Chara: "That was a pretty nice hike."

Chara: "That was a pretty nice hike." Trekking with Zdeno – Day 4 Three hours of sleep on night 3 and a relatively flat day ahead: Things were looking up. It was time to cross the “saddle”, the seven-mile plateau-like ridge between Mawenzi and our ultimate destination, Kibo, the volcano that sat within the snow-capped summit of Kilimanjaro. Ten minutes into the day-four hike we had wound out of the Mawenzi bowl, crossed a small ridge, and just like that, it was as if the previous night’s camp didn’t exist. It was gone; the isolated landscape had disappeared from sight. We looked back at Mawenzi with a fond appreciation, and then looked ahead at Kibo with anticipation. As discussed at the previous night’s dinner in the mess tent, that night-three camp was our last “normal” campsite. We had enjoyed the routine each day of... [read full story]