A big adventure

14/7/11

When sitting on the sofa in the relaxing cocoon of Atwood road James booked a trek up a volcano. The trek would take place over four days and three nights and involve camping… not the normal environ for a Chimp. Oh my its 5 am and the mini bus is here to pick us up. The sofa booking seems like a distant memory and we have a mammoth adventure ahead of us…

After a few hours we arrive at the at the starting point 1110m above sea level- our task to climb to the summit at 3726m within 24 hours. Then walk down from the crater rim to the huge lake that has been formed around the still active volcano. Walk back up to the rim and then back to the car. Fortunately James had booked a porter to carry his bag. I had wanted to save money so opted to carry my own luggage that said some things may have slipped into James bag… well actually most of my stuff had. A wise decision we would come to learn.

We met our guide perman the other customers. Two Swiss guys and an Irishman called Kevin. We were also to be accompanied by a small army of porters- 6 in all. These guys were super human carrying all the tents, food, James bag and water we would need for four days. The method of carrying these items was to strap everything to a bamboo pole and rest 20-30kg on your shoulder. I could not even lift the bloody poll let alone get it on my shoulder, balance it let alone walk up a volcano in flip-flops. The porters on the other hand did not appear to break a sweat and would frequently overtake us during our four days.

After a quick breakfast we set off for the first leg in our journey. A 6 hour uphill walk to the crater rim some 2640m above sea level. After 30 minutes Kevin twisted his ankle but never the less carried on with the aid of an ankle support that I lent him. Plodding in the heat we began to wonder if we had bitten off more than we could chew. This was not going to be a stole in the park but a test of endurance. Our guide made it somewhat easier by stopping every hour to feed us. A pack of biscuits would appear and regardless of our hunger levels he would offer them around instantly until they were all eaten. He then enquire what we would like to eat for lunch. Not being accustomed to having a choice and expecting the food to be somewhat limited to rice our expectations were not high. Peerman then reeled off the options. Rice with chicken, spaghetti, beef sandwiches, noodle soup. Rather surprised to have an option there was a general agreement that we would eat anything. This did not appear to meet the needs of perman who told us we had to ask for what we wanted as at the end of the day it was our money the porters were carrying up the hill in the form of all the food that the company had sent along. The trek we decided may be hard but we would not go hungry and this assumption was confirmed at lunch time when the porters rustled up noodle soup, fresh coffee, fresh pineapple and bottle water.

After 5 hours of walking we arrived at the crater rim. The potters who had stayed behind to clean up after lunch had overtaken us, set up the tents and were cooking dinner by the time we arrived. After another sumptuous dinner we headed to bed at the rather early hour of 7pm. One may think this a little early but it was dark and we were to be waken at 2am so we could walk up to the volcano summit for sun rise!