Day four was rough. It was by far our least favorite day as the odds just weren't against us. The realty of sleeping on frozen ground was starting to set in and we both woke with very sore and dry throats. Our guides assured us that our coughs were "just dust", but regardless the cause, we did not feel 100%.
The day was expected to be cold, but per usual, we undressed several layers after only an hour or so of hiking. Today was to be a day of a lot of "juu ne chini", or "up and down". We were warned that there would be several "ridges" to cover, as today's hike was primarily an extra day of walking around the mountain for acclimatization rather than ascent.
It wasn't long before we felt the pain of the ridges. We tried to sing, chant "juu me chini", and whatever else there was for consolation. Our only salvation was the few and far between "Mrs. Johnson" (or bathroom) and photo breaks we got along the increasingly deserted terrain.
Today was the day I tried an energy supplement with caffeine and had a bad stomach reaction. It wasn't too bad other than some annoying nausea that didn't help the already trying day. Luckily, after a few hours it subsided and wasn't an altitude affect that we were greatly fearing.
Other than that, all parties suffered from feet soreness this day. The constant up (pain on back of heel), to down (pain on toes) was bothersome and after 6 hours, quite frankly annoying. Eventually, we asked our guide, Willie, how much longer. He replied with, "close. Three more ridges". To this day we are unsure which part was lost in translation but the rest of the trip was neither "close", nor "three" of the so called "ridges".
Eventually, Willie informs us camp is in the horizon. We squint, ask "where", and doubt Willie's knowledge for a bit. Turns out, he was right (as always) but the camp was unfortunately only still a small dot away.
We managed to hike to camp in just under an hour from our apparent discrepancy, and were greeted by our porters. They had been there several hours earlier and parked themselves on a tall rock overlooking the entrance to camp. They all cheered as we approached and although this day was the worst, our porter friends managed to make us smile.
We proceeded to stretch, do some yoga in the clouds, wash, and eat before bedtime. The lack of oxygen was becoming increasingly apparent as we had to do everything "pole pole". If you did so much as stand too fast, you would get light headed. We were all aware and proceeded with our daily activities with caution. At the end of the day, we were more than relieved to have day 4 behind us and were thrilled to think that our goal was even closer.
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