26th January - Day 2 Kilimanjaro climb

This morning we were woken at 6am with coffee and washing water for breakfast at 6.30am. This would be routine in the mornings on the trek. I got out the tent to use the loo. Armed with my headtorch, loo roll and shewee I headed for the toilet 'hut' - wooden shed 3 foot by 3 foot with a hole in the floor. It was full of creepy crawlies and flying things but fortunately I only needed a wee, so was done fairly speedily! When I returned to the tent I looked up and saw the most beautiful sight - sunrise over Kili.

This is the sunrise side. I took this photo first.

We had breakfast in the mess tent

A little later on, we had formal introductions to our trekking crew, pictured below with Sifuel, our lead guide on the far left. I think Alex (who later became my 'personal' guide!) is second from the left with the white hat.

Todays walk was nice, again very warm and cloudless burning skies. However, we stopped for lunch at like 3500 metres and after that I started to fall behind. I think Alex was assigned to the 'weakest' of the party as he's been guiding on Kili for like 30 years. So, after lunch he was with Simon and I. I felt okay, it was hard going later in the afternoon and I had to take frequent small stops but I didnt feel like it was altitude that was the problem, just my lack of stamina maybe.

I didn't come into the camp at Kikelewa, which is at about 3700 metres,  too far behind the others but it was enough for me to know that I might start to struggle to keep up. Here are our tents at the camp. The toilet huts were dire (with no doors!) but this was sufficiently wild that you could just go off, find a bush and 'do your thing' LOL.