Diaries of my Kilimanjaro Hike- Day 3

Day 3 was no fun! This was the acclimatization day, where we were hiking to the Lava Tower at 4, 590m to then sleep at Barranco camp at 3,900m. The purpose of this day was to acclimatize to the altitude, considering that you can begin to feel altitude sickness at 4,000m. What began as a good hike quickly shifted to a very demanding one. That morning, we woke up as any other morning. It was a beautiful morning and the scenery was awesome! After less than an hour of hiking, our friend Con joined us without his friend Ravi. We were soon informed that Ravi was sick all night and couldn’t hike in the morning. His Kilimanjaro experience unfortunately ended in the morning of Day 3.  We were saddened by the news, given that it was the first of the group who had to return to the hotel. From that day on, Con joined our group (Marcel and I).

The hike was going along well. We were hiking as a group, with both our guide Abdi and assistant guide Guideon. We were playing the country game, where we each had to name a country with the last letter of the previous country. Everything was going according to plan until I began to feel nauseous. I suddenly felt weird in my stomach and had a slight headache. By the time we stopped for lunch, I was feeling weak but didn’t have an appetite to eat. So I tried to eat as much as I could have but without much success. After lunch, given that I was weak and not feeling well, I walked at a much slower pace than my group so my guide Abdi stayed behind with me. As we were reaching closer to the Lava Tower, I was losing more and more energy so this is when Abdi took my day pack so i could have more energy to walk. We finally made it up to the Lava Tower. By then, I was feeling nauseous, I had a splitting headache and practically no energy left. But I had to hang on because we still had a 2 hour descent back to Barranco camp and there was no way I was going to give up on Day 3. Feeling like crap, I finally made it to Barranco camp in the late afternoon, the last one to arrive out of my friends. They immediately asked me how I was feeling at my arrival, given that I looked pale and sick. I went straight to my tent, where I struggled to get my sleeping bag and mattress out of the duffel bag so I decided to fall asleep on my bag. I took one tylenol at first but given that I didn’t feel any better after an hour, I popped some more drugs. I had a really bad headache and relatively high fever, my head felt like it was about to explode.

I took a nap until dinner. It took all the energy to wake up and eat dinner. I had to force myself however because I needed energy for the rest of the hike. I wasn’t very talkative at dinner and went straight to bed after trying to eat as much as I could. I was however very appreciative of the support I received from the guys. None of them really understood what I was feeling at the time, but by the time they experienced Summit Night, they had a better idea!

The nights were getting colder and colder and none of us were getting much sleep. I’d spend most of my night tossing and turning, waking up to go to the bathroom but by the time I woke up the next morning, I was feeling better. Although I wasn’t feeling 100%.

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