Happy Birthday Holger!
Today, is the 09.09.2016, and it way exactly two years ago, when I had the chance to celebrate my birthday on 3000 m altitude on the steep slopes of Mount Cameroon.
Do you see the joy in my face?!
I slept bad on a wooden platform only in my sleeping bag. It was pretty cold at night in 2800m altitude and the smoke inside the hut was very disturbing.
But I woke up early in the morning on my 34 birthday morning and was really happy to be there on the mountain and to be in such a splendid scenery to celebrate my birthday.
We had some cake left from the day before and Mjombwa, our tour guide, who is also called Lucas, gathered me this beautiful little birthday flower surprise from the wild.
The scarf was a present from Alim.
Our next stage, was to get from intermediate hut to hut 2, which is actually the 3rd refuge on the mountain. This part of the tour is the steepest and hardest one. You don't need ropes, but the dangerous things is, that it can get very foggy and slippery and if it rains the route turns into a stream and is impassable.
But as it was my birthday I got as present the most beautiful weather you could expect on a mountain, except for the clouds passing by and leaving patches of fog, that transformed the whole scenery into a mystical outlandish place.
The white painting and the tin roof of intermediate hut was shrinking smaller and smaller the more we climbed up. Eventually the view was cut of by the clouds.
There were beautiful small flowers on our way and against the expectations to find a deserted, volcanic, rocky place, the whole mountain was covered with diverse vegetation.
Of course we had enough time to take some breaks and catch our breath again. Alim was already exhausted to the extreme and he had a hard time moving on, for the air got thinner and thinner. Our guides on the otherhand didn't show a sign of exhaustion. They've done this tour a thousand times, 3 times a week. They were like sporty gazelles, who jumped on from rock to rock, except they had to carry some baggages.
After about 4 hours climbing up the steep hill-side, we finally reached hut 2, our destiny for the day, on one of the higher plateaus. The climate has changed and the vegetation as well. The grass has given way for patches of heather to grow and there were also some scattered smaller trees everywhere.
We crossed another final knoll and saw the hut, where we wanted to camp for the night. Or rather we saw what was left of it. A fire had destroyed the main hut, leaving only the shaggy kitchen hut for us to take refuge.
But we were happy anyway, having reached our destination.
Leaving our backpacks in the hut we went for some wood, to make a fire and cooking, and enjoyed the evening with a simple but delicious rice dish. I was prepared to celebrate my birthday. So I lighted up a good spliff and before the light was fading, the clouds passed away and we got a view on our last stage, the next plateau further up, where we might find the summit early next morning.
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