Day 6 - Friday 8th September - High Camp to Mweka Gate – 12km – 4 to 5 hours and on to Keys Hotel, Moshi

                              A Photo Of Kilimanjaro taken in the 60's

                                         No Global Warming??

As we had stopped at High Camp and not Mweka, which is on the edge of the rain forest we had a one and half hour’s hike to Mweka, which was not bad although Alan's knees were still complaining.

 We hit the rain forest almost immediately and it was steep, wet, muddy, slippery and although there were steps in some parts they were just a distance too far for our poor, complaining knees and every step sent sharp pains from knee to brain and back again, it was one of those “brain tells knees and knees tell brain you know what you can do, don’t you” one had to concentrate on every step you took or you would end up on your backside, which we did several times. We tried everything, using one hiking pole, using two hiking poles, using no hiking poles, going straight down the path, going down the drainage ditch, running (you must be joking), walking, crawling and slip-sliding whatever we did it hurt and it was probably the longest 4 hours of our lives.

 Denise led the way on this last section with Stephen, I decided pole-pole was still the best policy even though we were in descent and Dowson and I had a good talk about everything from Tanzania politics to the fauna and flora of  Mount Kilimanjaro, it was on this section that we spotted Colobus Monkeys’ and quite a lot of bird life.

      

Routes Up and Down Kilimanjaro Ours was Umbwe UP and Mweka Down

                                               Kilimanjaro September 2006

We checked in at Mweka Rangers office at Mweka Gate. Denise has gone way ahead like the horse who can smell the stable. Dowson and Alan come around a corner and he thinks he must be hallucinating as he sees a pink path and it was bright pink; it seems the bricks were made that way as they were not painted.

we collected our summit certificates and started on the last leg to Mweka Village where we are met by a vehicle to take us to Keys Hotel in Moshi.

 It is difficult to describe the feelings at the end of this adventure, if anything it was a mixture of emotions, joy, relief, happiness, pleasure, and others.

 We had covered 53 km over 6 Days and had climbed the highest Mountain in Africa a feat that only 65% of those who start actually complete, we felt it was quite an achievement. Our next stop is down to Mombasa where we would have a few days to recover on the beach, absolute bliss.

 Back at Keys Hotel in Moshi, we could not wait to have a hot shower and change our clothing, which in the main we had been wearing for 6 days. The shower, which left a lot to be desired in terms of water pressure was like heaven. We had arranged with our team to meet for dinner and sundowners and take the opportunity to thank them for the successful ascent and more importantly the descent because we would not have made it without them.

Day 5 – Thursday 7th September - Barafu Hut to Uhuru Peak at 5895m – 5km 7 to 8 hours and return to High Camp 10km – 4 to 6 hours

                             The final ascent and a very slippery one

Midnight arrived all too soon and bleary-eyed we assembled for our final ascent to the peak of Kilimanjaro. As we looked up the mountain, we could see the lights of climbers high up on the Machame route and others who had used Barafu Hut as their final base camp and had got away earlier than us.

 We are again warned that we should go “Pole Pole” slowly, slowly, as though we had a choice and were in danger of sprinting up the final leg. We were also reminded that if at any time we felt sick, bad headaches, or hallucinations we should ask to come down the mountain and one of the guides would accompany us. I said to Denise it is only 1195 meters “what could go wrong”

 This part of the climb, in the dark, was quite daunting, but we could see the dancing lights of the climbers ahead of us, but at no time did they appear to get closer.

 It was a test of our concentration and putting one foot ahead of the other was hard. Alan was the first to feel the effects of altitude sickness and desperately needed a drink of water, alas his water was frozen, but Denise charmed a fellow climber who gave us water from his bottle, I still do not know why his had not frozen as well, but what a relief. Alan was not going to give up as he was thinking to himself, how he had pulled up with 5 kilometres to go in the Comrades Marathon, that sad thought kept him going and he must have walked through the worst. There is a lot of loose shale-like rock and we often slipped and fell. The other plus was being able to motivate each other to continue.

 Our first target is Stella Point and we are told that if we reach there we need to go no further as we would be credited with having reached the top. We had been climbing for some 5 hours when our guide said "Here comes the sun" It was a sight for sore eyes, but when asked how much further, our guide tells us we still have another hour to Stella Point, the beauty of the sunrise was not fully appreciated nor was another hour scrambling up this mountain. However, we pushed on and at this stage, Denise is starting to feel the effects of altitude sickness, now it is Alan's turn to cajole and encourage her.

 It is well after sunrise when we finally reach Stella Point and we have to decide whether we should continue to Uhuru Peak, I argued that we had come so far and we would not have a second chance and it looked quite an easy stroll along a ridge with little climbing to do, in fact, a climb of 170 meters and a distance of just over 1 kilometre, Denise was feeling unwell and said we had conquered the mountain, but bless her she agreed to continue.

 Now we were seeing a number of other climbers, some looking like hell and others like they were on a pleasant hike in the Lake District of England, we fell somewhere in between. In all honesty, we looked like glazed toffee apples with our faces covered in a mixture of snot and sweat. This last leg took us nearly one hour, at the coast it would probably take us 10 minutes.

The views are spectacular and we share some as follows:-              

                                           Close-up of the Fire Pit 

    The edge of the Fire Pit and Crater

                                                     The Glacier            

                                        Another View of the Glacier

                      The Glacier Wall look at the People walking in front

               With a monumental effort, we reach Uhuru Peak the highest point on Kilimanjaro, credit to Denise she walked through her altitude sickness, in fact, she was urging other climbers to keep going. You have a very limited time at the summit as there are many climbers who want their photos taken and our guides were concerned about our resilience to the dreaded altitude sickness and we had a tricky descent to cope with. 

              Alan and Denise at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro the Roof of Africa

                                                        Uhuru Peak

                                  Denise With definite proof she made it

     We passed quite a number of climbers as we started our descent and our guide said we were a bit behind time and would stop at High Camp instead of all the way to Mweka, which we were to appreciate. The going was not easy, but at least all signs of altitude sickness disappeared after 30 minutes.

However, we were faced with the jarring of the knees and ankles as we descended and our lesson here is that if you have any issue with any of your joints the descent will find them and Alan wished he had a prosthetic knee in the right leg as well. It was a long day, we picked up the gear we had left at Barafu Camp and pressed on with little rest. 

After some formalities and negotiations with the authorities at High Camp, we were allowed to stay. We were not privy to what they explained to get us to stay the night, probably said Alan was dying and he looked it and felt it.

We had a good meal although it took a lot of cajoling to get Alan to eat, all he wanted to do was sleep, but the guides said it was important that he eat something.

It was a long day and we were delighted that it was over and tomorrow we would be back in civilisation. 

Day 4 - Wednesday 6th September - Karanga Valley to Barafu Hut at an altitude of 4700m – 4km – 4 to 5 hours

                                                Karanga Valley to Barafu Camp

Another short hike of 4 hours with a climb of 500 metres up to Barafu Hut, Barafu in Swahili means Ice, the base camp area is where three of the routes up Kili converge, before the final assault on the summit. As we would be starting our ascent at around 23h00 we would again try to have a rest, but like yesterday it was hot and very noisy, I should say at this point that if it was not for our sleeping pills we would have had a difficult time sleeping on the whole trip so we decided to use them again even though we would only have 4 to 5 hours sleep.

 We asked Stephen what time we would start the climb, he thought 22h00 was optimum, what did he know that we did not? We negotiated a 24h00 start as we felt a reasonable amount of sleep was imperative. The strain on the old body was starting to take its toll, Alan was wearing both strapping and knee supports on both knees by now, but his prosthetic knee was holding up well and the strapping was just a precaution. Denise was in good spirits and raring to go.

 I must say before we started on this trip, we both saw ourselves conversing a lot, Denise suggested that I read the De Vinci Code and then we could talk about it and debate the theories, well I read the book, but we never discussed one paragraph, let alone a chapter. One is so focused on the climb, eyes down concentrating on the next step and constantly talking to oneself, we hardly held a conversation between ourselves whilst hiking, but our guides and porters surely made up for our silence, I was amazed at what they found to talk about for hours on end, Charles our waiter would have done an Irishman who had kissed the Blarney Stone proud.

Only now did we realise the popularity of Kilimanjaro as many of the routes up and down the mountain converged on this base camp

Before having our nap, we had to prepare all our clothes and equipment for the final day and pack the balance of our gear for our descent, we were told we would be able to have a short rest on the way down.

 We got all our clothing ready that we were not sleeping in and checked our lights, and batteries for the camera made sure we had spares as they do not like the extreme cold, and filled up our water bladders with hot water as we were warned our water would freeze even though it was close to our bodies in the backpack. Little did we know how important that water was to be to us on our final ascent. The trick is to wear all your clothes and peel off layers, as you got hot or add them when you got cold. Gloves today were essential and we had chemical heaters that slide into pockets in the back of the gloves and keep your hands warm for a whole day and most importantly a headlamp.

Day 3 - Tuesday 5th September - Barranco Wall to Karanga Valley at an altitude of 3500m 5km – 4 to 5 hours

 

                                                                   The Barranco Wall

                                  
                                             A scramble is an under statement 

 

It was a good news and bad news day, today, the bad news was we had to climb up 500 metres to get over the Barranco Wall, we named it “the climb from hell”, near the top you have the "kissing rock" so named, I guess, because you made it, but in fact you are standing on a ledge less than a metre wide and a drop of 500 metres, do not look down, and you have no choice but to kiss the rock as you squeeze by. 

The good news is, it will only be a 5 hour climb and we should be at our next camp, Karanga Valley, for lunch, at least we did not have to carry our lunch. There was still more bad news that at that time we were not aware of. One of the reasons for the Karanga Valley stop was to give us more time to acclimatize by spending an extra day over 4000m

 The morning was bitterly cold and rolling up and packing our sleeping bags and getting our down jackets back into their bags was a major challenge, who would think such a large item could fit in such a small carrier bag, well mine did not and was packed half in and half out.

 The climb up the wall, nearly sent us up the wall, we had virtually been on our own for two days, and we were now joined by groups taking the Machame route with climbers of all Nations, the worst, not surprisingly, being the Americans, we could not wait to get ahead of these groups who knew everything and made sure everyone within 100m was enlightened accordingly.

 We are now in the Alpine Desert, hills and plains of lava boulders that the locals called “Maui Mingi” (Many Rocks). Whilst it was a comparatively short hike today, because of the strenuous climbing, we were urged to carry as much water as possible so we both had two litres in our backpack bladders. In addition to a wet suit (trousers and jacket), snacks, gaiters, sunscreen, camera, binoculars, and medication.

 

                                              

                                       Maui Mingi (Many Rocks)

The climb was very tough and it was important not to look down as vertigo was a real possibility and I doubt anyone would survive a fall. Denise fell three times, but luckily downhill slips or tripping over boulders, the terrain demanded total concentration, which is difficult when you are exhausted.

 The bleakness and vastness of this part of the mountain is difficult to describe and it is only the beauty of Kilimanjaro itself that ensures that you do not get too depressed.

We saw the benefit of having the right clothes today and the meaning of a new word to us “wicking” which means repelling perspiration instead of trapping it in the clothes.

 A lot of groups were going right through to Barafu Hut today, which is the base camp. Denise and I were very grateful that we were taking the extra day to acclimatize, especially when we came across the sting in the tail, testing climb out of the Karanga Valley to the campsite. Stings in the tail seem to be the order of the day on this trip

 On arrival at the camp, we were greeted with another gourmet meal, quite incredible achievement by Charles our chef. For the first time, we had an afternoon to relax, because tomorrow we would get very little sleep, we thought we would try and have a nap, but for a place that can get so cold, it can also get very hot especially when you try to sleep in a very small tent.

Day 2 - Monday 4th September - Umbwe Caves to Barranco Wall at an altitude of 3850m – 6km- 4 to 5 hour

 

This stretch should have taken us 5 hours, but we managed it in 7 hours 15 minutes, just enjoyed the scenery so much!! Had it rained as much as the first day it would have taken us 9 hours. It was a very tough climb along mountain ridges, which in places were no more than a metre wide with 200-metre drops on either side, but very densely forested that for most of the time you did not know the drops were there, thank goodness.

                                                           

Impatiens Kilimanjari

                                                            

 Old Mans Beard

                                                           

                                                                        Everlasting

                                                                   

                                                                        Heather

                                      Moorland with Giant Groundsels in the foreground

                                                                           and 

                                  a different view of Kilimanjaro in the background      

Mid-morning, we came out of the rain forest into Heather, but the change was so sudden that it looked like a line had been drawn and the different vegetation had agreed that they would not encroach on the other's territory. We came from a world of Old Man’s Beard, about ten varieties of ferns, Camphorwood as big as 40 metres and a girth of up to 8 metres, Lemonwood, Wild Poplar and Podo (Yellowwood) trees, flowers like Kilimanjaro Gladioli (“Busy Lizzy”) Forest Moss and creepers to a world of heather, fynbos, conifers, everlasting flowers, red hot pokers, mountain thistle, ancient 9-metre endemic giant Groundsel’s like the Senecio Johnstonii and Senicio Vulgaris, Giant Lobelia, which can grow as high as a giraffe, to name but a very few. Soon after this vegetation change, we came around a corner and there was Kilimanjaro resplendent before us with no cloud to hide her beauty and she kept us company for the rest of the day.

                                                                 Groundsel Flower

 At the 6-hour mark, I had my first mental challenge when we could see the Barranco camp and when I asked our guide how much longer, Stephen said “Bado kidogo” (a little while), when pressed for real-time he reluctantly said at least another hour, just the thought of another hour, now that was a mental challenge!

 The closer we got to the camp the bleaker and rockier the terrain became, but the saving grace was the views of the mountain, the glaciers and the peak.

 At last, we get to camp right beneath the great mountain and to our right as we looked at Kili was the Barranco Wall it was just that, but not your commoner garden wall, a massive rock wall nearly 500metres high, that Stephen tells us we have to scale and he adds we will need our gloves tomorrow as there will be a lot of scrambling and it will be very cold and the rock is very rough and sharp, pleasant thoughts to go to bed with.

 At around 17h00 the cloud came down, or rather up the mountain and it became very cold our noses, feet and hands gave us a clear message, “wrap up warm tonight or else” surprising that we did not have nightmares that night, one advantage of being totally exhausted.

 Three birds have adapted to the climatic conditions and rely heavily on the climbers for their daily rations, they are the White Neck Raven, the Alpine Chat and the Seed Eater, and you will also see Bearded Vultures and Lammegai’s riding the thermals.

The end of day 2, to bed exhausted.

Day 1 - Sunday 3rd September - Umbwe Gate to Umbwe Caves - altitude 2950m – 11km – 5 to 7 hours

 

 

 Despite clothes rationing, we were still slightly over the prescribed porters carrying a load of 15kgs. We checked our Mombasa holiday suitcase into the baggage room at the hotel. We also checked in our passports, cash for safekeeping, and our air tickets for onward trip confirmation by the hotel receptionist.

 Moshi is 900m above sea level and is one of the key staging points for climbing Kilimanjaro on a number of routes.

 We were scheduled to depart by Landrover at 09h30, but Africa time came into play and we left at 10h30 for Umbwe gate.

 Again, we thought the gods were sending us a message when on the way we were unable to get past a truck that was stuck in the mud on the narrow road, and of course, there were a dozen experts telling the driver what to do, which did not help matters.

 After half an hour Denise tells me she has to go. There are a lot of small-scale farmers on the lower slopes of Kili, growing coffee, vegetables, mealies, and the like so Alan visits one of these and asks the owner if Denise can use his toilet, and he was delighted to oblige, We gave him consideration for the favour with which he was further delighted. Denise said the facility was immaculate and very clean.

 We arrive at Umbwe gate at 11h30 and there is a lot of activity with local ladies being hired to carry water up to our first campsite, the Umbwe Caves. The first check is that of porter loads, we were very relieved when our bags were found acceptable after considerable haggling between the Guides and the authorities, for the record we weighed our backpacks and found them to be +/-8kgs and to our surprise, Denise was also found to be carrying the same weight so we had nothing to complain about. Each Porter carries +/- 25kgs on head, in hand, and on their backs. Our team consisted, of a guide, Stephen, and an assistant guide, Dowson, who was qualifying for his guide certificate in 3 months’ time, but doubled up as a porter. Cook - Wilson, Waiter - Charles, Porters - Barranca, and Mzee.

 

                    The start of the climb a hive of activity

                                          at Umbwe Gate

 

In addition to our gear they had to carry tents, tables, chairs, food, fuel, as well as their own personal effects and on many days water as well, on some days the porters would do the trip twice, once with all the gear and a second one for water. There we were, on occasions, battling to do a single trip, with our massive 8kgs and tired bodies.

 After a lot of shouting, well wishes, good-natured banter, and jokes among our team, the guides, cook, porters, and the local inhabitants, we eventually get underway just after 12h00 noon. The initial hike was on an old logging road into the rain forest and we are told we should take 6 hours for this stretch to Umbwe Caves, which is at an altitude of 2950m. At 14h00 we stop for a packed lunch prepared by the hotel, half of which we shared with the porters who were fast overtaking us.

 Soon after lunch we hit the path and go into a steep climb, encountering some rain, which makes the climb somewhat slippery. The rainforest is very dense with thick vegetation and some magnificent trees. We very soon saw why they called it a tropical rainforest. We also see a lot of flowers, but there is a notable apparent lack of animal life even birds were scarce, it was very quiet and all you could hear was our heavy breathing and the raindrops falling in the undergrowth.

 

                                          Rain Forest Day 1         

In fact, there is still a lot of game in the Kilimanjaro National Park, it is reported that there are +/- 220 elephants now compared to 1000, twenty years ago and they have been sighted at 3000m altitude, in addition, there are leopards and monkeys.

 The climb was tough and we arrived at our campsite after 5 hours and 45 minutes fairly exhausted, but with a sense of achievement and we thought if it is all like this we should not have a problem, little did we know.

 As we entered camp Denise said she could smell popcorn, Alan thought, is it possible she is hallucinating, as we were told it is one of the signs of altitude sickness and according to our guides often led to the decision to descend, a short time later we are greeted by two German climbers who were eating popcorn. They were very surprised to see a woman on this route and asked Denise what was her heart’s desire, to which she replied a nice hot shower, a full body massage, and a glass of wine to go with the popcorn, they replied ”shame you will only get one wish granted and that will be the popcorn”

 Our first night on the mountain was a night of discovery, firstly the size of the tent, it was a mission in itself to get down and in and even harder to get up and out, and as the journey went on this event almost became “mission impossible” as our knees and backs began to take the strain. We then had to prepare our sleeping bags, the inner sheet, and our clothes for the next day.

We had our daily briefing from our guide, Stephen, on what to expect the next day, prepare our water bags by dosing the water with chlorine tablets and disguising the taste with a flavouring energy drink powder like Game, although we did not find the straight water with the chemical all that bad, it must be the acquired taste from our RSA municipal water supplies.

                               

                                               Two man Tents

Other discoveries included, the long drop toilet, which was just a slot in the ground, with no seats. We only learned how to aim straight in the squatting position on the last day and by then we could hardly balance, obviously lots of climbers before us were also bad aimers as there were brushes and water to clean up after you have done your business. The signal to tell others that the loo was occupied seemed to vary at each camp, one had a hook on which you could hang your jacket, and in another a bucket was placed right in the entrance, another tactic was to use the broom strategically placed across the entrance. We did see, a climbing group who had a proper canvass sit-down loo as part of the porter’s load, we thought it a bit much, but I sure would have loved to use it although the cold did not encourage one to linger in the loo.

 One of Denise’s bright ideas came into use today and was to prove a godsend in days to come, Wet Wipes, they at least allowed us not to offend those with sensitive noses and a keen sense of smell.

 Whilst there were no showers, we did get two bowls of hot water, no bigger than a large soup bowl, in the morning and the evening. Our waiter Charles would call out “water for bath” Were we disappointed the first time we saw our “bath water”

 What was truly amazing was what came out of our kitchen courtesy of Wilson our cook/porter, pre-dinner snacks of popcorn or roasted peanuts, choice of coffee, tea, or Milo. For dinner on day one, for example, we had a three-course meal of fresh leek soup, beef stew, potatoes, spaghetti and spinach, and sweet Tanzania bananas for dessert. Every day we had one gourmet meal in the evening a cooked breakfast, porridge, fruit, eggs Fried, omelette, scrambled, and packed lunch, they say you lose your appetite at high altitudes, but our food was so well cooked and presented that we did not lose our appetite at all.

 Another discovery was how to get comfortable in our sleeping bags, utilising our down jacket bag as a pillow and sleeping in most of our clothes for the following day. The tent only just accommodated two people and our personal kit bags and our backpacks. We also had to keep our boots in the tent otherwise they would freeze up overnight.

Day 1 is complete and full of learning, only five more days. 

Our Kilimanjaro Adventure - Saturday 2nd September - Nairobi to Moshi (Kilimanjaro Airport)

 

 Following an excellent breakfast at the Fairview we lugged all our baggage to reception, having split all our goods and chattels between Kilimanjaro and our Mombasa holiday, grossly overweight despite us wearing our hiking boots.

 Surprise, surprise there was our shuttle, on time and ready to go.

 Unfortunately, good luck and good news ran out at Nairobi’s Embakasi airport when we were informed that we were wait-listed with 9 other passengers, it was time to throw my weight around. I should have learnt by now that is not the way to go about things in “Africa” and after 45 frustrating minutes they tell us that they had loaded the wrong size plane on their system, what do they say “Garbage in, garbage out” all’s well that ends well, and it turned out there were lots of empty seats, good for us, some 20kgs overweight. We eventually depart for Kilimanjaro Airport, which is situated halfway between Arusha and Moshi in Tanzania at 09h30.

 

                                 Arial View of Kilimanjaro Crater

We flew close to Mt Kilimanjaro and some 2000m below the summit, partly covered in clouds, but with a very different view of this magnificent mountain. Our transport is waiting at Kilimanjaro Airport to take us on a 45-minute trip into Moshi where we were to stay for one night, at the not too salubrious Keys Hotel, but it was basic but quite clean, something we were to really appreciate on our return trip.

 On arrival at the Hotel we took a walk into Moshi town and generally tried to wind down and also tire ourselves out so that we slept well on our last night in civilization, I doubt Moshi has changed much in the last 40 years, the people are very friendly and clearly Kili tourists bring a lot into the local economy and are appreciated.

 

                        Kilimanjaro overlooking Moshi Town 

On getting back to the hotel we are told our guides are there to give us a briefing, we hear later that they are assessing us, our preparation, our interests, and our backgrounds so that they know what to show us and tell us about en-route. They are very surprised that Alan can converse in Swahili, and we think it served us in good stead over the next 7 days. Our first impressions of our guides Stephen and Dowson are favourable and we start to realize we are a few hours away from the start of our adventure that we have been preparing for over the last 4 months we agree that we are now getting excited, however still a little apprehensive, we guess it is the fear of the unknown.

 We have an early supper, with a view to an early night and a good night’s sleep but, we had not factored in heat, mosquitoes, noise, and our adrenalin levels, however, we did eventually drop off, and all too soon morning was there and after a good breakfast we are rearing to go.

Our Kilimanjaro Adventure - The Vision

                                                 

Our Kilimanjaro Adventure

The Vision and Preamble 

          Before we start this Blog we have to tell you where it all started, where did we get this crazy urge to climb the highest mountain in Africa. Also, for the record the 25^thhighest peak in the world at 5,895m, Only!! 2955m below Mt Everest summit, which tops out at 8850metres and 595m higher than Everest base camp. 

Kili as it is affectionately known is the highest freestanding mountain in the world and was first summited by Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller in October 1889. Now as many as 30,000 visitors set foot on the mountain each year most attempting to reach the top, Uhuru peak.

 Alan spent his formative years in Tanganyika and often was impressed at the marvel and splendour of Kilimanjaro when passing by road or by Air, the latter he has done 4 times a year for the past 3 years and I guess it was that, which got to him, Denise and colleagues in the African Operations team of African Oxygen talking about climbing this “mountain of the people” described as such because all you, allegedly need, is warm clothing, good hiking boots and one or preferably two walking sticks and of course a good guide. 

 The talking about the climb probably started at the beginning of 2006 if not earlier, but alas, it appeared that talking was all we were going to do. As winter started in South Africa, Denise and I decided that if we really want to go, and by the way that is very important, “really want to go” we had better make our reservations, regrettably our colleagues and friends could not make it or declined for reasons best known to themselves. Discussions with Wild Frontiers in Johannesburg commenced and we opted for September, which we were advised was a good time to make our attempt.

 We then had to decide on the route we would take as there are several, Alan has to take responsibility for the route choice, Denise thinks it was because it was the hardest that he chose the Umbwe Route, but in all honesty, Alan says it was because it was the shortest and the travel blurb said it was the most beautiful.

  The truth is the route is the least used, least crowded. For good reason, it is also the most difficult route on the mountain, it is a steep, constant, almost straight climb to the top. Umbwe is mostly avoided because the ascent profile does not give climbers much time to adjust to the altitude and as such the success rate is very low, it goes on to say, it is for those who want a challenging climb and are confident in their ability to trek over consistently steep slopes and able to meet a punishing schedule, as well as for those who are experienced climbers at altitude. All the recommended attributes were only discovered after we had booked our safari and we doubt we were qualified to attempt this route, other than living in Johannesburg and the fact that we had done a fair amount of training, including some hikes in the Drakensberg mountains, but we certainly did not realistically fit the profile. The success rate on this route is 60%. 

I must at this stage confess that not all the photos in the Blog are ours, what happened was that on our return to Johannesburg, we were burgled and Alan's camera and laptop were stolen and a lot of our photos went with them, as they had not been downloaded on a portable hard drive. Fortunately colleagues from another division of Afrox who climbed after us gave us a download of their photos for which we are forever grateful.

Another confession is that this adventure took place in September 2006 and we are only now putting it into a blog as it is the best format to have a travel book printed from so that the memory can be easily accessible.

           Above gives some idea of the terrain on the ascent                       

                                Where is Mount Kilimanjaro

 

Unfortunately, or perhaps I should say fortunately, we could not attend a talk on Kilimanjaro arranged by Wild Frontiers in June and could only get to it in August, well after we had to commit to the reservation, I think there is a distinct possibility we may not have gone on the adventure at all if we had made the June talk.

  The young and obviously very fit representative from Wild Frontiers had made the trip 6 times by various routes claiming he was inherently lazy and told us the more unfit and we think, he said, the older you are the more chance you have of making it. His logic was that young fit people were always in a hurry and as a consequence ascended too fast and got mountain sickness, severe headaches, hallucinations, and often had to descend before reaching the summit.

 That was not all, he continued, any reasonably fit person who enjoys walking can reach the summit, after all the youngest to make it was 9 years old, a lot of good that piece of useless information was and the oldest was 79 years old, now we are talking. He goes on to tell us that people have died on the mountain, but it is a very small percentage, 10 per annum!! The biggest challenge he says, would be our mental strength, and here we were, thinking we were already mental. Sticking to the guide's instructions, was very key if we wanted to succeed, one of the instructions being “pole, pole” meaning “slowly, slowly” in Swahili, and we were to learn the wisdom of these words, but in truth, we do not think we could have gone much faster anyway, Denise termed our walk the “Kilimanjaro Shuffle” and when we got down to Mombasa after the climb we found we could not emulate it, we just could not go slow enough at sea level.

 Although we had started to train for our climb having got some good advice from the travel agent on strength-building exercises. After the talk, we thought we had better do a lot more and so we were doing aerobic and anaerobic work every day with some reasonable hikes at the weekends, or so we thought. We can say had we not done what we did, we would not have been writing this account and Kilimanjaro would not have been a successful adventure.

 One fortunate outcome of our weekend walks was to find out that Denise had a problem with her left foot, which after about 2 to 3 hours, was very painful. So off to a podiatrist she went, who carried out a full analysis and for a small fortune came up with inserts for her boots to rectify the problem. The only hitch was, she had to go to work in her hiking boots if she was going to get used to the inserts in time for our climb, I guess it could have started a new fashion, it certainly took Afrox’s casual wear policy to a new level.

 We were equipped with a list of all the recommended equipment and told what we could hire from the travel agent I list these in an appendix at the end, but we will add other items that would have made life easier and delete nonessentials, in a nutshell, we took far too much and we will tell you why.

 It was great fun shopping for our gear, but the right equipment does not come cheap, but we are very glad we did not cut corners, it is just not worth it, warmth is key when temperatures get as low as minus 20 degrees C and they can drop from 0 degrees to minus 20 in half an hour, we were lucky, it only went down to minus 15.

 We arranged our trip to coincide with a BOC Kenya Board meeting Alan had to attend in Nairobi at the end of August and we scheduled Denise to arrive on Friday the 1 September and have a one-night stay in Nairobi at the lovely Fairview Hotel.

After the Board meeting, we received lots of good wishes and lots of luck from fellow Board members some of whom wished they had arranged to attempt the ascent of Kilimanjaro

 The day for Denise's arrival came and I was to pick her up at the airport after waiting some time, I seriously thought the “Gods” were sending us a bad omen, when Denise did not come through customs in Nairobi for a long time and then I see her, going from one baggage carousel to another, talking to various people looking very concerned and then disappearing from sight. Some 45 minutes later she comes through looking very relieved, it turned out that her baggage that included nearly all our climbing gear had been booked through to Kilimanjaro Airport and she had to make “Special! Arrangements” at a cost of US$4 to recover the bags, welcome to Africa Denise. 

That night we started to get excited or was it apprehensive, but a good meal out near the pool with a charcoal brazier to keep us warm and we were ready. The charcoal brazier is like a potjie pot sitting on a stand filled with hot charcoal coals,  which proved to be very effective.

So here we are all present and correct packed and ready to embark on the adventure of our lives.