Today was a pretty tough hike, steep uphill for the first half of the day until we reached "Lava Tower" at 4600m, where we had lunch and a rest. Lava Tower is a huge pinnacle of black rock that reminds me a lot of the volcano in Mordor of Lord of the Rings (we didn't throw our rings in it). Lava Tower must have been part of Kilimanjaro at some point and managed to stay upright inbetween a flow of hot magma around it. The landscapes up here shaped by the volcano are amazing, bizarre and beautiful. Steep sharp rocks poking out of a black soft bubbly surface, that still looks liquid, although it has hardened 150 thousand years ago.
From Lava Tower we hike down to our camp called "Barranco" at 3850m, passing through some groups of the dinosaur tree-plants we saw yesterday. We had amazing views of Kilimanjaros Peak all day, slowly getting closer to it..
I really felt the altitude today: very short of breath and a splitting headache all day. I took some Tylenol extra strength in the evening and felt a little better after some rest.
We decided at dinner that we are going to skip one camp tomorrow and walk all the way to our base camp "Barafu" from which we will attempt to reach the summit at midnight.
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