I woke up this morning as the sunlight hit my tent. The good news was getting in bed early made sure I was not tired despite the early rays. The bad news was that the pain that was just a niggle had turned into what I thought to be a serious threat to my climb. Since there was a sharp pain right at the first joint of the leg right below the hip, even lifting my leg was painful. Note to self(even if its too late now): Warm up before any exercise! (Something which most of us forget to do for some reason.)

I was officially woken up in about a half hour later by Jackson (of the porters) and called for tea and breakfast. It was a nice enough spread again with tea, porridge, eggs, toast, sausage and fruit. At 8 we were ready. I walked up to the sign block of Machame Hut and did a few stretches. I saw most people gather up and start walking onwards for the day.

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At 8:30 Daniel and I decided to start. What I did not know was that it was just an upward trek for the entire journey today. And taking a step up meant it would not be easy with my left leg in pain (leave aside 10000 steps up).

I started the use of my hiking stick right from Day 2. With the use of the stick to take all the weight off my left and using my right leg to take the steps up, like a little child who is learning to walk up steps, I used my right leg to climb a step and then used the stick to match that step at the same level.

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I finally realized what Dr. House must feel like. Only I realised the additional pain of climbing upward on a mountain, something Dr. House had little experience of. I climbed the entire day powered by only my right leg and left stick.

It took about 4.5 hours to get to the next camp and little more than half way up, Daniel watching me struggle, gave me an ointment to apply to take the pain away. I used it and it seemed to relieve a bit of the pain. And again, like the day before, just when I decided the distance walked was enough, i was informed that it was the last upward climb, post which we just had a short descend to the day’s camping site. We dropped just a little from 3900m to 3840m and were there.
 

Lunch awaited and a short rest later, we had a little acclimatization walk for 45 minutes. Climbed a little, came down and had a look at the rather lack lustre tiny Shira cave and were back. The evening proceedings were like the day before with some tea and popcorn and later dinner.
 

I applied the ointment again at night and kept my fingers crossed. Tomorrow was to be a 6 hour trek to Barranco Hut.

Day 2: Machame Hut to Shira Hut

• Route: Machame Gate to Shira Hut
• Distance: 12500 steps (6.1 Km)
• Altitude: 3000msl to 3840msl (max 3900msl)
• Timing: 8:30am to 1 pm (4.5 hours)