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Published: December 31st 2007
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The task ahead
Baranco Camp 6am. The start of day 4 A quiet Haleluya
Sunday morning, 9am and like a well oiled tourist machine Shidolya were straight back to our hotel to whisk us off to Mount Kilimanjaro.
Climbing "Killi" had always been in our plans so we had been carrying tramping boots, thermal clothing and wind/water resistant mountain gear since leaving the UK. Now, after lugging this load around in sweltering hot conditions it was great to finally need it!
Unlike our shared safari experience, this time the 4WD had just us and a new guide, the excellently named Haleluya. Trying to carry on the fun banter of the previous days we both launched into a nervously energetic tirade of questions and comments to our new guide.
"Silence"
Hmmmmm we thought. Perhaps he's a bit shy and just needs some time to warm to us.
Nope.
What we soon learned was that Haleluya was one of the best guides on the mountain with an incredible success rate of getting 100%!o(MISSING)f his clients to the summit. (Only about 60%!o(MISSING)f people make it). For him this was a task to be taken very seriously. At the time we found this grim faced professionalism
Path? What path?
Our vertical climb up an apparently flat rock face on day 4 a bit of a shock, but boy would we come to thank it later on!
Anyone fancy carrying a toilet on their head?
At 5896 Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa. Its snow capped summit is higher than Everest Base Camp and has less than half the normal oxygen levels. However it is not a technical climb and from a choice of 10 trekking routes you can make your way to the summit without needing any climbing experience. We choose the six day Machame route which unlike the more popular and direct 5 day route, allows for an extra day of acclimatization.
Arriving at the starting point (the Machame Gate) we discovered that also in our team would be an Assistant Guide, a Cook and 3 Porters, apparently the bare minimum for 2 people. At the time we thought this seemed a few too many but once again we would later come to understand and appreciate these roles.
So up the mountain we went. For 4 days we walked and walked and walked and walked. And when we weren't walking we were eating and eating and eating. Food, it seems, was the key
An angel in the clouds?
Is it a bird...is it a plane? to success and Haleluya kept a close eye on everything we ate, encouraging us to finish every last bite. A typical breakfast was a bowl of fruit followed by 2 pancakes each, 2 bowls of porridge, bread, a full cooked breakfast and endless cups of tea. Tracey was amazed at how much she was eating and yet by the time we would get to the next meal she would be starving and would eat just as much again.
This constant and excellent supply of food and water is what made the role of the porter so valuable. As well as carrying all the food and water they also lugged the cooking equipment, our backpacks, two tents and their own bags at gravity defying speed up the mountain. At some points we spent long periods climbing over large rocks or scrambling across loose scree. While we were moving at a reasonably safe pace, these guys would power past, sometimes with folded tables or even portable toilets on their heads. It seems some tourists are a bit posh for long drops. We met one couple who had 12 porters and guides just for them.
Every morning we would wake before
Haleluya
He took just 45 minutes to reach the summit from camp 4 when he was training to become a guide. It took us 6 hours. sunrise and enjoy a magnificent and daunting view of the approaching summit. Then, as the sun rose and the clouds quickly formed Killi would hide her peak all day until a brief reappearance the following morning. Amazingly we were usually the only ones up in the whole campsite so this became our private viewing session. Some people on the trail never saw the top until they were on it.
What shall we do today...uphill anyone?
After 4 days of walking we made it to the high camp (4600m) at 4pm on Wednesday Dec 5th. That day we had walked for 8 hours and for the first time many people on the trail were starting to experience altitude related problems. The most common problems are headaches, nose bleeds, nausea, breathing problems and loss of appetite. However some people start to develop fluid in their lungs or have blood vessels burst in their eyes. Not good. At this camp a few people had already reached a point where they would go no further. Other than some bad headaches were feeling pretty good so we sat down to the biggest meal of the trek yet and for the next briefing from
We made it!
5.50am Thurs 6 December 2007. Bloody Freezing! our guide.
The plan was this. We would eat until we burst and then go to sleep until 11pm which would give us about 3 hours sleep. Then we would get up and have tea and biscuits before setting off at midnight for the summit. Upon reaching the summit we would spend about 15 minutes enjoying the view before coming back to this camp at around 8am. We'd then be allowed one hour of sleep before getting up again and setting off on another 3 - 4 hours downhill to a lower camp.
And THAT is exactly what we did!
And man was it hard, easily the hardest thing either of us has ever done. Tracey found she had rather a lot of Sherpa in her, in that she made it to the summit without any nasty effects from altitude. David found he had rather less in Hillary in him that he thought as he was gasping for breath with a painful, pounding heart and dead legs. But we made it and in the bitter cold of minus 20 degrees Celsius we stood and celebrated with the additional joyous feeling of actually being the first to the
The Team
The porters, chef and guide that got us to the top. summit that day from all 10 routes.
After that it was all downhill, literally, for two days. Tracey found this worse than the uphill as having to wear two thick pairs of socks made her boots to tight and her toes got horribly crushed. (A few days later both her big toes would swell up and turn black)
We got to the bottom and to a waiting car at around 1pm on the 6th day. Once again our team was there before us and a final celebration meal and some certificates were waiting for us. We were then delivered back to Arusha to sleep like volcanoes.
Paradise on earth
Two days later we set off by bus to our self congratulatory "reward location" of Zanzibar, via Dar Es Salaam. Dar is the unofficial capital and is a huge modern city of many millions. We stayed one night in a YMCA and then boarded an early ferry to the island of Zanzibar. After 90 (vomit free) minutes we arrived in Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar and a place steeped in a more than a thousand years of history, including being at the centre of the
Paradise found
The east coast of Zanzibar African slave trade.
This place was nice enough but when you go to Zanzibar you are really going for the beaches so we picked a place on the other side of the island and headed off for a few days RnR. We won't even try to describe how beautiful this place is, just look at the picture.
So finally, while lying on beach in pure heaven we have made our next important decision…. Where to spend Christmas? We have decided to go to a place called Likoma Island in Lake Malawi. The only problem is, there is only ONE ferry a week that takes you there and it leaves at 8pm tomorrow night from a port in Malawi that is a VERY long way from here.
So without exaggeration, our bags are packed, we're publishing this blog and then running out the door.
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