Kilimanjaro

 

After starting our summit bid at 12:07 AM we made it to the summit of Kilimanjaro at 8:50 AM on February 17th!  It was a long, long, long ways up.  Sometimes it looked like the trail of headlamps both above us and below us was never ending.  Our hike from Gilman's point to the summit was amazing!  After battling rain, sleet, ice and snow for several days, we were greeting with clear skies for sunrise on the roof of Africa.  As we approached the summit, the snow was bright and the glaciers were spectacular.

The other 7 people in our group were all from the UK (4 friends from University and a mother celebrating her 50th birthday and her son).  We couldn't have asked for a better group and it was fun to make the summit together.  We picked up some favorite British that you might be hearing soon.  I will tell you that we took lots of "wee" breaks as we were hiking everyday.

It took a whole crew to get us up the mountain.  We were so happy to have such attentive people watching after us.  Our guides would pull down our hoods and tuck in our mittens while we were hiking.  Each morning we were awoken with hot water/coffee in our tents - not a service were used to having at home.  They also made sure we always had plenty of toilet paper in our 2 potty tents!   

Day after day we would ask our guides "Will it be sunny today?"  We didn't learn too quickly because the answer was always "For sure [long pause] the weather is unpredictable on the mountain."  Other common guide sayings are:  

"Eat.  Eat more!"  (What do you do when 9 grown adults refuse eat eggs for yet another breakfast?) 

"Twende, twende, twende (even when there is no place to twende to)."

"Walk faster (actually very rarely said) there is another herd of buffalo (bad weather) coming."

In some ways, the hike down and out felt longer than the hike up.  Just to remind us who makes the rules (The Mountain first and the guide second) after leaving our last campsite under clear blue skies, Kilimanjaro let us have rain, hail and trails turned to rivers for our hike out. 

Our adventure on Kilimanjaro is something we will never forget.  We feel so lucky to have made it to the summit together!  Now we are off to Zanzibar to end our vacation on the beach.