Mt. Kilimanjaro: Day 3

I felt really good when I got up today, I had two long stretches of sleep and had a good appetite for breakfast. One of the signs of altitude sickness is loss of appetite along with headache and nausea. Our chief guide Freddy, told us we were in very good shape to make the summit, and he had no concerns. He said Day 2 often identifies people with problems of endurance, breathing issues or severe altitude sickness. That is way the Day 2 camp (Shira Camp) has a helipad to evacuate such folks, (I didn't hear any choppers so I guess there were no severe problems).
Last night's sky was spectacular, it was clear, moon less for the first couple hours and of course no light pollution. The Milky Way was directly overhead and stretched from horizon to horizon. Thousands of stars were blazing, it was the sky our ancestors saw every clear night, but now rarely seen.
We've seen very little wildlife, a few Blue Monkeys at the very start, and three different mice like creatures. Supposedly Eland occasionally visit the site of last nights camp.
Today we climbed to 15,000, this is thought to help with altitude acclimatization. It was also 2000 feet higher than I have ever been. On the way up I started to get a headache. But at lunch I still had a good appetite, so our chief guide did not think it a problem. My birding and wildlife guide from earlier safari had told me most people have signs of altitude sickness by 14500 feet, so I guess I fall into that group.
On both the ascent up to 15000 feet and descent today to our Day 3 camp (Barranco Camp) at 12,000 feet I kept pace well, happily no knee pain. But I do have some blisters on both big toes, hopefully band aids will minimize the discomfort.
The descent was in light rain and fog and no fun at all. We came down a valley of interesting plants, but I could not study or enjoy them due to the rain. Sure hope we don't have any more rain!
For the day we did about 7 miles. Tomorrow we do another 8 miles, the first 4 miles will go up 2000 feet then down 2000 feet, then we start a steady climb to our summit camp at about 15,000 feet.