The stats:

• 8km from Horombo Camp to Kibo Camp through the ‘Saddle’ and now into the Alpine Desert.
• 5 hours from 8:30am until 1:30pm.
• We gained another 1000m and are now at 4700m/15400 feet.
• The hardest day for me, but the actual climbing is still pretty simple. Altitude sickness is starting – headaches, loss of appetite, weird stomachs.

Happy Mother’s Day! There were two cards waiting for me at breakfast. Awww. Jason always thinks of these things. It was such a nice treat to get cards from the kids. We both got teary eyed and emotional as we took a moment to appreciate where we were and what we were doing.

I am glad I had this to give me energy because my appetite has now left me as well. We did not make a very big dent in breakfast today and we know we have a long day ahead of us. Oh boy.

The hike started off beautifully. The sun was shining so strongly it was almost hot out. Jason and I were only wearing our t-shirts! We had a couple of hours of this while we were doing a ton of climbing. The sun is a great energy source. We were happy!

We arrived at ‘The Saddle’, a huge valley and the only place on the trail where it is flat. We were excited to have some easy hiking for awhile. Unfortunately, the weather changed; bye bye sunshine. And, to top it off, I hit the proverbial wall. It took everything I had, and more, just to put one foot in front of the other. The realities of Kilimanjaro. You will face obstacles of all kinds; physical, emotional, mental. The trick is to overcome them and keep going. Just one more step. Then another.

As we turned a corner out of the Saddle, we were able to see the huts at our next camp. What? Already? We got so excited. Unfortunately, the excitement was premature. It was really just another picnic site. Camp was still a couple of hours away. <sigh> What an emotional roller coaster.

The clouds rolled in, the rain came in, it was cold, it was miserable and I was d-o-n-e, no, I was D-O-N-E!  With about a kilometer to go, Charles took real pity on me and took my daypack. I was both embarrassed and ashamed but also so, so relieved. Thanks to his kindness, we made it into base camp. By the skin of my teeth. And if you think we’d be looking at the peak of Kili this whole time, well, you’d be wrong. She was hiding again for the whole day behind the clouds.

Our hut here was the same size as at Horombo Camp, but this time we were going to be allowed to have our meals in our room! We are so excited not to have to spend any more energy than we already have. At this point on the trail, we were getting breathless just turning over in our sleeping bags. Honest to goodness breathless for 20 seconds. Shameful.

Juma brings us our lunch – grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. We left about 90% of the meal untouched. Our appetites are truly gone now. Great. Just when we’re going to need the most calories. Hopefully we’ve got enough banked from the previous three days! Altitude sickness is now in full effect – loss of appetite, headaches, nausea, uber-fatigue. Ugh.

Now it is time to make a decision, a very important decision. Do we go for the summit tonight or do we take our extra day of rest today and leave for the summit tomorrow night? Leaving tonight means leaving in less than 7 hours. We thought it over very carefully for about 2 seconds. We will summit tomorrow night. If you take only one thing from our experience, let it be this. Pay for the 7^th day. You will not regret it.

As soon as we made our plan, we kicked Ola and Charles out of our cabin, curled up in our sleeping bags with our winter clothes and promptly fell asleep. Glorious sleep in a semi-warm bed. Almost heaven. I don’t think we’ll ever be warm again though. The cold and damp have permanently taken up residence in our bones.

We were woken up by Juma bringing us supper, that unfortunately, also went untouched. Luckily, we were able to fall back asleep and sleep we did. It was our only recourse to hopefully conquer this altitude sickness and have a successful summit.

Please sleep, do your magic!