets mentioned.
None of which of course has anything to do with the fact that we decided to get up astonishingly early this morn so as we could get ourselves to some alcohol as soon as humanly possible. After a great nights sleep (amazing what a properly closed sleeping bag can do for a man) we were screaming for road at 5.30am. That of course is complete nonsense. We did get up at 5.30am but the only screaming, was the screaming of joints. We ate our usual 3 course breakfast, but as we no longer needed to worry about carbs and energy levels we actually left some food after us. It was the first time some of the porters smiled!! I hope that last bit about carbs doesn't dispel the subtle image I've tried to build up of 3 chubby men just guessing their way up a mountain and inaccurately replace it with one of 3 Adonis like fitness gurus chortling at the sheer effortlessness of the whole trek. Anyway, with what was to be our last obscene delay because of our, at this stage, superhuman inability to pack we were on the road and walking by 6.30am. 6 of us headed off together. The same six that completed the climb. I did mention we got to the tippidy top of Kilimanjaro didn't I???? Freddie was all dressed up in his finest camo gear and had a look in his eye we instantly recognised as the look a man carries when he can feel the likelihood of beer being in his near and present future. The pace we set was staggering. Not staggering as in walking with a limp, but staggering as in fast. It got to the stage where the guides were the ones calling out for breaks! We spent the whole walk talking about beer, planning the first one out with military precision. Again that's not true, I spent a good chunk of that walk whining about my toe. It was sore, even to this day its sore and the nail is falling off and and and well that's about all really. But the amount of complaining I did about it that day could only have been justified if, when I removed my boot, we discovered that not only was it broken in several places but that also one of the many breaks had broken though the skin and embedded itself in my other foot. Needless to say this was not the case. Although the nail was quite black. Oh I just remembered Ash McGyver offered to fashion something to help with the pain. Probably a rock to the back of my head.
To say the walk that day was uneventful, would be both accurate and yet untrue. I don’t really feel I need to justify that statement. Accept it and move on. I remember two points of interest. The first one is actually worth a mention, the second, while I'm sure not possibly a topic for dinner conversation, holds a lot of deeper and thought provoking subtleties that can be explored in your own time. Provided of course that your own time doesn't coincide with having people round for dinner. Although I'm sort of making assumptions about both you and your guests here so do what you want. Now that I think about it I'm even making assumptions that there is a you in the first place. This stream of thought appears to be going around in a circle, so onwards with previously advertised points of interest... After about an hour of walking we came across a little picnic area complete with picnic tables and toilets. The reason I mention the toilet will become apparent later. Oh the suspense! Anyway we didn't actually stop for a break here but Freddie did find the skull of a small goat called a 'Dik Dik' on one of the tables. He offered it to Ash and Conor, who declined and on we went. I then ran back and grabbed it and threw it in my bag. The rest of the journey I spent worrying about what killed it, what parasites were now roaming around my bag and how they’d like Ireland, how did the thing end up so clean, where was the rest of its skeleton and how was customs going to react to what was going to look like the skull of a small child in my rucksack as it went through the x ray machine at the airport. The 'Dik Dik' skull got dumped back at our hotel room. This whole tale only goes to prove one thing.. Ash and Conor think much quicker on their feet than me! The second thing worth mentioning, and I feel I might be alone on this, happened at our first break after about 2hrs. The break was dictated by my digestive system rather than any preplanned stop point. And this is the interesting bit.... We stopped at a totally random point, I picked a totally random bush (now you get why I mentioned walking past the toilet earlier!) to hide behind and when I was done I counted 7 other pieces of toilet roll in my immediate vicinity. Why I counted them when I was done is neither relevant or important, and is not the type thought I was hoping to provoke with the story. The type of thoughts I was hoping to provoke are along the lines of:
1. What a coincidence that so many people picked the exact same spot. Or..
2. How many people actually are on this route to make it a likelihood rather than a coincidence??
3. What sort of person even considers this stuff interesting in the first place??!!!!
Moving along, which we did, after 4.5hrs we had walked 19km and had reached Marangu Gate. We passed a few groups who were setting off and gave them the smug look required at times like that. We also passed a few monkeys who actually gave us lessons in how exactly to pull off that look. We hung around at the gate while we waited for Freddie to get our certs and argued over whether we could afford a bottle of coke. It turned out we could and so we bought 3 of the nicest tasting bottles of fizzy pop ever manufactured. Another amazing coincidence. We then piled back into our bus and drove for about an hour to lunch in Moshi. We thought we were all going for grub but it turned out it was just us 3. If we had known we would have skipped it as it was eating into serious pool and beer time! But regardless we arrived back at the hotel for 3.30pm. A quick bit of tipping for Freddie, lots of hand shakes and Asanties and our 3 carcasses were planted in the bar with bottles of Kilimanjaro Lager in hand. What followed was the most horrible game of ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS ever played. The loser had to go shower and therefore had delay the second bottle of beer. Conor lost, I fell shortly after, while Ash kept drinking uninterrupted. Dirty and smelly but with a glow of intoxication.
The rest of the night has to remain a secret, mainly due to assassinated memory cells. But we did remain firmly planted to our seats while others left for fancy meals. We drank the bar out of Kilimanjaro beer, and tried our best to drink ourselves out of whiskey. The rest is a blur, but I’m sure everyone found us a perfect mix of manners and humour……
Day 7. Horombo Huts (3741) to Marangu Gate (1970) 19.5km 4.5 hrs!
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