Day 2 takes us up into the moorlands of Kilimanjaro. It’s much longer (6 hours) and more challenging hike than day 1, so we get an early start. I didn’t sleep well the night before, and I realize it’s because I was still wearing the same sweaty clothes I arrived to camp in so I never had a chance to really warm up. I resolve to always change into dry clothes as soon as I arrive to camp each evening to keep ahead of the cold, and this ends up doing me a lot of good.

The hike starts in the trees again.

But after an hour, the vegetation almost abruptly turns to moorlands. The trees are short and shrubbier, and the sky is much more visible.

We see different flowers from the first day, and I make sure to photo-document them all.

Our path takes us up and down several times as we’re crossing over, and eventually up, multiple ridges to get to the Shira Plateau. I both love and hate that you can see how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go.

Here’s our head guide, Innocent, again. He is so adorable, and his face totally matches his name. He has charm in spades and entertains us for much of the trip.

We stop for several breaks, as do the seemingly super-human porters, which makes me feel a little better about myself, but they still spend most of the day passing us.

Just as I’m getting tired and really wishing we were at camp already, we come around a corner and there she is! Our first good look at Mt Kilimanjaro. Amy and I are both in awe. How is it that in just a few days, we’ll hopefully be standing on the top?

I’m so excited that the rest of the way to camp seems like a breeze.

It’s really windy on the Shira Plateau, being as exposed as it is, but the views are unbeatable. We take our tea and popcorn outside to enjoy the mountain.

And the view from our tent is unbeatable!

Once again we go to bed early, exhausted from the long day. We get to sleep in a bit tomorrow since we have a short(ish) walk across the flat Shira Plateau to get to our next camp, Shira 2.