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Published: August 24th 2010
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I am sitting in the dining hall of the Miriakamba Camp looking down on the clouds, 2500 meters up the mountain. I made it through day 1 and I don't feel so bad! We rented the gear we needed, met with our guide and loaded up on a bus for the 2 hour ride to Meru. There were 4 others on the bus with us from Germany. They are doing it in 3 days, then Kili. By the time we got to Arusha National Park it was almost lunchtime, we drove for about an hour to the starting point and had lunch. Then we were on our way! We have a crew of 8 people just to get us up this mountain which was a bit intimidating: 2 porters for each of us (4 total) to carry our luggage; a guide and assistant guide; a cook; and a waiter. Wowsers. Makes sense why it is so expensive. All of them except the guide go ahead of us to get set up. Before we left our guide told us he had some paperwork to do so to go with the other group and that he'd catch up with us. He never did.
This was the only sucky part of today because we were supposed to have our own guide and therefore be able to go as slow as we (I) wanted. With the other group I couldn't take breaks when I wanted. They didn't seem to mind and let me lag behind but every now and then they'd stop and let me catch up. I didn't want to feel like people had to wait on me. Vincent took my waters which helped a lot but it was still slow going. It started to get a little steeper and everyone else was getting farther ahead of me and I was really struggling, so the park ranger took my bag. It helped a lot. After 3 hours we took a more extended break and he told us it was only like 15 more minutes. I was shocked because in the pamphlet it said that it would be more like 6-7. So we made it in about 3.5 hours: 10 km and 1000 meters!
Both Vincent and I were pretty annoyed with the guide. We signed up and paid for a guide by ourselves. When he finally showed up at camp we made sure this
wouldn't happen again. Our waiter brought us tea and popcorn and we just hung out and enjoyed the view which was amazing. The scenery (not that I got much time to enjoy it) was breathtaking as well. Creeks and rainforest. It was like being in Ferngully! It really was beautiful.
Vincent and I had another really nice dinner. We talked a lot about Evet and what we took from it and what we thought about the people and stuff. They served us cucumber soup (delish! and nice in the cold and wet) and then beef, taters, cabbage and veggies. Not bad! I forgot to mention the weather. Its this crazy cold, wetness. It wouldn't be so cold if it weren't so wet. Everything is damp and you can't get away from it. I may look ridiculous in my gear but I'm relatively dry (ish). Not much to do and I didn't bring a book, so I'm gonna try to sleep early (its 730 lol). Tomorrow: 8km and 1000 meters...
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