We set off past the last of the strange senecia plants and before long we're heading up over rocks using both hands and feet at times as the sticks are more of a hindrance than a help. I find clambering up like this fun though as it's a bit of a change, and apart from anything else I'm too busy to worry about how I'm feeling. Once again the column of porters hurries on past us. I'm more amazed than ever at the skill with which they dart over this steep rocky landscape carrying such heavy burdens on their heads. Unlike us they can't use their hands to help them as they're using them to support their baskets, sacks or pans, and they're still twice as fast as us.
As we stop to let them pass I look to see what sort of equipment they have. Some of them are wearing shoes that are far too big for them, others without the laces done up. They're carrying rucksacks full of raw eggs in thin cardboard boxes and have to squeeze through gaps in the rocks that we can hardly fit through with just our little knapsacks. I don't dare imagine what happens to them if the eggs are broken when they arrive. It makes me realise that I ought to give the porters a good tip. As far as I'm concerned they're the real heroes of Kilimanjaro.
We take a long break at 4,250 meters up and then there's a short straight bit before we descend into a valley and then climb up the other side. Hans and I are really enjoying it and are eager to get on. The others, however, are a bit disappointed as they hadn't expected all these ups and downs. From time to time Hans and I chat together. He still can't understand why his father gave up. ‘After all, it was his idea,’ he says reproachfully, ‘his obsession to climb this mountain.
I had to come along, as his son, because he couldn't persuade anyone else. Now here I am dragging myself 6,000 meters up a mountain I never wanted to climb, while he's chilling out on a safari.’ His dry, sarcastic humor makes me laugh. He's been much more chatty with me since he's been on his own.
We reach Karanga camp after four and a half hours, just in time to dash into our tents to escape the first heavy burst of rain. The weather up here keeps changing all the time. One minute it's really hot and the next a fog comes down and we're glad to have a pullover or jacket to put on. Kilimanjaro itself has vanished into the fog and rain for the moment. Our team of porters is huddled in the kitchen tent. Happily I've got a signal on my mobile again and send a text to Napirai and Markus who immediately reply, delighted and relieved to hear from me.
There's a long while before dinner so I start to read a book my mother gave me for the trip. Immediately I'm hooked: it's the story of a woman who travels through China, Nepal and India on a bicycle. She even cycles over mountain passes 5,000 meters up where her bicycle freezes up in the snow and ice. Looking at the pictures I gain confidence that our ambition is a lot easier to achieve. When I crawl out of my tent two hours later I'm pleased to see the sun is out again. All our team are lying relaxing in the evening sunshine. As a result we don't get our evening water to wash in.
I use a few refresher wipes and Petra lets me borrow her moisturizing spray. She's got a whole array of personal hygiene requisites. In comparison I've got black lines under my long fingernails which I can't do much about with the little water we have. With their partly broken fingernails my hands look like I've been using them to scrape out cooking pots, like I used to do in Barsaloi.
As the sun comes out, so Kilimanjaro emerges again from the clouds. Hans and I take the opportunity to get a few good photographs of each other against the impressive peak. Once again I have to ask myself who, if anyone of us, will make it to the top. Suddenly I feel I ought to agree to the change of route. I would hate it if one of our group didn't get to the peak just because of me. If we did that then it would be an absolute ‘must’ for me to get to Peak Uhuru. I tell the others over dinner that I agree with them and everyone is pleased to hear it. Later on I hear that the porters are happiest of all because it means they don't have to carry our luggage so far.
The next morning we rise to bright beautiful sunshine and it seems as if Kilimanjaro has grown closer overnight. It's hard to imagine that we're still 2,000 meters vertically below the peak. There are magnificent pancakes again for breakfast as well as toast and watermelon. I eat loads as I've really got my appetite back now, and apart from anything else we've an exhausting day and night ahead of us making our final attempt at the summit.
We've got to climb some 600 meters to reach Barafu camp. It starts out easily enough. Even the last traces of plant life have vanished by now and we're tramping over lava rocks of different shapes and sizes. Part of the track looks like piles of gray-black clay. It seems as if all traces of life have died out up here in this lunar landscape. Then just now and again I spot a small black spider scurrying away from our advancing footsteps.
Up ahead we can see the porters hurrying up the last steep ascent to our next camp. I have dire forebodings. This final, extremely steep, climb is a real foretaste of the night to come. We have to keep stopping repeatedly, feeling as if we just can't go on. I'm just pleased to have my drinking straw which I suck on regularly to keep thirst at bay at least. After using up vast reserves of energy over three hours of trekking, we drag ourselves up the last of the 600 meters vertical difference into our camp, now at 4,540 meters above sea level. It's the stoniest, windiest and, above all else, dirtiest camp we have encountered. Our porters have put our tents up a bit too low and are now bounding past us to re-erect them in the new spot before we get there. I don't understand how these men can leap from rock to rock at this altitude carrying into the wind the igloo tent they've already built.
We stumble up to collapse and rest next to the tents. The people already in the camp are those who came down from the summit this morning. Sitting on a rock is one couple who look as if they are normally fit and active but today totally drained. I ask them how they got on and if they made it to the top. All they can do is nod and stammer: ‘Hard work!’ Then we come across one elderly man who has only just now, at half past midday, managed to make it back down. One look at him reminds me of an old saying we have back in Switzerland: ‘He's down to his gums!’ Absolutely on his last legs!
The chief attraction in this camp is the toilet — a little hut sitting over a bottomless pit. It looks rather rickety and unstable and doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Huge great mountain jackdaws circle over it never letting it out of their eyes. All this goes to explain why it's so dirty-looking up here. The two dormitories don't exactly fit in to this lunar landscape either. They look like two green tin cans. Even so, I can buy a can of Coca-Cola here and even reserve it for when I come back down from the peak, as if it were champagne.
After doing that, I bump into a woman creeping out of her tent and ask her how she found the experience of getting to the peak. She says she didn't make it and gave up on this ‘bloody mountain’ at 5,100 meters. She just couldn't see the point of torturing herself any further when she found her drinking water, which she had wrapped up well, had frozen solid. It's not exactly an encouraging story.
Hans is realizing once again that he hasn't come properly equipped. He doesn't have a thermos flask and realises now that even the hottest tea freezes in a few minutes. The pensioner who has already been to the top twice has decided to miss out on our night-time ascent this time and so at least Hans can use his insulating sleeve for his water bottle. The old man also lends him his altitude meter so we can know how far up we've come.