Hiking Mt Kilimanjaro Day 5 - "Pole Pole"

The headaches are settling in even more now. The decision to not take Diamox (Altitude Sickness medicine) is looking like a bad decision. One of our friends who wasn't taking Diamox was taking something she got from Peru and offered some to me, and I agreed. I'm not sure if it helped or if it was a psychology of it, but it got me going! Our vitals were all looking quite sluggish now and fairly in the low numbers, but still within the norm for people at this altitude (or so our guides told us). Last night during dinner we discussed an option of actually going to the Summit a day early since the plan would be to hike to where we ended up yesterday (Lava Tower) and camp there for the night, then make our way to the camp before the summit (Arrow Glacier Camp). We decided as a group to summit a day earlier and skip camping at Lava Tower and go directly to Arrow Glacier Camp to prepare for the summit! Whoa we just pulled in a full day of doing acclimatization and planning to summit a day early now...this new plan doesn't really sink in until later.

The first few hours of the hike was the same scenery which we saw the day before since we were on the same trail. The clouds were still with us before Lava Tower, but when we got to Lava Tower the Cloud Lords finally gave me a chance to take pictures with Lava Tower against a beautiful blue sky.

There is a common phrase in Swahili while hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, "Pole Pole", prounced Po-Lay Po-Lay. This was repeated over and over throughout the days, but it really didn't start hitting me until this day. It's a saying that means "Slowly Slowly". One step at a time, one foot in front of the other and just keep moving. After Lava Tower we started making a steep descent towards Arrow Glacier. This was by far the rockiest and cliff side hiking path we have been on this hike so far. It was getting tougher due to the altitude where each step felt like a lot of work, but just had to keep "Pole Pole" make our way to our goal. This resonated to me not only on the hike, but with all things in life, we can't just wake up one day and hope we are successful. It's a grind, it takes work, and we will just have to Pole Pole to our goals that we want to get to. This picture is as we passed Lava Tower on the way up. I couldn't take many more pics as balance was pretty crucial and I didn't want to drop my camera!

We finally made it to our final camp before the summit! We were struck with disaster as we got to the camp. One of our porters on his way up the wall actually slipped and caught himself by putting all his weight on his wrist. He didn't want to say anything, and as we got to the camp he ACTUALLY CARRIED MY THINGS. I had no idea, but I felt terrible afterwards! Luckily our Australian friend was in med school and diagnosed him afterwards and determined he had a fractured wrist and needed to head back down. Crazy thinking this could happen to any of us at any point it kind of put a gloom over our group. We had one more hike to acclimatize and then rest up, wake up at 3AM to start hiking up the Western Breach. We couldn't see the immense wall that was before us due to the cloud coverage and that provided a sense of, "This can't be too bad right? It just sucks we have to get up early" feeling. We were in for a treat and should have seen the signs (no pun intended) beforehand. Our final practice hike was up to 16,539ft. Now it was onto the real thing!

Not so quick though...one more cool group shot please? Everyone, POSE!