Journal: Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro - Day2I had a restless night, waking up frequently. By 7.30 I was up and dressed and packing my gear into my rucksack. I roll up my sleeping bag and sleeping mat and the tent is cleared for the porters to take down while we’re having breakfast. Breakfast consists of warm, thick porridge which is welcome in the chilly early morning air. Porridge is followed by fried eggs, sausages and fried tomato. Breakfast up here at 3000 meters is better than many of the hotels I have stayed at!
We set off at 9.00am, with the head porter taking the lead. The climb is brisk and far more relentless than the previous day. The track runs over bare rock in places and is really narrow at times. Now we’re above the cloud and the ground is dry and dusty. The vegetation has thinned out completely. We are above the clouds. Below us a thick blanket of cloud lies over the land. Mount Meru juts out above the white blanket of cloud in the distance in a graceful, almost perfect shape of a cone. up ahead we can see our objective for the day, the Shira plateau. Off to the left the jagged Shira Ridge rises up with high pinnacles of rock reaching skyward. We have a short lunch stop, eating pre-packed sandwiches. As we climb higher we see less wildlife and in the afternoon we reach the plateau at roughly 4 000 meters, and then drop down gently to Shira Camp at 3850m. The landscape here is quite barren and very dusty. A colorful, festive looking tented community has sprung up to accommodate the climbers for the night. From Shira, there are magnificent views of the summit, with the glaciers of the northern ice fields dropping off steeply down the flanks of the mountain. The highest peak is masked by cloud, as though keeping its secret till the very last moment. Dinner is served early, at around 5.30. After dinner we fill our water bottles with freshly boiled drinking water. The guides remind us to keep hydrated. Mist drifts in and out of the camp in waves and it is getting pretty cold even though it’s not quite dark yet. This evening we are all tired and subdued and most of us retire to our tents early.
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