Day 3 dawned beautifully. We had a very leisurely walk from 10,200 to 10,800 and the Kikelewa Cave campsite. We walked ‘pole, pole’ (pronounced pole-ay, pole-ay) … very slowly. Here’s a great explanation of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), and how to acclimatize to prevent it.
http://www.ultimatekilimanjaro.com/acclimatization.htm
We played “Who Am I?” along the way (one player thinks of a person, the others try to be the first to guess who it is, asking only ‘yes/no’ questions). I even tried to tell my ‘pirate walks into a bar’ joke, which was an adventure in and of itself as it took 15 minutes just to break through the communication barrier regarding the definition of a pirate is (no, not a pilot, no not a parrot) to our Tanzanian guides. The punchline turned out to be un-translatable….
A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel sticking out of his crotch. The bartender says, “Hey, you’ve got a steering wheel on your crotch.”
The pirate says, “Arrrr, I know. It’s driving me nuts!”
By the time we finished lunch, heavy rain had set in, so our afternoon hike was cancelled. We experienced some of the finer pleasures of camping: water in our tents, wet sleeping bag liners, a chilly afternoon bundled up inside our tents. But we had to laugh when we heard Anne-Marie surveying the iPod selections of all the porters in the porters’ tent: “Justin Bieber?!” “Miley Cyrus?!”
We were still served both tea (cookies and freshly roasted peanuts – the rain didn’t stop our chef, John!) and a taco dinner, complete with fresh guacamole. Definite calorie surplus today. Anne-Marie and I introduced Will to the card game “Nerts!” (competitive speed solitaire). Anne-Marie smoked us, but at least MY score was positive (sorry Will…:)
By dusk, there was a full, bright orange moon visible on the horizon. We again had a terrific view of Scorpio, and the lights of Tanzania in the valley below us. It was very chilly, and we put nalgene bottles full of hot water in our sleeping bags, which stayed toasty warm all night long.
We were thankful we didn’t go for an afternoon hike in the rain… our hiking clothes would have been soaked, and impossible to dry. And tomorrow we would be thankful for the rain itself, as everything outside would be much less dusty now!
Our Kili Outfitter: Nature Discovery
Trip created by our travel pros, Khashana Adventure Travel. To see more view our other posts or visit their web site.