The 2nd evening we enjoyed the view from this camp to the famous Barranco Wall. This wall is famous of being the major obstacle to climb Kili. A sheer cliff, not passable for ordinary hikers, you need at least 50 years of climbing experience, only climbers having already conquered Mt. Everest, Annaconda, China’s Great Wall and Lesotho’s Thaba Bosiu would be able to climb (just google “Barranco Challenge”).
And this wall will await us tomorrow. Monika only experienced with Thaba Bosiu really will await a serious challenge – and she already was afraid of THE WALL long time in advance!
But much closer were our fatigue and the emerging cold of the night. Barranco CBD is in a deep valley at 4000 m, very near to the glaciers and the snow of Kili. Therefore after our usual portion of soup powder (with some veggies) followed by something with this tomato sauce powder, we had to get to our 1st sleeping bag, put into our 2nd sleeping bag – so prepared to at least minus 50 degrees.
The next morning Monika was motivated to climb Mount Everest, at least the little bit between 8670 and 8900 m altitude. To ensure a great success to this undertaking we opted for a late start just to get stuck in the worst traffic jam. Unfortunately another group of a few climbers, namely 50 staff of the Ashante Gold Mine (together with 200 support staff) on a team building and fundraising exercise was just in front of us. No problem, Monika could examine her chances to climb the wall with each single person – exiting. Martin was very keen of capturing every single moment of that experience. And then the climb of Barranco Wall started. It’s a little step, then a little narrow, finally some 5 meters higher even a little exposed – the dream of all google hypochonders.
Fortunately Monika realized the trap of all the received information, simply ignored it and climbed the sheer wall over “thousands” of meters, straight up, knowing only people with experience on Mount Everest or Thaba Bosiu could do this. A few minutes later the show was over, Barranco Wall was conquered and Monika was on top of it – she felt a little bit like being on the summit of Kili.
