Majestic

Well, what an amazing 8 days it was. As the sole trekker, I have been spoilt rotten by a wonderful group of 10 strong, generous & funny men (all of whom were calling me 'dada' meaning sister by the 3rd day). These men basically constructed, dismantled and moved a village - consisting of kitchen, mess, toilet and sleeping tents - on a daily basis simply so that I could climb a mountain. A very humbling experience indeed. Without their incredible hard work, I would not have summitted Kilimanjaro on the morning of December 12 :-)

Most of my favourite moments from the trek relate to my Tanzanian brothers. From sitting in the dining tent by myself listening to the animated conversations, singing & laughter coming from the kitchen tent where the boys were all hanging out. I couldn't understand a word of it but the passion & animation often made me smile. That every time I undid a zipper on the dining tent or my sleeping tent at camp in the evenings, someone would poke their head out of the kitchen tent to check on me & to find out whether there was anything I needed. The laughter & amusement that my attempted conversations in Swahili produced; it seems very few trekkers make any attempt to learn anything other than 'jumbo' (hello) or 'pole, pole' (slowly, slowly) which is the catch-cry of trekking on Kili. One of the porters in particular was fascinated by the fact that a mzungu (white) girl could speak some Swahili slang!

I think I now know what Queen Liz experiences. The food was fantastic and copious; fresh mangos taste even better at 4,500m when its snowing! Heck, I even had my own 'throne'. On the treks I've done in Nepal, the toilet at camp has consisted of a tent over a hole in the ground. Something I am now very comfortable with. So you can probably imagine my surprise when I opened the toilet tent at the first camp & discovered my own 'throne' - a bucket placed underneath a stand complete with a wooden seat! I couldn't help feel a touch embarrassed when I realised that it was the job of one of the porters to, um, tender to my throne ;-)

Kilimanjaro is actually 3 dormant or extinct volcanoes. The summit, Uhuru Peak (meaning freedom in Swahili), is located on Kibo which was the last of the 3 to become dormant. My trek started near Shira which was the first to become dormant (about 500k years ago). After Shira became dormant, the ash cone ultimately collapsed (as happens on all dormant volcanoes) creating a crater. Kibo continued to erupt & the lava flow from Kibo ultimately filled the Shira crater causing a massive flat plateau. For the first 2 days we trekked across and around the beautiful & barren Shira plateau including climbing up a hill on the edge of the plateau which would once have been part of the wall of the crater. From there, we skirted around Kibo first from the west before turning south & ultimately climbing it from the south-east. While you can climb Kili in as little as 5 days (IMHO you are asking for altitude sickness if you attempt this!), I deliberately chose this route as it took 8 days meaning I had the best chance of acclimatising to the altitude. It also meant that we were able to get off the main 'highway' (and at times it does resemble a highway) and into places near Kibo that are rarely visited.

As I have mentioned before, it is the 'short rains' season at the moment so the weather on the mountain was inclement - generally the early mornings were clear but by 9.30-10am, the mist rolled in closely followed by clouds obscuring the view for most of the day. But the weather certainly didn't detract from the experience; I can, for example, confirm that it does snow in equatorial Africa! We walked through the falling snow for about 2 hours on day 4 of the trek & arrived to find our campsite covered with snow. My brain had trouble processing the fact that I was in Africa, not Nepal!

Summit day was like all summit days - long, exhausting, hard work & absolutely worth the effort! I was woken at 11pm and we left our camp at 4,600m for the long climb to the summit at midnight. By 6.15am I was standing at 5,895m on the roof of Africa! The weather was good; although there was a cold wind, the sky was clear and the view extraordinary! The word 'majestic' comes to mind when I think about the summit. I've seen massive glaciers in Nepal before. And the glaciers on Kibo are small in comparison (then again everything is small in comparison to the Himalayas!). But the fact that the glaciers sit imposingly by themselves amidst the dark rocks, dirt, shale & scree on a dormant volcano is an incredible contrast. I really struggle to find the right words to describe it. So y'all will have to come & experience it for yourself :-)

I arrived back in my 'hometown' of Arusha yesterday afternoon. But there is not much rest; tomorrow I head off on a 3 day safari before (sadly) leaving this amazing country & its beautiful people.