Day 1

We woke up at 6:30 to have lots of time before our 8:30 departure. However we found out early on that things move very 'pole pole' around here, which is Swahili for slowly, slowly- words used very often over the next 8 days. We didn't actually leave the hotel until close to 10. Then we stopped for gas, stopped to put air in the tires, stopped to put a new belt in the engine, and stopped at a convenience store, and then we were finally on our way...at this point I just wanted to get started! We got to the Lemosho route entrance around 1:30, had our first boxed lunch (something we would dread by the end of the week). There were a lot of people there from other hikers, to guides and porters, we had 17 alone in our group. 

We started out so clean

We finally started our hike around 2pm, our assistant guide Basil led us as Shabaz finished organizing things with the porters. We read that the first day would be a pretty easy 2 hour hike, and it was nice hiking through the rain forest, even saw a monkey in the tree. However after 2 hours, Shabaz met up with us and told us that we were now at the beginning of the trail. 

So what we thought would be an easy, short day, actually ended up being 4 hours...and a lot harder then expected, considering we were already at 7742 ft altitude. One of the first questions our guides asked us was what altitude we lived at, that way they would know what we were used to, and that it would take us some time to adapt at this level. Which was obvious by the way the porters just hiked right past us, carrying loads up to 30lbs on their heads and backs. 
We finally made it to our first camp around 6pm, and our tents were already set up, along with our private toilet! We had a good wet wipe bath, and it's crazy how dirty we were just after one day...not good, considering we still had seven days to go. After we 'cleaned up' we went to our mess tent for some popcorn and hot drinks. A little while later we were served potato soup, bread, fish and mango's for supper. After supper Basil and Shabaz came in for our briefing of the next day. They said we would be woken up at 6:30 as it would be a 4-5 hour hike, and much steeper, so we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to focus on one day at a time. It was a fairly chilly night so we were in bed by 9pm. 

Lots of tents!

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