Sunday 26th Feb - Day 1

So - today was the day. We had breakfast at 7.30am and went back up to our room for more general faffing. We were coming back to this hotel after the trek so left behind a clean set of clothes and some toiletries that we definitely wouldn't be needing on the hill. Our bus was due to depart at 9am and we are all there on time, packed and ready to go.

The journey would take approx 2.5 hours and I always really enjoy watching the world go by on trips like this. As it was Sunday, there was a lot of activity with the locals being dressed in their smart clothes ready for church. The children were all dressed smartly too and carried their bibles. Many of them were walking for quite some distance. There weren't many working cars around - most were simply parked in the shade surrounded by groups of men making repairs. However, what was really popular were motorbikes. At the main junction in Marangu there were large groups of lads hanging around with some very smart looking bikes. We often saw 2 or even 3 people riding on these bikes.

The journey seemed to be over quite quickly and we arrived at the National Park gate at Nale Moru which is at a height of 1950m. Our bags were off loaded whilst we sorted out our personal items and visited the very nice purpose built "tourist toilet". We also had to go through the process of "signing in" to the national park.

We were then introduced to all of our mountain guides (they insist on a ratio of 1 guide to 2 people), our porters, our cook - and a whole host of others who would be supporting us along the way. There were 14 trekkers in our group in total - and combined with the support team - there was going to be 44 of us in total in our gang.

And that was it - we were off! The first day was a relatively gentle 4 hours walking through some farmland and the rain forest. It was a gradual and gentle climb and the guides set a very Pole Pole pace, which was a bit strange to start with, but definitely made the day very enjoyable.We had a stop for lunch in the rainforest after a couple of hours. We'd been given a packed lunch when we left the hotel - urmmm - how to describe it...well it was food and I was able to eat at least half of it. A crisp sandwich and a very small but very sweet banana, along with a few other snacks made a fairly decent lunch. We then continued walking - and then the rain started. It certainly knows how to rain over there and I was a little apprehensive to hear that the monsoon season was arriving a bit early this year. Over the years, I've turned into a bit of a fair weather trekker - too many bad experiences from snow holes to emergency bivvy's - and I'm getting old and cranky!

Porters

Porters carrying our kit

Lunch!

We were pretty damp by the time we got to camp but, when we got there, our tents were up with our luxurious sleeping mats already laid out in them. When I've done these trips before there's normally a bit of  a scrap for the best tent, but when we got to camp we were greeted by our tent porter for the trip who very kindly took our poles, opened our tent and had even put our bags inside on our beds ready for us. Just awesome (and nothing to do with trying to secure a decent tip at the end of the trip :-)!!!)

The other thing that happened on arrival at camp is that we were given a bowl of "washy washy" water. Basically, each of us was given a plastic bowl with warm water for a wash. So nice to get the sweat of the day off and to put some fresh, dry clothes on. Then it was time for tea and popcorn in the mess tent. This is all part of their strategy to get you taking on board lots of fluids. An hour or so later it was dinner. This always started with soup (more fluids!) which was always very tasty. I honestly can't remember what the main meal was (and didn't keep a written diary on the trip - so this is all from memory!) but it was normally something simple but edible; potatoes, veggies, pasta etc. However, this was a special evening. It was Johnny's 25th birthday. I had sat next to Johnny on the flight from LHR to Addis. He was an electrician from Wales and a fantastic personality. He constantly cracked me up - he had booked the trip hungover one Sunday morning. He had travelled quite a bit before, and whilst he was very fit - he'd never done anything like this in his life before - he did an amazing job of just taking the whole experience in his stride. I confess to telling the chief guide about his birthday as it's very common on these trips that the cook will make a cake. We weren't to be disappointed when a fabulous chocolate cake was brought out - iced with his name AND candles too! 

So - we were now at 2600m and had the first day under our belt. It was time for bed - and more general faffing but in a confined space!