Hope you are enjoying the new Spring season - the weather was glorious here today, mild even though it was 5c....I spent the day out in shorts and a T shirt, did get some funny looks as I passed people who had coats and hats on still! - I stopped and took five minutes to watch the little lambs playing and bounding around....full of life and wonder. Was beautiful to see!
So before I take you back to the mountain for day four of our epic climb I want to catch you up on other things first. I went to see my consultant this evening for the results from my Dorsal spine MRI - for those who didn't know or hadn't read about it, my consultant thought the pain in my left side was possibly originating from my spine......the dorsal section to be precise and after already have bloods, a colostomy, CT scans etc done, he booked an MRI to check out his theory.
So results time, the MRI hasn't shown up anything that could be causing my pain so this rules out a trapped nerve new or old or on a really positive note nothing sinister on or around my spine. However this means we are no closer after three years to pinpointing the cause of the pain and this also means I am to be referred to the chronic pain clinic.
I feel so frustrated that the cause couldn't be found - afterall if you find the cause there's a greater chance you can sort it out! I have very mixed feelings about the referral, I definitely won't be taking painkillers if that's what they offer, but I've been told they do many other things to help elleviate the pain , such as specific exercises, acupuncture etc. So although I have no idea how long it's going to take for the referral to happen I will keep an open mind and at least go see what they have to say. So three years on - I actually don't feel any closer to a solution to leave me feeling pain free, but hey never say never - it can still happen and to be fair I've had the issue for so long....what's more time! So when I get an appointment I will of course let you know.
Mountain day four - February 4th. Shira camp 2 12,598ft - Barranco camp 14,928ft.
I know I won't have spelled this song correctly - I actually wrote it as it sounds so we found it easier to learn! here are the words to one of the songs the crew sang every morning, we learned the words so we could join in! So here you go....By the way I still sing it every morning on my on!
Jambo
Jambo
Jambo bwana
Habari gani
Zuri sana
Wageni
Mwa kari bishwa ( Yipoo )
Kilimanjaro
Hakuna matata
How cool is that! - I have to tell you hearing and saying in normal conversation in the correct context Hakuna matata was absolutely amazing!
This song is so upbeat, we all, including all the crew loved singing this every morning - a great way to get rid of the chill from the night on the mountain, warm the muscles up and prep us for the days climbing ahead. Loved all the singing and dancing in a morning. So lucky our crew wanted to do this all the time, some of the crews only did on the last day!!
As I said this is a major day on the mountain, it is our big acclimatization day, intended to help us with what will be a few tough days at high altitude. We would be climbing up to 4600m and having lunch at the lava tower before making our way down the very steep descent to Barranco camp in the Barranco valley for the night.
So day four on the mountain was the first climb high- sleep low - intended to acclimatize us in preparation for the summit ascent. It would also show us if we were going to suffer any altitude sickness symptoms. So yes a very big day for our little group of intrepid climbers.
I had been looking forward to this for so long! - I was going to finally get up close and personal with the Lava tower. The tower is a volcanic plug that rises up 300ft into the air. The volcanic plug would have occurred an age ago when lava was shot up through a vent at the base of where tower now stands, cooled and hardened thus blocking the vent. So far this "cork" which can build pressure in the volcano below hasn't woken Mount.Kilimanjaro up! The Lava tower is in the alpine forest - sadly earlier this year a ban was placed on climbing the tower because of safety concerns. But at least I could still experience the majesty of this volcanic plug! The last major eruption on Kilimanjaro was around 150,000 years ago, although some activity was recorded 200 years ago.
Wow what a day it was going to be - I hadn't slept the night before, and I have to say the lack of sleep and sleeping issues were definitely the hardest part of the trip - well that and the climbing lol!
We set off after breakfast and our singing and dancing to the Lava tower and our climb up to 4600m, none of us in the group had ever climbed this high, but in fairness we three girls were setting new daily highs and had been for a couple of days. And at 4600m we would be if on Mount. Meru the mountain you can see from Kilimanjaro, the summit!
We were walking uphill at a fairly steady incline, it wasn't uphill and down dale like we had walked, but it was continuous. As we carried on walking I could see higher up on the horizon what I knew straight away could only be the Lava tower and asked Chacha if that was the case. He responded and said yes it was indeed the Lava tower . Even from this distance I could see how impressive a rock formation it was. It was huge! And after all the time I'd read about it and looked at photos of it, it doesn't prepare you for how majestic it looked on the skyline!
I think the biggest potential worry for me as we continued walking was that we wouldn't see it properly as the clouds kept closing in around it....I really wanted to be able to get at least a couple of clear shots of it all and not just the bottom part because of the cloud cover. So it was a case of fingers crossed as we slowly climbed higher and closer to our lunch destination.
It showed how massive the Lava tower is when we could see it from such a distance and it took an absolute age to reach it. On route we passed this sign post, I can tell you we were all really excited to see this. It's weird how the smallest of things like this - bring the greatest of pleasure. We were really close to our destination of the tower, I had noticed my nose was bleeding, I didn't expect that, we were at an elevation of around 4200/4300m.
I had noticed a while earlier I was suffering with obviously High Altitude symptoms. I had a terrible headache, it came and went in waves, but the intensity of it was bad!, I was having balance issues, I keep losing my balance and staggering off to the right ( it was sod's law that I would favour falling off to my right, my weakest ankle after rupturing my Anterior Talofibular ligament, so I had nothing to stop my ankle giving way.....but in fairness, nothing was going to stop it even if my ankle wasn't weakened from an old injury ). I also felt a tad nauseous. So not altogether fantastic in myself. I wasn't on my own suffering with the altitude symptoms , Bec's was the same, we were laughing at the fact she favoured falling off to the left. Every now and then I'd hear...oh,oh,oh as Bec's staggered off while trying to regain her balance. At this elevation we were able to regain our balance, this was helped by the sparceness of the rocks in the alpine forest. She also was suffering with a headache and agreed it was definitely not the best feeling at all! Dom's balance was okay, but again he was suffering with a headache. The only one of us that was fine was Ali - she was displaying no symptoms whatsoever ......lucky lass!!
You can see the path on the left of the photos, the little sandy looking line. What it doesn't show is the incline properly near the tower base. That was a tough climb up at this elevation, breathing was tough as we exerted ourselves. When we finally crested the ridge at the base, we were all lathered and out of breath. I will say our recovery was really fast. As we all started congratulating each other with fist bumps and hugs, I felt a bit overwhelmed when George our guide who is the epitome of cool gave me a massive hug while saying "You are a very strong woman, well done Tracy", this was repeated when I hugged Chacha. George had set our Pole pole Kilimanjaro pace again for us today.....it's slow, small steps and it really is all about the rhythm!
We followed Chacha to an area of rocks to sit and have our pack lunches, there we a fair few other trekkers about, the most we had seen on our trip so far. But the area is so big we could all have a place to perch. I really wasn't feeling hungry, Bec's ( She was like our chemist! ) passed some headache tablets and said it's time for some more Tracy. I took them and sat down closing my eyes. My head was absolutely pounding and all I could hear was the blood rushing through my head. It was literally pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Chacha was encouraging us all to eat our lunches, I managed a little food and said I needed to go to the bathroom. Chacha told me there were behind a huge wall of boulders.
I set off to walk over to the wall and round it to the toilets. I didn't take my poles with me, I was all over the place, really light-headed, I must have looked really drunk, completely off my head. I couldn't control my feet properly and I sure as hell couldn't control my direction! I finally made it around the boulders and saw a line of toilets. I was so light-headed just from walking over, it was crazy! I walked into the open end of the toilet and round to the hole in the floor. OMG - once again the sight and smell that hit me had my stomach rolling and trying to climb out of my throat!
KILIMANJARO EXPRESS- again!!!! I spun on the spot to get out of there, what little bit of lunch I'd consumed wasn't going to be staying down that's for sure. My whole world went to hell at that point, I was so light-headed so as soon as I spun around my head felt like it became separate from my body.....my brain was rattling around in my skull, my eyes were rolling in their sockets, it felt like they were independent of each other and rolling in opposite directions. I frantically tried to grab onto something as my balance went. I literally had my fingernails in the wooden panel, as I was trying to grip on for dear life.
I could feel myself going and was leaning over towards the hole in the ground...my heart was pounding as hard as my head as I has a vision of the scene in Slumdog Millionaire where the young kid falls through the floor and drops the 5/6 feet into the raw sewerage and I was frantically screaming in my head on loop....no,no,no,please,no!!! I managed to settle enough to straighten up and get myself moving in the opposite direction and towards the way out. I got outside and promptly projectile vomited all over the outside of the wooden panel. I eventually stopped vomiting and heaving and moved away from the toilet all together. I was so shaky and weak...I was bent over double resting my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath, settle my stomach and calm my body.
I was like that for a fair few minutes and then stood up making my way back to the others. I sat down shakily and told them what had happened, they were sympathetic and grateful it wasn't them that had gone to the toilet all the while laughing at my description of what had happened - especially my fear of a Slumdog Millionaire reenactment ! Chacha made his way over pointing to my lunchbox and opened his mouth to speak, I held my hand up and said no way can I eat! he nodded his head and dropped the subject.
We got up to make our way away from the Lava tower and down into the Barranco valley to our camp for the night. My memories of the Lava tower are much more varied than I expected when we set off that morning hee hee! It was a long walk down to the camp. Very, very steep, but amazing as well. We saw the giant senecio trees, our first on the mountain, these ones exclusive to Kilimanjaro - they grow nowhere else on earth the guides told us, such a strange tree and they only grow over 3000m and evolved around one million years ago. I have a fascination for trees and yes these really fascinated me! They can grow to 5 meters in height.
When they flower they grow even taller as they sprout straight out the top! It was a tough day and we were shocked at the steep incline down to our camp in the Barranco valley and we were told we would be climbing back out of the valley the next morning and the path pointed out. It was a humdinger! The altitude sickness symptoms eased but only very slightly, the three of us didn't get rid of our headaches properly, and I was still light-headed. I was out in the camp taking photos and trying not to fall to the ground. At the time I was just praying they wouldn't all be blurred!
That's all for day Four, but I will be back soon with the continuing story of the most amazing journey on a magnificent mountain that can only be Mount.Kilimanjaro!
Until next time
Tracy
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