August 20 – Gasp! Our first glimpse of Kili

It’s August 20 and I’m reporting from the Shira I camp, our Camp II. We had a really nice walk today. We came up out of the rainforest and up on to the ridge, looking forward to what we were hoping would be our first good view of Kilimanjaro. But it was all shrouded in clouds.

We continued on our way. As usual, we had a wonderful lunch. Everybody’s wondering if they are going to actually gain weight on this trip because of all that they are eating!

We got into camp and we had our welcomed hot cup of tea waiting for us. As we were settling into camp, one of the gals came out of her tent and we all heard a great gasp. Everybody came rushing, wondering if she had hurt herself. Sure enough, there was Kilimanjaro shining in its full glory. It was quite nice to see the mountain, our first look at it on Day 2. Everyone’s getting very excited.

We could also see the Lava Dome from here, which was neat to see and helped us get a perspective on how much distance we still have to go before we actually get to the base of the Great Western Breach.