Day 2 begins with breakfast and packing, then we’re off to Kikelelwa camp (elevation: 3,679 meters; 12,070 feet), a nice 16 kilometers (9.9 miles) away though moorland terrain. I quite enjoyed this hike, with the peaceful rolling hills, our pole pole pace, and amazing views of Mawenzi and Kibo far in the distance. We stop at First Cave camp, which had an awesome cave. There was a small hole in the ceiling of the cave which I had to climb through and that was a thing I did that made me feel cool. I was feeling good and thought to myself, “I’ll definitely make the summit if I can make it through that hole.”

We arrive to Second Cave Camp for lunch (I prefer First Cave) and after eating and a short nap in the grass we head out and arrive to Kikelelwa around 3 to a snack of popcorn. I love popcorn and was exactly what I wanted and needed at that moment but didn’t know it. That’s how good chef Adam is. He knows what we will want to eat and what we will need to eat to help us be successful on this journey.

We have some time to kill before dinner so we read in our tent. We borrowed two books, a tent (REI Quarter Dome) for Victor, and a power bank charger from our frisbee teammate Jeff whom you might remember from my blog post about frisbee in Uganda. Bill read Bossypants by Tina Fey (it’s a great read which I highly recommend) and I read When to Rob a Bank by the Freakonomics duo Dubner and Levitt. Recounting what we read served as good time-passing story telling on the trails everyday. Also great time-passing activity while on the trails with your fiancé: working out all the wedding details and coming up with fun ideas and how to execute them. Since the wedding is in Westchester, New York on New Years Eve which is a Monday, and many people are coming in from out of town, we came up with an itinerary of events in New York City and Westchester for the extra long weekend if guests want to participate. It’ll be a great time and it was really fun to have uninterrupted hours to work out those and many other details.

I have an excellent post-dinner poop and after getting up to pee twice in the middle of the night and a mediocre morning poop on Day 3, we leave Kikelelwa Camp en route to Mawenzi Tarn Camp (elevation: 4,315 meters; 14,156.8 feet) 3 kilometers away. Each camp has a handful of outhouses which consisted of 4 walls, a roof, a door, and a hole in the ground. The older ones are made of wood, including the floor made of wood planks which I did not trust. I always opted for the concrete floor outhouses. If I am peeing, I prefer to go in nature, but nature sometimes called me into the outhouse. My youth as a gymnast and the past decade of off and on yoga has left my achilles very flexible, so I am able to squat all the way down while keeping my heels on the ground making the squat poop a non-issue. I don’t enjoy public restrooms so much (I mean who really does) and I am one of those ‘don’t touch anything/use a paper towel to open the door’ types, but I wasn’t bothered too much by the outhouses. Some tours have the option of renting toilets, which the porters empty and carry, but we didn’t opt for that add on luxury option. Since the camps we stayed at were small, the outhouses don’t get the same kind of traffic as the more popular camps, another reason the Rongai route was an excellent choice. Each person brought a roll of toilet paper for such occasions, and I had brought a handful of packets of wet baby wipes that my mom left for us during my family’s visit. Wet wipes came up huge during the shower-less week.

So this 3 kilometer (1.9 mile) hike to Mawenzi Tarn took 3 hours because it was an aggressive uphill climb. I thought to myself, “I’ll definitely maybe hopefully make it to the summit because we did this hike in the exact time it said on the sign.” The uphill was so worth it because Mawenzi Tarn was my favorite campsite as it is situated right at the base of the magnificent Mawenzi Peak.

After lunch we do an acclimatization hike up Mawenzi to the part that I made up is the highest you can go without needing technical rock climbing gear. The view was awesome albeit I didn’t go all the way to the edge like our fearless guides. Dennis asked me on the first day if I was afraid of heights and I told him no, I am only afraid of falling from heights, which to me is different.

Anyway, our acclimatization hike took about 2 hours round trip, then we rest before dinner and I start feeling terrible. I had taken a Diamox (an altitude sickness pill) that morning after breakfast but it was clearly wearing off, and I was at an elevation I had only been to once before a decade ago in Peru (when I had to ride the mule up the last bit of the mountain because I was light headed, had no energy, and couldn’t catch my breath). I lay down and try to read/sleep. I don’t go to the mess tent for dinner, but Bill brings me a little bit of food. I eat 2 spiral pasta pieces and have one sip of delicious soup when I feel it all coming up. I quickly unzip the tent, stick my head out, and throw up everything that was inside of me, including something that looked like a meatball even though I haven’t had meatballs for months. So so so much comes out and it was disgusting and felt bad that Bill and Victor had to see that. But neither of them were too grossed out – Bill because he’s my fiance and Victor because he is the oldest of 4 kids and was used to seeing that. After that epic vomit I felt SO much better. Dennis, Johnson, and Isaac come by to check on me, as the camps have very strict rules about sick trekkers. They checked my heart rate and blood oxygen levels with a finger scanner thing and both numbers were 82 if I remember correctly. But I’m not a doctor so I had no idea if that’s good or not. I thought the camp rangers were going to make me descend because I got sick (they didn’t), and I didn’t want to because I was already in my sleeping bag and it was cold and I just wanted to sleep my headache away. I thought to myself “I’ll definitely not make it to the summit because I just vomited.”

I wake up on Day 4 feeling loads better. Vomiting and sleeping has that affect. I took a Diamox altitude sickness pill after vomiting before going to sleep, and decided I will take them until I get to a lower elevation than Mawenzi Tarn. Medicine works so I don’t know why I was fighting it trying to tough it out. We eat a hearty breakfast and begin our day with the usual 8am departure time. We hike to Kibo Camp (elevation: 4,720 meters; 15,486 feet), which serves as the base camp of Kibo, stopping to eat our packed lunches along the way on the part of the mountain called “The Saddle”. It’s a downhill then flat then uphill hike, and we see many porters going off to the right. Turns out they were going to the closest water source, which was still far from camp. Each camp has a clean running water source where porters get water. Then its boiled before it is used to wash, cook, or drink. All the water tasted fine to me. In the gunpoint mugging incident, I had my small day backpack stolen along with my 1.5 liter water bladder that was inside it. Luckily, our neighbor Monica (and now our current roommate since we moved out of our place a month early to follow up getting our security deposit back (which we did by the way)) was taking a girls trip and passing through New York, so when she met up for dinner at my family’s house, my mom gave her a few things to bring back to Kenya for me. Huge props to my mom and dad who went to REI on a moment’s notice for me. We decided last minute we were going to do this Kilimanjaro trip, and it was too late to Amazon Prime because of the timing of my family overlapping with Monica. They got me 4 new pairs of hiking socks, and, most notably, a 3 liter Osprey bladder that is so well designed that Bill couldn’t stop raving about its genius every single day. He used that bladder because A) he liked it so much and B) it is heavier to carry 3 liters than 2 liters and I used his 2 liter one. It made me really happy that this water bladder made him so happy. Also Bill makes me happy and this trip was no exception. He would carry my things in his bag, and despite him being able to do the hikes in like half the time it takes me, he always walked behind me or next to me and if he did get a little ahead, he would turn around and wait for me making sure I was ok. One thing I wanted from this hike was for Bill to enjoy himself, and I knew I would feel guilty being slow on the uphills making it less fun for him. But he was encouraging and helpful so I think I’ll keep him forever.

TO BE CONTINUED…