KILIMANJARO

Kibo Hotel...

The Kibo hotel is the place to be at Marangu.  The walls of the restaurant were covered in expedition flags and T-shirts signed by hikers.   Jimmy Carter and other dignitaries have stayed at this hotel.

After dinner I checked out some of the Canadian flags.  It was interesting to read the names and comments people had written on them.  I was also trying to determine which flag I would sign after the hike when I returned to the hotel.  "But would I even summit?" I thought to myself.  I was worried about the altitude.  A trip to Peru a year previous proved almost deadly for me.  The bus I was on at the time ascended too high too fast in the Andes and I succumbed to the oxygen deprivation.  I fell unconscious, incontinent and seizured.  I had the worst searing headache of my life and my GI tract was doing backflips.  That was at around 17,000ft.  Kili was higher.  "Would I make it?" I thought to myself again as I turned to this one particular Canada flag on the wall in which someone had written inside the maple leaf "A piece of cake!"  My worried frown turned into a grin.  I was smiling now.

"A piece of cake" I said out loud.  I can do this.  I can do this... I returned to my table for dessert then made my way to bed feeling assured and a little more confident.   "Piece of cake."  Good night.

The earth is my mattress, a rock my pillow.