Day 2: Mandara to Horombo Huts

On Sunday morning we got up, had breakfast and packed our day packs for our first, full day of hiking between Mandara Huts and Horombo Huts. Our planned hiking time was about 5 hours and our elevation gain was 1020m. The vegetation went from rain forest to moorland; therefore, we were still wearing short sleeves but carrying extra layers for both rain and cold in our day packs.

Just like on Saturday morning the different crews were a flurry of activity as preparations for the day were made

Risa, Dave and I getting ready to set-off from Mandara

Doug, Matt, Garrett and Nick showing us the way to Horombo

View along the trail. Notice the porter passing our group even with gear on his head

Another view from the trail; we were finally out of the rainforest and into the moorlands

Check out the Dr. Seuss cacti

We stopped at a scenic viewpoint overlooking the Maundi Crater and I took the opportunity to pose with our Chief Guide, Kamili. Kamili was over 50 years old and has been climbing the mountain for 30 years. He didn’t drink any water along the way and wore the same number of layers every single day (except for the night of the summit). He was one tough old dude.

Crater

After lunch the weather started to change and we got some rain and then colder temperatures

Along the way to Horombo we had our first views of Mawenzi Peak which is one of the neighbors to ‘Kibo’ (which is the name for the tallest peak of Kilimanjaro)

By late afternoon we caught our first glimpse of Horombo Camp

Two thumbs up

Each day when we arrived in camp we’d wash-up, have tea and an afternoon snack, and then hang out for the short while before dinner

Our porters would meet us at our hut and drop off our gear since they’d arrived hours ahead of us. Here’s my porter, Anized, and Doug’s porter, Judas outside of our hut

And with every hut picture, there must be an accompanying toilet picture. Here’s Risa modeling how low the toilets were at Horombo. They had a seat this time, there just wasn’t a base to the toilet; therefore, your knees were up around your chin

Doug, Dave and Risa at dinner. Doug is holding his ‘pulsox’ which took your resting pulse and oxygen saturation. It was a fun toy that everyone wanted to play with each evening until Doug wouldn’t bring it out anymore since people were getting nervous based on their readings the higher we went in elevation

And last, but not least, here’s a sample meal. This is lasagna with stewed vegetable sauce and cabbage. Honestly, SO yummy. But, probably only when you’ve burned 2000 calories hiking.

We played a couple of hands of Euchre and then it was another early night!