Elevation: 13,110 ft – 15,330 ft
Distance: 2.3 miles
Hiking Time: 3.5 hrs
Karanga Camp – Barafu Camp (Pole-pole Day)
Day 6 Kilimanjaro climb via Lemosho route
Morning
I woke up feeling good. Some light head ache, but in general completely normal. We started our relatively short 4-hour hike later than usual. There was almost no vegetation except for little bushes and tiny flowers, we were in high alpine zone. The views were spectacular. After about an hour we started seeing much more traffic as the Lemosho trail joined Mweka trail. We made it to the camp by 2 pm. More than half of our group had upset stomach, some people had heartburn and severe headache. All of those are symptom of high altitude.
“Pole-pole” day
Why “pole-pole” day? Pole-pole mean slowly in Swahili. Our guides were repeating this word every 5-10 minutes. This supposed to be slow resting day for us, the day before summit.
High Barafu camp
I was a bit tired, got to the tent and tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t. I went for a walk around the camp, this camp was much larger compared to all 4 previous camps. Multiple groups formed their own little communities. I met Russian couple who hired local guide to climb the mountain in Moshi. The girl said that she was not feeling good and they were deciding whether to continue the climb or start descending. We talked for a while, together with her husband we were trying to convince her attempting the summit next morning. She looked tired and didn’t seem to have any motivation. It looked like she just needed a little push. I told her “This frozen leopard carcass that Hemingway wrote about, is still there. Don’t you want to see it??” We laughed, had tea, played card, and I said, “See you on the summit tomorrow”, “See you, but most likely not on the summit”, she replied. I left. The dinner was served in the dining tent at 4 pm. After dinner we headed to our tents to rest only to wake up 7 hours later for summit attempt. I took Tylenol PM, laid down in the tent for an hour but was not able to fall asleep. I decided to take another walk around the camp. The view did not disappoint.
I took tons of pictures, walked a little bit more, came back to tent. I still couldn’t fall asleep. It was 6pm, 4 hours till “wake up call”. 7pm. I was still laying in the tent with my eyes wide open. I felt restless.
