Day Two: Smokin' Santa

Day two began with "bed tea" at 6:00 a.m. - that would be steaming hot tea delivered to the tent and hand-mixed by a mountain waiter as I  groggily tried to muster the energy to say "asante." I could get used to this treatment.  Warm washing water was delivered at 6:30, and breakfast was served at 7:00.  Last night I balked at the thought of being woken up an hour before breakfast with nothing to do but sponge down and roll up my sleeping bag.  However, I quickly discovered that stuffing a sleeping bag into a sack at altitude is nothing short of exhausting.  By the time I mustered the energy to drink my tea, to unzip myself from my sleeping nest (which I have already come to love), and to stuff the down bag into its cinch sack, I was ready for my first nap of the day.

First glimpse of Kibo in the morning light
 (see the flag at the summit?)

Fortunately Howard rousted me from my drowsy state by calling out and insisting I "take a look at the view" from the south-cul-de-sac.  Well, there it was.  Kibo peak, in all of its snow-covered glory, loomed above us.  On our trek into camp the night before, Kibo had been covered in clouds.  Now, with the sun rising behind us, we got a giant-sized glimpse of the peak that beckoned.  Kili actually sports three peaks: Kibo, the highest, Mwenzi, the rugged, lower peak, and a crumbled-down third peak of no significance (which means I can't remember its name, but you can Google it).  Sue, our other neighbor in the land of the misfits, was already out of her tent snapping photos.  She was quick to point out the photo she had of the giant flag at the summit (the big green one that was about half the size of the mountain).  Altitude had obviously addled her brain over night, and (after scrolling through a few other photos with a similar green "flag") we quietly concluded that there was a large spot on the camera lens.  Naturally nothing remained quiet for too long, and Sue spent the remainder of the trek desperately hoping to find an enormous green flag at the summit in order to quash the teasing that ensued.

We were happy to see that Gayle's smiling face had resurfaced at breakfast (after a long night spent trekking back and forth to the toilet tent). The mountain food still tasted good on day two, and we welcomed our breakfast of eggs, deep-fried green onion treats, bread (beginning to taste slightly moldy) and fruit.  The morning beverage mixing scene was reminiscent of bartender training school.  With no hot beverage option that was completely appealing, many of us took to experimental drink mixing with a vengeance. It began with Kilimanjaro instant coffee, Nido (the aforementioned nasty powdered creamer), hot chocolate mix, straight cocoa powder and Milo (an Australian version of something like Ovaltine) and could be sweetened with sugar or honey.  No matter how you mixed it, it usually came out disgusting.  By the end of the week, most of us had converted to straight tea. I personally would have thrown someone off the mountain in exchange for a venti iced coffee with real cream and sugar.

Mwenzi Peak

The hike itself on day two was about as good as it gets.  We all moved at the prescribed "pole pole" pace and sucked down water like there was no tomorrow.  We enjoyed gorgeous views of both Mwenzi and Kibo peaks throughout the day.  We walked through burned scrub land for a few hours which made toilet breaks particularly challenging.  Not only was there no foliage to hide behind, but bushwhacking through the charred remains of trees in search of privacy was messy business and left me covered in black ash (a nice combo when mixed with generic hiking grime and lots of sun block).


When we stopped for lunch at "Second Caves," we were treated to a true picture of the number of hikers (and staff) on the Rongai Route with us.  It was a crowded lunch spot with a party atmosphere.  Sunshine, fresh air, beautiful views, music and bare bellies were all on the menu (along with soup and Medium Fat Spread sandwiches). However, it was Smokin' Santa that took my breath away.  As we all waddled along at a snail's pace, intent on forward progress, deep breathing and water consumption, this porter had likely just sprinted to the lunch spot, set up shop and was now enjoying a high-altitude smoke break.  It gave me a giggle anyway, although not as much of a giggle as the large, white belly on one of our Czech friends on the trail who had seen fit to disrobe for his noon-time meal.  We wasted a large part of lunch imagining him in leiderhosen dancing a jig to the summit.  There was also some discussion about improperly restrained body parts on women in the same climbing group...evidently we were still feeling too good.

A crowded lunch at Second Caves...

I wear my sunglasses at lunch...
to cut the glare from the pasty-white,
protruding bellies!

Sadly, the laughter had to end at some point, and we packed up to carry on.  Actually, we just popped on our day packs and headed up the trail.  Magically our dining tent came down, chairs disappeared, tables were folded away and somehow they all beat us to camp four hours later.  More beautiful hiking was the order of the afternoon with plenty of time for conversation.  It was on this afternoon that someone in our group first dared question the authenticity of the Fat Lady on the Mountain.  A long conversation ensued during which there was much debate about whether a seriously overweight person could manage this hike.  Fortunately Smurf was prepared with all of his statistical research. He was able to reassure us that it is the most "unlikely" people who have the greatest success rate on Kilimanjaro...the old, the fat, the slow, the couch potatoes, the smokers and the heavy drinkers. He had some scientific rational for this interesting statistic, but all I heard was "even an old, fat, chain-smoking alcoholic can climb this mountain..."  Great motivation for the afternoon climb!

Oh yeah...I could TOTALLY do that!  I just
wanted to let him feel manly.

After we finally put the Fat Lady to bed, we moved on to other interesting topics of conversation.  We brainstormed evening entertainment options including a Kili-Olympics of sorts with events like projectile vomiting (for distance) and peeing for the record (based on quantity).  We invented a new flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream dubbed, "Puke on the Boots," packed with chunks (naturally). We learned about dung beetles and how each kind of dung has its own beetle, so a mongoose dung beetle is partial to mongoose dung whereas an elephant dung beetle only has a nose for elephant feces.  And, we began our Swahili lessons in earnest with locker room talk.  Inspired by lunch time sightings, we learned that "Matiti" means breast and "Mataco" refers to your hind end.  We also learned that "choo" refers to "woman parts," which then (of course) lead to an extended discussion about what a choo choo train is.  We also perfected some of the polite conversational phrases we would need on the mountain like, "Let's go: Twende, Ready: Tayari, How's it going?: Mambo?, Well: Poa, and, the over-used and ever-present, Hakuna Matata, which functioned as punctuation in Guide John's speech.  Every sentence ended with "hakuna matata."  The guy was unflappable.

Just after 4:30 p.m., we hopped over Dr. Seuss-like vegetation into Camp #2, Kikeliwea (3600 m).  It had been a full day of hiking.  I congratulated myself on accomplishing my goal of 5X5 (5 liters of water by 5:00) and promptly ran for the toilet tent and popped another Diamox (seeking my daily dose of tingle). 

Camp #2 with Mwenzi and Kibo in the background.  Kibo still looks awfully far away.

I'm sure it was the Diamox talking when I heard Chris exclaim, "I never knew Crocs could be so comfortable!  I'm going to buy myself a pair in every color when I get home (and some fuzzy ones for winter wear!).  Perhaps I hallucinated the last part, but at altitude the brain does funny things. While we enjoyed a late afternoon "tea" of the various hot drink concoction options and roasted peanuts, we heard, "The guy is here to grab your bladders" - signaling that it was time to pull out empty Camelback bladders and water bottles for refilling for the next day's chug fest.  Really this hike all came down to bladders - the challenge of filling one with clean, treated mountain water, and the challenge of emptying another with nary a bush for peeing privacy.

Potty talk continued over dinner until Howard chimed in with his "true confession" for the day.  After the previous night's revelation that he had been "stiffed" on the accessory front in the south-cul-de-sac, the TK crew had been quick to rectify the situation and saw to it that he got soap and toilet paper like all of the rest of us, and he got bathing water too (which naturally was not clean enough for the germaphobe).  Howard admitted that while attempting to wash in the bowl of mountain water, he had set his soap down on the ground.  Apparently he missed the memo about the soap-eating ravens, because his soap was snapped up in a matter of seconds by one of those overly-bold behemoths.  Thus began the story of Howard's soap-eating raven who would follow us and mock him on the trail for the rest of our journey.

Perhaps it was the incessant teasing or perhaps he was just tired, but at some point in the evening Howard just checked out.  He stared off into the distance (perhaps dreaming of his germ-free friends at home or flush toilets) and looked as if he were sleeping with his eyes wide open. This, of course, lead to more fun at Howard's expense.  We coined the phrase, "Doing a Howard," to indicate that someone was spacing out on the job. 

Guide John came in to give our nightly briefing - to remind us to eat, drink, sleep with our heads elevated, pack our "rain gears," and walk slowly. He warned us that, on day three, our hike would be steep but short. Hakuna Matata.  We would be finished hiking by lunchtime, but then we would take an afternoon hike "just for fun" to acclimate better to our increased sleeping altitude. Hakuna Matata.  With visions of "Puke on the Boots" dancing in my head, I snuggled into my warm sleeping bag, dressed in multiple layers of long johns and socks, and drifted off to sleep.