Day 1 Our adventure begins

I was up early as usual and did the final packing of my bags in anticipation of our adventure ahead.  around 8:30 August arrived with his crew and introduced us to the two assistant guides who would be with us for the trek.  Ignus is a 22 year old who has been an assistant guide for 8 months. While his age is young, he became a porter at 18 and quickly advanced due to his knowledge, personality, and skills.  It was interesting to learn of the number of tests and evaluations one needs to pass before receiving a guide license.  our other assistant guide is Kenneth who is 26 and has been in the business since he was 18 also. 

After meeting some of our porters and loading up the vehicles, we left the exec lodge around 9 and arrived at Machame gate at 10.  There were several other groups in the staging areas with us and after about an hour of registration and briefings we were ready to start our hike for the day.

 It wasn't long before we encountered the first of many and progressively steep climbs. Unlike what we experience in the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyons with switchbacks, these were basically straight up climbs.  We saw a number of waterfalls and encounter some blue monkeys along the trail.  We encountered a number of other trekkers from the states, Netherlands, and other parts of Europe along the way.  We were in the rainforest for 90% of the day until we finally came to the Machame hut for our evening stay.

 

 

We had hiked for around 7 hrs and our camp was at 9,350 ft..  Our tents were set up when we arrived and we went about getting our sleeping bags out and preparing for the evening dinner was at 7:00.  We had banana soup which was very tasty and a traditional Chaga meal which consists of banana, potato, beef, and mixed vegetables.  After a long day of hiking it tasted pretty good. 

We left the mess tent and we were impressed with the amount of stars that were visible...we don't see that many back home due to all the light pollution.  Everyone was tired and we hit the tents around 9 as wake up was 6:30.

It took me a while to figure out how much clothing I needed to wear inside my sleeping bag to feel comfortable; going from too hot to too cold and then just right.  This was my first time camping since I was a teen and getting use to a mummy style sleeping bag took some getting use to.  I think I probably got about 4 hrs. of sleep.