Otherwise I slept the best I have in days though! It was a 5:30 start, because we needed to get up to Peak Boby then back down again before it got properly hot. Breakfast was toast and bananas, which is fine by me. At about 6:00, we were off!
This was not an easy ascent. I think exceedingly hard would describe it best. Granted my legs were already feeling it because of the cold reducing my recovery abilities in the last few days, but I am exceedingly glad I had got over the worst of it, otherwise I think I might have died on the way.
The morning had an ascent of 750m (a flight of stairs in a house is about 3m ascent. So that is 250 flights of stairs, or 3000 steps!), with about 100m of descent. The path was mostly stone stairs made from odd shapes rocks, much like the Inka trail, but there were some points you just walked up the granite like some sort of mountain goat. The steps were often big, which really set the quads burning, and it is potentially very hot, though as it was early the sun didn't have all of it's strength for us. The views were unremittingly spectacular too (and strangely similar to Scotland); I will post a few photos here, but you can pick just about any of the ones it took, and they are all brilliant.
The name "Andringitra" was explained to us on the way by Freddie. There was a man who was part of the local tribe many years back called "Andring", or something like that. He had big dreadlocks, and the way these mountains have eroded make them look a bit like dreadlocks, hence the name. Who knew!
We were lucky upon ascending the peak. It was still, and quite warm despite the altitude, which is very rare, as most often it is windy, and therefore miserably cold up there (Freddie told us this, and it was later corroborated by an American couple at the campsite in the evening; it had been very cold for them). We stayed up there for about an hour, waiting for the slowest members of the group (I was one of the fast group thanks to my revival), and resting. Freddie handed out some chocolate biscuits which I would probably have turned my nose up at back home, but having not seen that sort of thing for a week or so, it was the most delicious pair of biscuits ever!
The way back was much quicker than going, but no less hard. The tendons in my knees felt like they were about to snap by the time we got back to camp. The views were still great though, and we saw a weird bug thing which I quite liked, a few birds of prey, and a hammercap, which is a bird with hammer shaped plumage on it's head. Also, there were some pretty hefty clouds, so it was pleasantly much cooler.
Back at camp the birds had taken over. Remember that orange breasted bird I got an extremely bad photo of a few days ago? It was back, and had brought friends. They were all sitting on a tree, watching us with hungry eyes. Interestingly they were in various stages of plumage, they are a dull green when not orange, and some were just turning. The white crows (also previously mentioned) didn't care for the trees, they just walked wherever they wanted, eating scraps, and generally doing crow stuff.
Lunch was cold pasta with some sort of fish, which was nice enough, and some nice fresh pineapple for dessert. We had about an hour and a half for eating, and waiting for slow people to eat, which was alright, though a little longer than most of the fast ones (me, John, Pauline, Matt, and Fiona) would've liked I think. We set off again just after one, and we would only have a 100m/20 minute ascent, but a massive and somewhat distressing sounding 1000m descent in the afternoon!
The sun came out in patches, which was a blessing as it was exceedingly strong when it was out, and the views were no less spectacular than the morning. We met a chameleon on the path, and Freddie caught that too. I held it, and liked it; you could feel it's 2 tiny claws (it only had 2 toes to a foot) gripping you.
The climb was quite early in the afternoon, up onto a high plain (or highER plain), before the loooooong descent. This was hell on already sore knees, but at least I wasn't I'll. Buoyed by this I wasn't too bad, but some of the others found it tough going. As we descended plants started to get bigger again, with palm trees randomly making an appearance. We heard a lemur shouting about something, and saw a big (foot longish, including tail) iguana.
The camp was by a river which was pretty clear, though not quite so pristine as the pool yesterday. This was perfect for a spot of foot/leg washing, as mine were filthy! (Though not as bad as Pauline's; her walking style creates an insane amount of dust for some reason. You need to walk at least 10 yards behind!)
It was around 5pm when we arrived, and 5:45 when the slowest arrived. By this point it was getting dark! We had our welcome coffee (which was amazingly nice for some reason), and I only felt the need for my green jumper and Cambodian Elephant Trousers (which are very thin), so I decided to try them for tea too. First though, more campfire singing, though not so much as yesterday, since we had left a few porters (the amount gets fewer each day as there gets less to carry). They did teach us 'La Markoo' though, which is basically one guy shouting various things, and depending on what he shouts you have to clap a certain number of times.
Dinner was chicken noodle soup, which tasted a bit like super noodles, but I really enjoyed, followed by chicken and potatoes. The chicken was okay, but the potatoes had gravel, so I left most. Dessert was an orange, and it was lovely! My elephant trousers saw out the evening too.
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