Kilimanjaro: Shira to Barranco (3)

Let’s start with last night.

Because of the risk of altitude sickness you need to drink around 5 liters of water everyday. So that means that you need to run out of you’re tent at least two times during the night. It really starts to freeze now during the night, so it's difficult to crawl out of your warm sleeping bag to go outside.
However, this night I didn’t mind the trouble, because once outside I could see the snowy top of the Kilimanjaro bathing in the light of the moon. The stars around made this scenery stunning.
A few more days and I will hopefully be at the top…

During the day we had an acclimatization walk planned. This would lead us to the top of a rock that is called Lava Tower.
When we started walking we saw that the ground was frozen. A small stream that we passed a little later was frozen solid.

The vegetation started to change again as soon as we reached the 4000m mark.
The low bushes disappeared and now the rocks were king of the scenery.
Ice cold wind made us stop to put on an extra layer of clothing and we definetly needed gloves.

By noon we were close to the highest point to reach today and we paused for lunch near some lava rocks. Normally I keep myself busy during a break by hopping around, or walking a bit without the backpack. I want to keep my body temperature at the same level as it is freezing all day long. But over here that wasn't necessary. Surprisingly these rocks were warm. We also smelled some typical volcanic gasses. The volcano isn’t active anymore, but it still has some energy left that reaches up to the surface. This was ideal to keep a bit warm during the break. 

At two o'clock we reached the Lava Tower. We were now at 4628m above sea level.
At the top we walked straight into a cloud, which limited our view.
Unfortunately I started to get some headache over here. One of the symptoms of altitude sickness.

When we finally started to descent we saw more frozen rivers. A little more down grass started to grow again. And soon we walking in between the funny pineapple trees.
There was already a huge temperature difference noticeable when we passed the 4200m point on our way down.
The river was flowing again and we took a small break to watch a nice waterfall. It made me dream of a warm shower. But that is still days removed from now.

When we arrived at the camp site we had to register at the office of the park ranger. As we were waiting I had a look at the group. Some of them looked really bad. As soon as they saw their tent they rolled out their sleeping mat and rested. 

Today’s height difference clearly made some victims. Hopefully they will feel better tomorrow morning. But I’m afraid that not everyone will reach the summit…

Again a stary night and a different view on the summit compared to yesterday. We are now much closer but still need a long way to go.