Thursday, August 7, 2008

That movie was so boring, even the trees walked – Kilimanjaro, Day 3 (21 July 2008)

The quote is taken from Clerks 2, used to describe The Lord of the Rings.

WARNING: This is an extremely profane movie – the quote is edited, and I do not encourage any of you who haven’t seen it to go watch it. You will be offended, that’s the point of the movie.

But the quote nicely sums up what today felt like. It was a long slog, with me in the back of the group, basically watching the feet of the person in front of me. I don’t handle boredom well, and today was boring. I even invented a word to describe it:

trudgery (verb): the combination of trudging and drudgery, applied to any hike of 4 or more hours where there is less than 15 minutes worth of interesting activity. Especially applicable when you are forced to go slower than desired, when people (including the guide!) make a point of stopping in front of you for no apparent reason, and when you can literally feel your sanity starting to slip.

I developed a mild altitude headache today, and the guide’s advice was to sing a song in my head. So I sang Elton John’s greatest hits, some Erasure, and some George Michael. I’m starting to understand why my Tivo thinks I’m gay.

We hiked up to the Lava Tower for lunch, which is at 4600 m or roughly 15000 feet. I’m supposed to be losing my appetite, but so far that’s not happening.

The night was spent at Barranco. It was so memorable that I had to look at the picture of the sign from the gate to figure out where we spent the night.

To top it off, I had to use the hole in the ground. Thankfully without incident.

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