We arrived at our first campsite at 2am and 4 hours later, not having gotten any sleep whatsoever due to the bitter cold, we awoke to start our climb.
Due to the strike and the roads being blocked, our trek guide decided we would do the climb in reverse order, that is the highest peak on the first day of climbing and so forth. Hmm...ok...not sure what to expect but she´s the expert.
The first day was brutal, not going to sugar coat for you who want to attempt to do this in the future, it was brutal. A mild headache turned into a vicious headache by the time we stopped for lunch and I was completely out of breath climbing up steep hills/mountains at such a high altitude, not easy. But taking our time, we managed to get to the highest peak of our climb at about 3:00pm..hurray!!! That´s 4500m for those keeping track! It was hard but so totally worth it.
Our morning of hot sun turned bitter cold once we reached the peak and stayed that way all the way to our second campsite for the night. In total, we walked 6 hours today, wow did my feet hurt :)
After tea time and dinner, we all retired to our subzero sleeping bags for an early night.
Yes, we have 5 meals on our trek, 5! Breakfast, snack, lunch, tea time and dinner!..holy cow...and the food was amazing..we have a cook, personal cook, waiter and 3 porters and each person helps out with the meals, cutting, preparing, cooking, serving and cleaning up. All vegetables are washed and cut up and cooked, chicken is cooked on the gas stove, etc.. nothing processed here!...So much better than we thought.
Apart from the cold, today was a successful day indeed!
