Sheila’s Report From the Mountain

Florenz, the man who is the chief guide of the group, is a lovely and very attentive man, as are all the other guides and porters. They look after everyone really well, and are always asking if they can do anything to help – carry your day sack for you, get you more food or water, help you with tent or bag zips etc.

The toilet facilities – happily – are much better than anticipated, possibly because there were only 7, now 5, in our group.  The loo is state of the art with a pump to put water in and a lever to pull to make everything disappear – and it really worked. Loo paper always available too and little trace of any smell.  Very different from the experience of those not travelling with such a good company as Exodus Travels, I know.

The food was fine.  We had porridge each morning followed by eggs and bacon with bread and tea, coffee, hot chocolate and Milo to drink. We were given substantial packed lunches in Tupperware containers. We had peanuts or popcorn when we arrived in camp. Dinner consisted of soup, followed by fish or meat, potatoes or rice and vegetables, then fresh fruit.  I suspect that the food will become rather repetitive as the days go on, but it is absolutely amazing that they can cater at all in such circumstances after walking all day, and setting up camp. They cook on calor gas (yes – they carry the canisters up the mountain) in tents in the most basic of circumstances and our cooks were producing meals for 41 people – 7 climbers and 34 support staff, who are the true heroes. The cooking we do for Catching Lives pales into insignificance compared to what these guys achieve.

The others in our group are great fun.  There is Jez and his 13 year old son, Reuben, who live near Aberfoyle and are experienced mountain climbers. Jez, who already climbed Kili a couple of decades ago, is a travel journalist and entertained us all occasionally as we were plodding along behind the guide by shouting “Press coming through” and rushing to the front with his enormous camera.

Then there are Sharon and her 15 year old son Dan, who would be happy to be called adrenalin junkies.  They have travelled all over the world doing extreme sports and activities – jumping out of planes, off mountains etc.

You can imagine that the group are never short of conversation, which is really lovely.  In the evening as well as a lots of chatter, we played travel Pointless and cards – mainly a variant of Pontoon or 21 developed by Jez – which everyone enjoyed.

I know that Jae is in excellent company and hope she isn’t worrying too much about us – Osc and I are just fine.