Karanga

Today began with a long descent into a ravine fallowed by a vertical climb up the Baranco wall for 1.5 hours. So your hands and feet are looking for crevices and ledges to get you up the wall. There's a rock called the kissing rock, below Karen is hamming it up.

I was actually feeling much better today, more energy and I liked the challenge of the wall – something to really focus on.

Here we are once we reached the top of the wall.

The guides called me Mama Simba because I'm strong. I'm no stronger than anyone else on the hike but I think they bigged me up because I'm older than everyone else, so strong for my age. This is me and Charles, whom we called King Charles.

Today was a five-hour day. After the wall we again went down into a steep ravine then began zig zagging up a ridge to reach Karanga Camp. Toward the top of the ridge I started flagging but I made it to the camp without nausea.

Just as I'm amazed by the porters' jolliness, despite their long days, my fellow hikers were always in good spirits, cracking jokes and laughing, despite the sometimes difficult terrain and the end-of-day tiredness. They really helped buoy me along.

The website description of today:

"We begin the day by descending into a ravine to the base of the Great Barranco Wall. Then we climb the non-technical but steep, nearly 900 ft cliff. From the top of the Barranco Wall we cross a series of hills and valleys until we descend sharply into Karanga Valley. One more steep climb up leads us to Karanga Camp. This is a shorter day meant for acclimatization."

3 Dec.