Day 3 5:30 am writing from Mandara Hut

Yesterday we started our climb after a wonderful night sleep hot shower and meal the last for 6 days.  We met our guide at the African Tulip hotel for our climb briefing.  His name was Amos he was 27 years old and first glace I was skeptical I have used Roy's Safaris on other trips to and they have always been first rate.  I overheard him talking to our agent in Swahili heard Papa which was me and saw them both look at my stomach.  I think I know what they were talking about.  He then dumped our packs in the floor of the bar and inventoried our equipment not satisfied we had to rent additional.  I questioned his education, experience, medical supplies, evacuation plans all of which he answered to our satisfaction.  He went on the talk about his testing of blood ox levels and he carried oxygen.  The facts I am old, we were inexperienced, and he was doing his job.  We drove to the gated picking up 7 porters, a cook, and his assistant guide named Stone.

The trek started through a rain forest to a elevation of 9000 ft where we would spend the night in the Mandara Huts.  We arrived tired wet and already feeling the temp change and altitude.  We were in the clouds poor visibility.  It was like walking through a green tunnel huge moss bearing trees full of monkeys barking at us.  Footing was slippery we passed people descending to the gates.  They looked like Zombies we could tell by the look in their eyes and the filth they have been to the top.  They gave us advice, half got sick, they told us to keep eating and drink lots of water early because you cant when you get above 12000 ft.  Just a few minutes earlier Luke laid on his pack crushing his water bladder and lunch in his pack he starts on a diet.

The hut is a what most hikers use it is a aframe with four bunks 3 on the 4 inch foam mats on the floor in a ushape and one upper it is about 12X12 no heat and no bathroom there is a thin wall in the middle the same on the other side.  There is a mess hall in the middle and toilets, there are about 40 other hikers in this camp none American and very little English spoken, we were tired from the trip and turned in early.

The boys were making fun of my whiskers coming in gray Gabe said I would look like Gandolf (which i wasn't sure if he was the guy from Harry Potter or lord of the rings) Luke was looking a lot like Joe dirt and Gabe with a 4 week head start was looking like a Ewoc from star wars.  We are having a blast Luke having issues and i will let gabe tell of the disgusting details but if we don't reach the summit we will have turned back because Luke used half our toilet paper an wet wipes first day.

Luke,

Gabe,

Finally able to get on the mountain and start climbing.  Dad pretty much covered the climb up and all the details to do with it.  We checked into our small hut and they gave me the sleeping bag with all the brown stains on it so that was a good start.  They also didn’t have regular “sit down” toilets, they just had a big oval hole in the ground.  I’m not gonna go into too much detail but ill just say luke couldn’t figure out how to successfully execute the action. And I will also say after his attempt we were left with a fraction of the toilet paper and no wet wipes for the trip. Other than that incident all was pretty good.  I could feel it getting harder to breathe.