day 4/8, Kili trek

It's already wake up time again. It's 6 AM, and as usual they bring us some hot water to wash ourselves. I won’t lie, but my hair is so dirty and greasy that I can’t remove my beanie anymore. At least my feet aren’t that smelly, but by now I am already missing a good bath. Although I almost didn’t sleep, I know I did it as I dreamed. Can't remember anymore.

I need to share with you that the best thing we did was renting our own private toilet. It’s so much more comfortable and hygienic, and I would pay every cent again. I see that the tourist who didn’t rent one don’t use the public toilets, that are shared by hundreds of people, rather they go behind the bushes. Now, this is something you will quickly learn: people don’t respect the Park rules, and you can find toilet paper everywhere. That's not the worse part of it, as toilet paper is biodegradable: you can find old batteries, toiletry items, tea bags, cigarette butts (which aren’t allowed in the park at all), juice pack's, and so on and so forth. All this trash isn't left behind by the crews, but by the tourists themselves and it’s starting to disturb me lot. To see to which extent our presence damages the Park and how big our environmental footprint is, is making me think if i did a good choice by coming here.

Regardless of that, Jonas our leading guide, picks litter from the ground every day. By the end of everyday trek he arrives at the camps with a handful of waste. So let me ask you dear tourist: would you litter in your own country? Can you please behave as if you were in the US or any where else? I know you can do better than this.

 Now that i have pointed it out, it’s time to get back to my diary. 

The dawn isn’t as cold as yesterday, but I can feel the cold getting into my bones. I am wearing a long sleeve shirt, a light fleece and a jacket, and my hands were cold. I had very good socks (my friends take my advice and buy good socks so that your feet don't freeze, burn or hurt your feet), my friend Tiziana amazing boots, so my feet were comfortable all the way through the 8 days.

Unfortunately, we always leave the camp later than planned, and our guide it's starting to be upset with us. He likes to leave early, to walk slowly and arrive early, so we can have proper rest. Our heart rate and SO2 are still quite good.

Today is a very long day: we will do an acclimatization walk for 4 to 5h up to Lava tower (4.600m ASL), and then descend for 2 to 3 h to Barranco Camp at 3.900m ASL. It's one of the longest days, where we will walk approximately 10 km, for 6 to 8 hours. Long, hard day, in an Alpine Desert landscape.

It's exiting to see how the landscape changes, it looks like we've landed on the moon, and it’s full of volcanic rocks and debris. Here and there you will find some proofs that we are in fact in an habitable planet.

 Hundreds of porters cross our way, and as we get a bit closer to Lava Tower, people from Machame route join us. Now we are now a much bigger group than the one coming from Lemosho, number of tourists and porters is impressive. As Lemosho is one of the longest trails, therefore more expensive most people just choose between Machame and Marangu routes. 

There we are ate Lava Tower, and I have a headache that comes and goes, specially when I bend. It can be a mix between altitude sickness, hunger and sleepless nights.

I forgot to mention that both me and Paula we are taking the Diamox, as recommended by both doctors and most of our friends. I didn’t feel much of the effects, except for the tangling in the fingers, which i felt throughout the whole journey. In fact I also recommend you to take it, and don’t forget to start a few days ahead you get in the mountain.

Getting back to Lava Tower. The place is in fact impressive: it’s a huge rock that stands alone in a small plateau. The place is amazing. What i also find astonishing is the amount of people gathered in this small space. All people coming from Machame, Lemosho and Shira routes come together in this point. From now on we will be a lot of people. According to Jonas, last year 50.000 tourists visited the park. knowing that each tourist has in average 4 crew members, this means that in total around 250.000 people climbed the mountain.

The effects of the over-crowded is obvious: lots of garbage everywhere, lots of people walking everywhere (meaning outside the trails), lots of open air toilets... don't imagine just the solid wast, imagine as well the smell you are able to feel.. This is outrageous, and as you pass by Senecio forest you can understand the dimension of the impact. There is not much left of the so called "forest" and lots of the trees are dying, because tourists are overtaking the territory by stepping and depleting the soil, because people want to take some souvenirs home and take parts of the trees, because and because and because. Please, bear in mind this is an unique ecosystem: you won't find it anywhere else. That's why it's a World Heritage Site.

While we pass by Senecio Forest, we cross several stream, the water is freezing by the way, and we have Kibu Point on our left hand side. The weather is cold, and gets colder everyday. 

We finally arrive to Barranco Camp, after 6:02h of trekking, longest trail so far.

After registration and taking the usual photos, we head to our camp site. The weather here isn't as bad as in Shira I but it's very very cloudy, thus you can not warm up at any moment. 

1. 

This is one of the dirtiest camps we been so far. Lots of food leftovers (bones and horrible stuff), tea bags, juice packs, batteries... just pick something, you will find it here.

To enable me to have some rest I decide to have some ipobrufen, and I get much better. 

We walk around the camp, as usual, trying to find some signal. After several trials i can finally reach out to my family and talk to the kids, and i am so much happier.
You don't know how lonely you can feel in the mountain. It can be either bad or good, as you have the chance not to think in anything else, or you can think about everything thus you have lots of free time.
The days are always the same and time goes by so slowly... we had diner at 6:30. It used to be my afternoon tea break time, look at me now. We had some soup with lentil balls, past and minced meet and veggies.
we had our briefing for the next day as we were about to cross the daunting Barranco Wall. as we get some explanation i start to get really anxious and scared. I hear lots of heights and danger and crawling, and start wandering why i decided to do this in first place. I didn't remember anyone mentioning that Barranco wall was that scary and dangerous. Why could that be.
Jonas wants us to be the firsts to leave the camp to avoid getting jammed... You see, lots of technicalities that i wasn't expecting at all.
We explained Jonas that Barranco (written with 2 R) is a Portuguese word, that means exactly ravine, so the word wall is a bit redundant here.
Before getting to sleep we packed our stuff and had some reading. after a short while we shut down the light. this is the end of day 4.