Conquering “Breakfast”!
The 4th day on Mount Kilimanjaro woke us up quite early and offered us awesome views from the Barranco campsite, which we reached in the later afternoon after an acclimatisation hike from Lawa Tower to Arrow Glacier Camp on Day 3. 🙂
On this day we had to conquer the Barranco Wall – it`s merely 300 meters high and the only somehow “technical” part of the whole trek, where you have to use your hands for a couple of times. The wall is also called “Breakfast Wall”, because you start climbing right after breakfast! There is not an approach at all, as Barranco Camp, where you wake up in the morning, is literally on the foot of the wall. 🙂
To get up early is essential, as all climbers from Lemosho and Machame Route, and also some coing from the South on Umbwe Route, have to pass this bottleneck in the morning hours and there are many unexperienced climbers causing traffic jams on the wall!
Breathtaking Kilimanjaro Views
After overtaking uncountable numbers of Chinese and Japanese climbers, finally the first rays of sunlight touched our faces and we reached a spot where we had a short snackbreak. This place on top of the Barranco Wall had awesome vistas of Mount Kilimanjaro!
From this point there was a great view of Mount Meru as well, so we stayed there quite a while and took thousands of pictures!
Another misty afternoon…
As everyday, the clouds and with them the mist and the rain shuffled in at around 2 pm…
Thankfully the way from Barranco to Karanga Camp, where we stayed the fourth night on the mountain, had no elevation gain in total. So we only descended back down from the viewpoint. The track was roughly 4 kilometres and an easy stroll.
Once again we reached our overnight campsite in the mist. 🙂
But again thankfully the sky cleared up a little and we had a chance to warm up a little and at least see the direct surroundings.
Day 4 was quite easy and not very exhausting, but from the photo opportunities point probably the best day of the whole trek – so keep your cameras charged for the “Breakfast”!
Continue to read about Day 5 on Kilimanjaro! 🙂
