We had a good night rest at La Jacaranda hotel in Arusha. It was drizzling
in the morning, but the weather is not that cold. But
all the rain cleared
out by the time we started climbing. The tour company came and
picked us up from the hotel at 9.00am US time (Africa time 9.00am means
10.00am). The tour company also brought us some last miniute rentals.
We were met by two other groups who will be doing the climb with us.
It was such a coincidence that every one is from the Bay Area and
most of the people live in San Francisco. So there were totally 9
climbers (Me, Bruce, Jesse, Girish, Ben, Esther, Amanda, Greg and John).
I guess John and Esther have done some high altitude climb before, for
the rest of us it was the first time. The drive from Arusha to Machame
gate took us about 1.30 hours. We reached Machame gate at around 12.00am.
As we prepared for our climb in the shelter they had at the gate, our
tour company was doing the registration for the climb. I don't know
why it takes such a long time to do the registration, it took more than
an hour. Finally we were all set and started our climb sometime around 1.00pm.
We were given our packed lunch for the day at the gate itself and
since most of us were hungry we had our lunch at the shelter
in Machame gate. Most of today’s hike was in the rainforest.
And almost the entire day hike the path was pretty well maintained I
don’t think we needed the gaiters at all. The sceneries
through the rainforest were interesting. We were going at a slow
pace, and almost most of the porters were going really fast
overtaking us. We were all feeling really fresh and I don't think we felt
the altitude at all today. I was excited and a little bit scared about
the altitude. We were taking some breaks in between and enjoyed the
rainforest. After almost 4 hours of hiking I asked Dismas (our guide)
how far the campsite is, he told me it only 45mins away. After about
45mins someone else asked him the same question and he gave the
same answer. Well… he was doing a good job of being a guide I
guess. All through out our climb we had to translate the guides timing to
our timing. If the guide says one hour we should just double it.
The first day camp was at Machame Hut, which was at around 3000mt.
When we reached the campsite we saw all our tents were ready and
there was dinner table and chairs every thing set up for us. The hot
soup they served us was pretty good after the long hike. As soon as
the sun went down we went to bed. I woke up in the night and I had to
go to the toilet, I was felling really fresh so I thought it must be
pretty close to morning and I thought I will wait till the sun comes out
since it was cold outside. Unfortunately when I checked the time it
was only midnight (well if you hit the bed at 7.00pm that explains why
I was so fresh by midnight). It took me a lot of effort to just get out of the
tent. But to my surprise it was a clear night and it was very pleasant
outside and I got my first look at the top of the mountain. It was an
awesome view.