It's 7 AM, very early morning by Ugandan standards. I generally wake at 06:30 so I'm bored already. That is one of the challenges here. We are only hiking for 5 or 6 hours a day because of the demands of the terrain. So tht leaves quite a bit of downtime. Although I am in Africa close to the equator it's probably in the upper 30's F right now. A heavy frost is on everything as I sit outside the hut typing. So we tend to spend a lot of that downtime in the dining huts. I am with 2 Germans a Romanian and a Belgian, all in their 20's. They are friends on a backpacking holiday in Africa. They have been playing lots of card games and I've been reading A Brief History of Time. They are a wonderful group and have been kind enough to speak English for the most part.
This will be a short trekking day. The plan is to begin at 9 and get to Mahgareta camp by 13:00 or so. Then we will go over equipment and ropes. I'm the only one in our party who is experienced with an ice ax and crampons. I suspect there will be well established foot prints to follow even up the steep glacier.
I have been sleeping much better than I had imagined here. This camp is just below 4000m elevation but the last was above that. Even so I have been sleeping soundly. Of course I do get up 2 or 3 times to piss. It's necessary to stay very well hydrated at elevation so everyone gets up several times for the same reason. Last night was completely clear so on one trip outside I took in the stars. The moon was not yet up so I was enjoying seeing all the constellations I don't get to enjoy in LA. I happened to look for the Big Dipper but it was not up yet. On my next trip into the dark the moon was now up. I saw the Big Dipper this time and thought to look for Polaris. It took me a moment to realize you can't see the North Star from the Southern hemisphere. LOL
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