Kilimanjaro Trek - Day 4

Late post: 4th day into Kilimanjaro trek:

Woke up around 6.15 am and as per usual began contemplating the turn of events over past 3 days while still being buried inside the warm sleeping bag. This is when I mentally make note of my physiological status as well as the days plan (or what I know of it) what to wear and pack for the day and where I have kept them yesterday night. Instead, I could have got up and done it but going over it in mind is kind of fulfilling and solacing.

Next days wear, provided they are dry and days are expected to be cold or night before summit, normally goes inside the sleeping bag (since I'm reusing clothes, to avoid the sleeping bag from stinking I keep them inside the sleeping bag liner. Personal liner came handy for this especially because the bag is shared), so the clothes won't be cold and damp while putting them back on. Slowly unburied myself from the bag and put on the day clothes, packed the bags and started stretching the muscles. Meanwhile, people outside started counting numbers telling whoever doesn't come out and over before the countdown finishes will miss the group pic. Put on the shoe and rushed out in time for the group pic. Guess photo request is an easy idea to get lazy asses out of the tent! Southern face of the Kibo peak was fully visible and looked magnificent in clear daybreak. Sun started lighting up the valley so everyone started to seize the warm opportunity to the fullest to dry their wet clothes. I put out mine over some rocks then took the chance to chant 27 ohms to re-energize the beads. By the time sun was out in full glory and it felt wonderful to just stand in the sunlight and let it wash away the ever-present mountain chillness from the body. Temporarily!

For breakfast, we were given millet porridge, omelette, pancake and bread slices. After breakfast, we started our walk towards the Karanga camp. It is a 5 km walk and minimal elevation gain of 150m. We passed a few mountain streams and reached the famous Barranco wall in an hour. The weather turned gloomy and started to drizzle soon. Barranco Wall, also told by our guides as kissing wall is a steep near-vertical wall of about 100m. Climb itself is just about an hour and few sections require both the hands to scramble across. The very feel of rock features on the fingertips fascinated me and the guide had to tell me to stop every time I tried to break away from the pack while we wait to regroup. I felt bad to have gotten carried away so easily so controlled myself for the rest of the trail. There was one section, a rock buttress jutting out and a rocky ledge underneath to pass the butted rock. This section was what they were referring to as kissing wall because they wanted us to kiss the rock butt as we pass. They made a video of us doing it and that section marks the end of the wall so we took water break right next to it and the guides sang the Kilimanjaro song to us to commemorate the event. It was all cheerful and we felt rejuvenated just listening to the energy with which they sang the Hakuna Matata song.

After a few more minutes of scrambling, we reached the topmost part of that day's trail. It was all foggy and drizzled throughout and windy and the area was well exposed so not suitable for rest. We clicked few pics then started out descent towards Karanga valley. We passed through a lava field full of volcanic scree, initially made of big rocks later it was just volcanic sand. The gloomy weather and dark land reminded me of a scene from LOTR (see the third picture), kept walking amidst amusing myself in such thoughts. Last downslope had huge rocks and towering rock formations surrounded by moss-covered bushes and trees. We reached Karanga (later I learnt this word means banana in Swahili) camp on time for lunch. We ate hot lunch then played dumb charades for a while then retired to our tents for rest. The rain continued for a good amount of time so spent the rest of the day inside the tent reading a book thinking about the hot dinner we were about to be given that evening and towards the night sleep.