Moshi and Mt Meru

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On the 15-hour train ride (with our own beds!) back to Nairobi (we weren't too keen to get back on that bus) we decided to go and climb Mt Meru, the fourth highest mountain in Africa! Spending as less time as we could in Nairobi, we caught a bus the next day and headed down to Tanzania. Tanzania is really nice (nicer than Kenya), the people are so friendly, their Swahili is alot better and everything is so cheap! Even the daladalas (minibuses) were alot nicer than our matatus. We spent 3 days in a really cute town called Moshi, and by the end of our first day everyone knew who we were, and we were constantly asked "have you climbed mt meru yet?" by total strangers. We spent the first day hiking through some beautiful hills just outide of Moshi to see some waterfalls and drink banana beer with some local hill tribes.

Realising how unprepared we were for Mt Meru, Freddy, our waterfall guide, helped us organise a cook/porter and advised us to hire out some gear - rain pants, gloves, and a pole - since it can snow on the top of mt meru (we really should've researched it first before we arrived).
We left Moshi and headed to Arusha National Park, paid some very expensive park entrance fees, ranger fees, and hut fees, and headed up the mountain. It took 3 days to go up and down the mountain and it turned out to be alot tougher than any of us had thought. We walked through some really beautiful forests/jungles, and saw wildlife up close - bush bucks, buffalos (we had an armed ranger with us), elephants, black and white colobus monkeys, baboons etc. After the 2nd day I was totally exhausted as it was such a steep climb. When we reached the hut we then had to climb "Little" Meru to acclimatise. we were only about 3800m up and i could already feel the air getting thinner.

On the third day we got up at midnight (after having no sleep) and left for the summit at 1am. Mt Meru is a big horseshoe-shaped volcanic crater, and the summit is on one end of the horseshoe, while we were on the other. With the full moon, and occasionally our head torches, lighting the path we were climbing up ridges, rock climbing over boulders, slipping in the ash, and stumbling over the pebbles, ridge after ridge. It was exhausting and one of the hardest things I've ever done. After 3 or 4 hours I started feeling really dizzy, falling over and feeling really nauseaus - a slight case of altitude sickness. After thinking that it would never end, we finally got to the summit - 4566m up. It was absolutely freezing, our hands and feet were totally numb and since we were too early for the sunrise we had no choice but to head back down. The sun came up as we were descending and the view was spectacular - the sun rising up over Mt Kilimanjaro with a sea of pink clouds below us, one of the most memorable moments yet.

We spent the rest of the day coming all the way back down the mountain, and our knees and legs were in agony for days after. After almost being stranded at the gate we caught a truck to the road (where everyone got to ride for free, yet since we were white, we had to pay which we weren't too happy about) and a daladala to Arusha town. We found our backpackers hotel and collapsed on the bed - it was hard to believe that that morning we had been on the summit of Mt meru.

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Photos

We made it!
trying to stay warm with the freezing wind 4566m high!