Next Day

It seemed almost inhumane- the schedule after everyone returned from the summit. While I had only slept a couple of hours, the rest of the team had been climbing and freezing their butts off for 12 hours straight. No rest for the wicked, I guess. Eat white lunch, pack everything up and head down to the next camp. “Only about 3 1/2 kilometers”, said Hamza who was leading that day. Liar! Most of us by that time had figured out that the distances they were using were “as the crow flies” and not at all indicative of how far we actually had to go.
Cynthia had collapsed in our tent as soon as she had returned, so I had Mr. Coffee bring her a bowl of stew and helped her pack up for the trek. I don’t think anyone was taking any pictures that day. It was just a rocky, steep, dusty descent. We all looked like Pigpen from Charlie Brown. Any personal hygiene we had started with had long since fallen by the wayside and things like tooth brushing and putting on clean underwear were more of an occasional luxury. I had never felt so filthy in all my life. So the dust from the descent just added an extra layer to the grime that was already there. We were all gross and smelly.
Arrived at camp, all of us with sore knees, ate dinner and went to bed. We still had 14 kilometers to hike out the following day..Leggi altro