Birds of the Kikelewa Caves

I was glad to wake up this morning and see that the mountain was still there.


To help our acclimation we would be heading up towards Mawensi Peak, one of the three volcanic cones of Kilimanjaro.


We said good bye to our first camp and started hiking as our porters packed up the tent and what was left over from breakfast. About two hours in to our hike they would blow past us and have lunch ready for us when we got to Second Cave. Today was going to be a long day, around 7 hours of hiking, coming to rest at 11,320 feet.


I don’t know how our porters do it but I can’t believe they have much of a neck left after a few years.


Yes, we are making progress. Because of global warming they are predicting that the snow cap peaks and glaciers on top will be gone in the next 10 years, so I changed all the light bulbs in my house to CFL, so that others can share this experience, so that others can see it the way I did, so that my footprints would be light and easily erased.


By the end of tomorrow we should be at Mawensi. While our guide gave us background information and pointed out interesting things along the way, much of the day is spent alone with your thoughts, and the mind wanders in seemingly endless directions, much like the path we are on.


Unfortunately pictures cannot possibility capture the views. It’s a vast open area below and its amazing how much you can see, so many places to explore, so many places to get lost. As impressed as I was at this moment it was nothing compared to things to come.


The mountain is so big that it creates its own weather. The weather can change by the minute, sometimes you can see it, then you blink and it is gone.


Romlie is showing us First Cave.


I can only hope that my backbone does not end up like this as a result of this little hike.


Another amazing vista who’s beauty eludes the lenses of the camera.


We got to Second Cave early enough to set up lunch right in front of the cave, the perfect spot. As others came by they all wondered who hooked us up with the great location. We chatted with quite a few people, running through the standard set of questions, “Where are you from?”, “How many days are you taking?”, etc. Upon hearing that Ben was from Wisconsin one lady said “I hear you recently changed the name of your tourist division” and told us a story that sounded like it was right out of the Onion. However it does in fact appear that Wisconsin called their tourist division “Wisconsin Tourism Federation” until someone got a memo with the initials WTF. Good old Wisconsin. After lunch we pressed on.

I wish I could tell you the name of this tree, however what I thought I heard our guide say was not close enough for me to locate it on that www-dot-internet deal. But I do know that it takes 15 years for it to grow this much.


The birds here are big and strong, you need to keep your tent closed at all times or they will come in and fly off with cameras. Before dinner our chief/porter brings out a water dish and soap for us to clean up with. It only took about 5 minutes for us to fully frustrate him by losing 2 bars of soap to the birds. It really was not our fault, you put down the soap for a second to rinse, then turn around and watch it fly off. I figure we were doing him a favor, that’s a quarter of a pound less that he has to carry with him.


Day 2 completed successfully.


The facilities were still door less facing up the mountain and could use some kind of air freshener, but at least they were stable.


Another quick weather change.


I force feed myself enough noodles that could have easily feed the entire population of any one of the villages we passed, and then watched the sun set. I was inspired, I wanted to paint or sketch this, but as I have none of those skills, I just stood there with my thoughts, thoughts that I could never put in to words, thoughts that could only ever make sense to me, and then I slept.