Mount Kilimanjaro

Climbing Kilimanjaro was so much fun! We went along the Machame route, taking eight days so we'd hopefully have time to acclimatise a little to the altitude. It worked and until the summit day we both felt fine.

Our first day was spent trekking up through the rainforest. I wasn't overly impressed at it being all up hill but Naomi pointed out that we were climbing a mountain so we persevered despite rather a lot of breathlessness. There were lots of really beautiful flowers along the way and through the mist the forest was really pretty. Our first camp was at 3000m and our amazing team of porters had already arrived and set up our tent by the time we got there.



Day two, after not a great nights sleep and both Naomi and I shouting in the night during nasty dreams, we set off leaving the rainforest and climbing above a thick blanket of clouds. We got our first views of Kili's summit and very much enjoyed some lovely hot sunshine. Everywhere were little white and yellow flowers that looked and felt like they were dried but were very much alive. Absolutely covered in dust we arrived at our next camp and hid in our tent from the wind, although thanks to the altitude (I blame it on that) it was pretty windy in there too.




From the third day onwards, the days were lovely and warm but the nights and mornings were absolutely freezing. Each morning we were bought a little bowl of hot water to wash in. It would have been so good to be able to climb right into it but being only about a foot wide that wasn't really an option.

Being late as always, we were the last trekkers to leave the campsite. Most people seemed to be doing fewer days than us and so we had the bit of the mountain we were walking on all to ourselves as everyone else had gone a different way. We trekked across an alpine desert, still with some of the dry flowers but manly just rocks and dust. It was a short days walk and so we got to relax at our camp for most of the afternoon. We were camped in a beautiful little valley with the mountain rising up on three sides and a drop down on the fourth.



I think day four was my favourite day. At first we walked up and up through the alpine desert with amazing views of Mount Meru's summit coming through the clouds below. We then crossed through a tower of rocks with Kili's summit to our left and continued on downhill over little half frozen streams and rivers. The clouds below were so thick that they looked like rolling white hills. Further down the scenery completely changed and we found ourselves walking in between beautiful flowers and alpine tree things. Our camp was right on the edge of a sheer drop, with Kili's summit kind of in the direction we'd just come from.

The fifth day was the only day that involved a bit of proper climbing, so that was a lot of fun although very hard work when the air's short of oxygen! Once we'd climbed up a huge rock wall we then followed frozen rivers and waterfalls down into a valley before having to hike right back up the other side to our next camp.


On day sixth we walked along really dry ground with lots of rocks and very few plants, to our final camp before we'd try for the summit. In the morning all the clouds had cleared and so we could see right down to the bottom of the maintain for the first time since day one. We camped on a rocky slope with drops to either side and the summit ahead of us.

We spent the afternoon and evening trying to sleep without much success and then set out just after midnight to go to the top. Being late again we were some of the last people to leave the camp and for a long way in front of us rising up the steep mountain side was a snake of people's glowing head torches. Stanley, our ever patient and wonderful guide, seemed to be on a bit of a mission and so we ended up overtaking every single group in front of us. We both were feeling absolutely exhausted and not at all healthy inside. We just had to stare at Stanley's boots and keep going, hoping we were near. The sky, as on all the nights on Kili, was so beautiful being almost completely full up with stars. We reached Stella Point where we'd been told it got a bit easier and then had to keep going coming to lots of peaks that we hoped were the top but we'd get to them and then find they weren't and we'd have to carry on to the next one until finally we reached the real top!!! We got there just before 6am and before the sun had risen. I'm not sure that I have ever felt so cold. Both of us being so very freezing, nauseous and tired had a couple of photos taken of us at the top in the dark, Stanley took my camera and took some pictures of our surroundings - glaciers, the crater and one of Kili's lower peaks - as it was more than I could manage and then we headed straight back down without waiting for the sun to rise. Bit of a shame but we just could not wait!

It soon got light and we had to try and keep up with Stanley as he raced down the slope of scree we'd just climbed up. We both agreed that had we tried to get to the summit in the light, seeing where we had to go, that we probably would have given up and turned back.

We decided to hide from Stanley on the way down, diving behind a massive rock. We lay there for ages, laughing and exhausted but Stanley never came back. When we came out from behind the rock we found him sat on a rock a little ahead of us, staring at where we were and looking unimpressed. Poor Stanley. He so very tolerantly put up with a lot from us. Each time we'd play a trick on him he'd look at us in disbelief, sometimes a bit annoyed and sometimes just puzzled, but by the end of the week, even if it did take him a day or so, he'd laugh at our tricks. He even tried playing tricks we'd played on him on us, though he wasn't successful :)

Back at the camp we had a couple of hours rest and then had to head on downwards to our last camp. I felt like I had the worst hangover in the world, but by the time we reached our camp I just felt tired rather than like I would be sick at any minute.

The final day we headed on downwards through the rainforest to the bottom of the mountain and a much needed shower.