Tanzania: Hairy Trees And Lord of the Rings

So we're onto day 3 on the mountain.  This was the day we made a detour from the original itinerary.  The plan had been to spend night 3 at Shira 2 Camp, but Caspar and team seemed to feel that we were doing well enough with the changes in altitude and hiking in general to have us go up to the Moir Camp.  Also, it would make for a shorter day the following day.  Shira 2 Camp is at 12,600 feet, but the Moir Camp is around 1,000 feet higher.

Kilimanjaro...or at least some of it.

We passed through some very unique territory on the way to Moir Camp and through more rain.  We set out from Shira 1 on fairly flat terrain.  And in case your were curious about what other sort of crazy things you could do in the lower reaches of Kilimanjaro, there is a cycling trail.  So feel free to grab your bike and come ride at 11,000 feet!  The land for the first 4 miles or so was flatish with small brush and littered with random rocks of varying sizes.  Then as we started to go up the trees changed and became rather hairy.

Cycling trail to the right if you really want to attempt that.

The last 2 miles of trail consisted of a lot more up than the first part of it.  There were places where we were climbing over some decently sized rocks.  We had made it up and took a snack break when it decided it was time to rain...again.  On went the rain coats and rain covers.  I found that my sun hat was a wonderful rain hat too.  The brim of it was wide enough to keep the rain off my glasses, which was very convenient.  I never had to attempt to dry them off once.

On the last stretch and the rain was starting to come down more heavily, we passed by some neat rock formations.  Our guides told us that the buffalo would sometimes come up here to lick the salt off the rocks.  It was hard to imagine buffalo getting up there, but I'll trust that they're correct on that.  They know better than I.

Journeying to Mordor...I mean, Moir Camp

After getting to camp there was lunch and more nap time instead of acclimatization hikes (thanks rain) and eventually we wandered to the mess tent to chat.  The meals kind of blend together now, but there was always a lot of food.  We usually had a good, salty soup once a day (always fantastic).  There was always some form of potato...always.  They were best in fry form.  Then there was rice or pasta with some sort of sauce made of veggies, usually.  And usually some type of meat as well.  And of course, there were always attempts to feed people 2nds or 3rds or 4ths.  This was probably around the camp where some people started to notice that their appetite was starting to wane; a side effect of the altitude.  Not me.  Feed me more.  I don't know if it was just our group, or if this is common, but the women in our group mostly kept their appetite the entire trip.  It was our male companions that had troubles eating.