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.
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