Kili Day 3

Kilimanjaro Day 3

So today was a key acclimatisation day. The plan is to ascend from Shira Camp at 3800m up to the Lava Tower at 4600m and then descend to Baranco Camp at 3950m.

The going was at our usual tediously slow pace, poly poly indeed but sometimes it's a real trial of patience. The ascent takes 4hrs with pretty constant rain from about 10am onwards. Just before noon were in sight of the Lava Tower and Arrow Glacier up ahead, this will be our lunch spot today. It's clear a lot of groups stop here, there's a huge group of mountain mice scurrying around for left over food and sniffing at my backpack wishfully thinking they'll discover treasure only to be disappointed.

If the ascent was tedious then the descent was worse, only taking about 2 1/2 hours but still at a slow pace in the pouring rain. The guides are happily chatting away in Swahili, I wonder sometimes how much attention they're paying to us.

Arriving in camp I feel pretty dehydrated and there's a stinking headache brewing. I take a paracetamol and drink plenty of water. Hopefully it's not the start of altitude sickness because that will have huge consequences not just for this trip but all my future mountaineering ambitions. At the moment it feels like my body can't do what my head wants and thats not from a physical point of view, on that front I've found it really straightforward so far.

Altitude sickness is a rather subjective and difficult to predict thing. It's independent of fitness and whilst some drugs like diamox are suggested to help, they in fact just mask the symptoms and lessen any fluid build up. But like I say fingers crossed it isn't that. I guess we'll find out if things improve or not.

So we've had dinner and the headache seems to be going. According to Antipas it's pretty common for people to get it at this altitude. Fingers crossed for the morning, night all.