Unrelenting indeed...

Day 2: 3600m

Day two began with the darling Martin poking his smiling face into each of our tents, offering the most cheerful 'good morning' I had ever heard and then supplying each of us with hot tea. Like I said, this was certainly my style of camping! Following this we all began what would become our daily ritual of negotiating space in our tiny tents while trying to change clothes, roll up our bed rolls and sleeping bags, pack our day packs and repack our backpacks. All this would need to be done within about a half an hour period. This particular morning was of course consumed with conversation regarding our near death experience with a buffalo (humour us please). We all then piled into one of two large meeting room sized tents for a hearty breakfast before setting out for what Seamus had warned would be an únrelenting climb'! Besides the slight chill in the morning all seemed to be somewhat normal really. We were still at a relatively low altitude although that would soon change.

For the majority of the day we experienced what was essentially a consistently uphill climb although the steepness was not quite as daunting as Seamus had warned. We meandered our way through low level bush stopping to ensure participants were consuming enough water and allowing for the inevitable 'bush toilet' break. It was around the half way mark of this day's tramp that I began to feel the first signs of my body's reaction to a higher altitude. I began to notice a twinge of tightening across my chest. My breathing became slightly more laboured and after awhile I noticed that the únrelenting' part of únrelenting uphill' was starting to take its toll on us. We quite our spirits high with scattered conversations taking place regarding World Vision, families, bowel movements and the odd kind hearted ribbing (you know, just your usual conversation topics)

We are arrived in to our next camp site once again amazed at the efficiency of our porters and guides. How on Earth they had the time and energy to construct a campsite and cook as dinner after carrying the loads they had was beyond me. We all snuck into our respective tents for a chance to engage in a wet wipe bath, change of clothes and foot inspection. Oh and I was still basking in the success of my 'shampoo in a can' at this stage so I happily wore my hair out of a cap when possible.

Along with several team mates I had gotten away with wearing sneakers for the second day running. For me this was a God sent as I am quite prone to painful ankle blisters. There is nothing like a blister which can effectively ruin a tramping excursion. Unfortunately what I did find when changing in my tent was a strange rash from my calf up to just beyond my knee (the wonderul challenge nurse, Tanya Bish, thought it may be due to the interactions between my many 'mountain' medications) and some significant sunburn across my neck and arms. It seems that the African sun is incredibly powerful!

By dinner it seemed that many of my fellow participants had headaches - a common side effect of being at high altitude. I hoped that I could somewhow avoid such effects but assumed that it was simply a matter of time before headaches or nausea came knocking. After dinner we all slipped off to bed at the respectable hour of 7pm! A days worth of uphill climb combined with higher altitude meant for a tired bunch of trekkers. Debs and I both had a horrible nights sleep. Our tent had been erected on rocks and our sunburns provided regular wake-up moments throughout the night. This was quite the day!

Superficial note/s: cankles have disappeared, two days and counting since a bowel movement.