DAY 4
Horombo Hut (3780m) to Kibo Hut (4700 m)

* Hike time: 6-8 hrs
* Elevation change: +920m
* Final elevation: 4700m

Last night was very cold again. We put more warm clothes and caps on and slipped into our sleeping bags, but it was still cold. Besides, soon after midnight I had to go out to pee and this was a real challenge to enter into black and freezing night. The water on the floor in toilets has frozen into a thin ice layer. It is very important to pee at night not to let water cumulate in the body. But even that we do, our faces, palms and legs are swollen. I haven't seen my reflection for three days now, there aren't any mirrors in the bathrooms or anywhere. I have no idea what I'm looking like, but I can imagine. I can still see my friends.

In the morning, when our porters brought us hot tea and water to wash faces and teeth, the sun shined down on the Horombo camp. It peeked out from behind the hill at me and it was a magical moment with white clouds down in the valley. Mt. Mowenzi at northeast was clearly seen. Also, the snowed Kibo, Kilimanjaro's highest summit, was in view in the distance. This is our aim to get to today.

After early breakfast (healthy as always) our cook said, he had never met a group that would eat so much porridge :) Soon we had to leave for a long hike to Kibo Hut at 4703m.a.s.l., porters and cooks went ahead with our main luggage packed early in the morning, we were carrying our day backsaks. The beginning of the trail is steep and rocky and soon one can feel the hight differences and breathing is getting more difficult. We continued up the marshy moorland, with shrubs that only grew higher than our ankles.

At last we got to 14,400 ft. (4400 m.)asl, the signposted "Last Water Point". It's where you can get fresh mountain water from a stream for the last time. The porters collected enough water into plastic containers for our stay (and meals) at the last base camp. We had lunch in this place as well, sitting at the wooden picnic tables adjacent to the streem. As usual - a hard-boiled egg, a small banana, two sandwiches, fried chicken leg, an apple, a muffin and a choco bar - the best Kili trekker's kit.

Almost immediately after the last waterpoint, the environment changed to semi-desert. The trail undulates up and down among red middle hills, the bulk of the hike is on almost flat land. But the altitude makes you feel exhausted and I began to feel a mild headache for the first time during the expedition. I kept a slow and steady pace and was concentrating on my breathing, which sometimes sounded like heaving snoring. I would point to myself some place in the distance - a bigger lava rock mainly - walked to it and then took a short rest. Those were my milestones. Suddenly I noticed a group of porters carrying down the rescue car, with a man on it, wrapped in the sleeping bag. I only hoped that they could bring him down fast enough to get him out of the mountain sickness. The highest African mountain is not without dangers, every year several people die in attempts of reaching its highest summit. Approximately 1000 emergency evacuations and at least 10 climbers' deaths result every year from AMS. Reports say also about mountain deaths of local porters. No matter how many people climb the mountain each year (over 30,000), it is still a very big mountain and attempting to reach the summit of it is not something that should be undertaken lightly.

It got colder and windier as we continued to walk the path, that leads uphill onto the "Saddle", about an hour beyond the last water point. It is the barren plain of alpine desert between the two main peaks of Kilimanjaro: Mawenzi and Kibo. When walking through the Saddle you get to see the Middle Red Hill, West Lava Hill and East Lava Hill, called the Triplets, some of Kibo's many small cones. We kept walking across this desolate place over the brown-red-orange lava gravel, with numerous small bouldera and lava bombs on both sides of the pathway. I felt like I strolled on the moon. There are two toilet huts at the Saddle and a group of rocks, where we could take a short rest.
The alpine desert zone stretches from 4000-5000 m. The only living things you can see along the trail are some hardy grasses and occasionally those straw-like everlasting flowers. Only the hardiest can survive in those severe conditions and they are slow-growing. Any you see are very old then, so you shouldn't damage them. The long-lived lichens grow directly on the lava rocks without soil.

Beyond the Saddle the broad path turns sharply westwards toward the Kibo Huts, which appear close, but it will take more than an hour from here to reach them. And it's a tough walk too - the path gets steeper and steeper as we get closer to Kibo Huts. The landscape is wild and bleak, cold wind blows hard, the altitude makes it very hard and the lack of oxygen turns the hike into a major effort. I keep getting slower and slower, and the headache is back again. All the time I am looking at Kibo ahead, having a good view of the steep climbing pathway to Gilmans Point, the main challenge for tonight. The last group of big outcrops ahead, Jiwe Lainkoyo, which translates as "painted rock" and used to be a former campsite and popular base of local hunters. A few picnic tables among the rocks, so I take a sit and try to eat my last sandwich. Suddenly I can hear the harsh croak of the white-necked ravens, a couple lands at my feet and scavenges for some food. I throw them leftovers of the fried chicken leg.

At last, after six hours of hike, I reached Kibo Huts situated at the foothills of the Kilimanjaro peak, at an elevation of 4703m. The building is very basic, built of stone and very cold, without any heating. Actually it was colder inside than outside. First we had tea, then prepared all our stuff for the summit attempt later tonight. Then we went to take a nap for ca 2 hours. There are 10 bunks on two levels in every room. Me ant three other girls, we shared the dorm room with some guys from Austria and Sweden, who were behaving too loud, talking, singing, and I could not sleep at all. Soon, at 6PM, we had to get up for dinner - warm soup, bread and pasta (they told us it's easier to puke pasta than rice or potatoes when you get nausea during night climbing). Even that we don't have appetite, we force ourselves to eat something to keep energy up. After dinner everyone is going to sleep again for about 3-4 hours. It's so very cold in the hut, we put all our warm clothes on, the ones we'll wear at night, to make it warm together with our bodies already. We also had to put our water inside our sleeping bags so it doesn't freeze and so we did with our cameras, headlamps and batteries. I tried to sleep, but my thoughts and semi dreams, together the cold, the altitude, and the anticipation of going to the summit as well as all people coughing and snoring, would not let me sleep for long.