From the tour itinerary:

Day 2: MACHAME CAMP to SHIRA CAMP
12500’ ~3810m ? 2.8 mi~5 km ? 4-6 hours
After breakfast, we leave the glades of the rain forest and continue on an ascending path, crossing the little valley walking along a steep rocky ridge, entering in the moorland zone covered with heather, until the ridge ends. The route now turns west onto a dry river gorge. We reach our camp in time for rest, dinner, and overnight at the Shira Camp.

?The best part of waking up?

Climbing Kilimanjaro with a team of porters and guides is pretty awesome. Having folks carry all your stuff is great. BUT the best part- the part I wouldn’t trade for any other part- is being woken up at 6am by one of the porters offering you coffee or tea. I would carry all my stuff myself, I would cook for myself, I’d even try to do the thing without a guide (not that they’d let me) if otherwise it meant I wouldn’t get the coffee. Because being woken up with a hot cup of coffee is awesome.

Um. So after that everything’s basically a blur. It’s our first trail breakfast, so that’s kind of exciting. I don’t know if all vegetarians feel this wway, but breakfast is usually the easiest meal to eat when travelling abroad. A lot of folks seems to agree that some variation of bread+egg+fruit is a good way to start the day. And the team cooking for us apparently agreed. We also would get porridge most mornings, which is great. Millet for breakfast? Yes please. Incidentally, we didn’t get millet until one of the last days, but now I know I love it.

After brekkie, we pack up our bags, which are carted off by the porters pretty soon after. Then we leave. Well, then we stand around taking pictures of the white-necked ravens that populate pretty much the entire mountain cause at this point they’re still extremely interesting. That fades, eventually. But I took a lot of bird photos that morning.

Nevermore.

So then we start walking. Up for awhile, and then kinda over a bit, then up, and then over. There wsa a little bit of down after that, followed by another bit of up. Alternatively, I don’t remember all the details, but that still sounds pretty accurate.

We stop sometime in the middle of the day to have lunch- the tent is all set up for us.  I always enjoyed eating in the tent, but I often wondered whether it wouldn’t be so much easier to just set down on a rock rather than have those dude have to set the whole thing up.  Oh: a fun thing I picked up from the Oklahomans: saying sit like set. Oh I just realized that sit/set are an accusative/unaccusative pair like fell/fall.  Cool!..  I mean, right?

After lunch, the trail got pretty fun- steep, but not super steep, and not just a slog kind of steep, but walking on rocks and a bit of scrambling.  And very pretty.  We pass by some caves- the Shira Caves.  Alas, that’s all I really remember.  Shira camp was cool.  I practiced drawing (see below).  I’m still terrible at it.