TOP OF AFRICA:CLIMBING KILIMANJARO

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So I said to myself one day, well if I’m going to be in Tanzania then I might as well climb Kilimanjaro, little did I know what I was letting myself in for….

Having departed for deepest darkest Africa in June, I left Rick with the nausea of having to plan our trip up Kilimanjaro. This definitely left me with the ability to block out what a truly momentous undertaking it was going to be or to at least bury my head in the sand about it! So the day came, with a sore head, for me at least, following our escape from the rut celebration the night before! We had elected to do a route up Kilimanjaro called Shira and we were going to do it over 7 nights/8 days. The theory being the longer you take, the more acclimatized you become and the less chance of getting altitude sickness; a fairly common occurrence up there and boy did we witness it in other groups.

I will admit by day 3 of a gentle bimble, Rick and I were both chomping at the bit to just get on with it, the walking pace was deliberately kept really slow by our guides, part of the acclimatization process, but at times I felt like we were going backwards. In fact every day we did, as you always camped at a lower altitude than you had walked to that day! However, the views were absolutely stunning (I only have a few photos as most were taken on Ricks camera but hopefully you’ll get the right impression) and it is these that kept us from going totally mad, coupled with the people we were walking with. We had joined the walk with a group of 11 others, and though in theory we were on or own, we deliberately spent time with them whilst walking and in the evenings.

There’s not a lot more that can be said about the first 6 days, except that each day we slowly got higher and higher and each night the temperature got colder and colder, I ended up sleeping in full thermals, fleece and at one point my hat! We had a cook that did us proud with a 3 course meal for every meal; I haven’t eaten quite so much in a long time! Breakfast was usually outside and with the most stunning views of Kilimanjaro, possibly the best veranda in the world.

Day 6 saw us making camp at our base camp for the summit attempt. That night we left at 00.30 for the 6hr climb to be at the summit for sunrise. We were climbing vertically approx 1000m and by heck was it a killer. I am sure if not for the altitude it would have just been a hard climb, but with the constant headaches, lack of breath, dizziness (I was totally unable to stand upright unaided if we weren’t moving) I had doubts at some points I’d make it. But I did, and it was most definitely worth it, we had an absolutely stunning view of sunrise, and a wonderfully sunny and glorious day. It is pretty much indescribable how amazing the experience was and I’m sorry I’ve not got better pictures to show at this time.

The view from the Top of Africa was worth all the pain and though I would never do it again, I would recommend it as a sight to see no matter your age, our eldest team member was a woman of 59 and she did it…..

Well that's it for now, I'm heading out to Madagascar on 4th Oct, hopefully it wont take me quite as long to do the next update of my epic adventure.

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Comments

[Tim]

'Thats my girl'
Brilliant!