Kilimanjaro

Well we made it to the top. All 5895m of it. No snow just the remnants of a few small glaciers. It took 6 days to reach the top and one to get down.
Nice views but very cold and probably one of the most expensive hikes we will ever do. More to follow once we have recovered!

I think we have recovered now in Zanzibar (but more about that later).
After spending a couple of days sorting out our tour with one operator who said we would be going with two english and canadian girls (amms wanted some girly company on the hike), he explained to us on the first morning that they were mysteriously in hospital and we were duly handed over to another tour operator (who we'd also been to see) to join 2 young 20 something german males!

We knew that the schedule up the mountain was too tight to acclimatise naturally, in fact we started walking on day 1 at midday and we were at the top of the mountain 4 days 19 hours later - a vertical height difference of 4200m - it is recommended to only gain 300m or so per day (600m max) above 3000m altitude. So we came prepared with our superpills (Diamox) which we took the whole hike. The germans said they knew better (one was a med student) and duly drunk a beer on the first evening!

The hike was very cruisy and luxurious. Alex enjoyed his first hike with porters carrying mess tents, sleeping tents, our pack, our food, tables and chairs even! For 4 clients we had 16 'crew' including a very obliging guide Samuel, an assistant guide, cook and 13 porters (1 of which acted as a waiter at dinner!).

After walking through the lower rainforest the guides told us to walk 'pole pole' (slowly) to give our bodies chance to acclimatise. The germans sped off and arrived in camp 40 mins before us. Two days later though, they were feeling the affects of their first beer and lack of superpill by throwing up, full on headaches, dizzyness - all signs of severe AMS (acute mountain sickness). In fact, the med student was so sick despite starting the diamox, that he had to descend the next day (with some porters in tow!).




After 4 days of pole pole, eating very well (3 course meals with lots of fresh food - better than we eat at home I think), we were feeling good for the summit push. It is popular (or maybe tradition) that one starts the summit hike at around midnight in order to reach the top at around sunrise. We weren't so keen on this idea but were roped into it by the guide. I think it might be so that you don't see all the rubbish and toilet paper strewn around on the ascent route! The down side of going in the night is it is extremely cold with windchill, exacerbated by the fact that you're moving very very slowly due to the altitude. After 7 hours of trudging we reached the top to see the sunrise and the low cloud covering the flat earth below - beautiful and quite an achievement. Photos were quickly taken as it was too cold to hang around too much there (its ironic that it can be so cold in Africa!).

Alex then zoomed down the scree run with one of the guides - one of the best in a long time!