kili

Kilimanjuro!

yes i did make it to the top of the worlds most under estimated mountain! It’s certainly harder than it sounds

a long (10hr) bus journey from Dar to Arusha proved uneventful despite hearing many stories. Although the bus had some scary under/over taking manoeuvre’s, it becomes obversous the driviers were playing a game of chicken during their head on moments, not to worry only 55 lives per bus were at risk!

The team met at the macheme gate, there was 14 of us, 9porters 2guides and 3 “climbers”. The other two climbers were guys from South Africa, Jean (aka grandma jean from Blackpool!) and Wayne. They were great company during the trip they explained in great depth the fundermentals of a SA brai (its serious bussienes!) and tiger was the mascot..

Despite being so disorganised and last minute i somehow managed to find everything needed for the climb. The last 2 nights in dar we had powercuts (48hrs yes) so packing was done in the dark, much needed water purification tablets, water bottle, suncream, snackts etc had to borrowed at the last min. And yet on the journey up my bag was on the roof which expierneced a little bit of rainfall so everything was mildely damp, a beautiful start!

The porters and guides were all really great company, typically we started to get to know each other with the usual English preimer league football club conversation. I apparitly looked very much like ronney! is that offensive?!!! Am i losing lots of hair and acting like a typical man u idiot??!! (i’d much prefere people thinking i look more like prince harry, beating bolt in the 100m i can’t be so bad)

It took us 6 days to get up the mountain and only 2 to get down again. But the altitude is a killer, the oxygen in the air gets so thin, eventually half the amount of oxygen compared to the sea floor level. So you have to take it so slowly to get up. So many days were actually half day of climbing with detours to explore other “secrects” of the mountain.

One day we were trecking up to the lava tower roughly 4800m, so this day i took one of the altitude sickness pills. Wow, it created the biggest- i mean THE biggest ever headache i have ever had, also felt so sleeply, in our mess tent where we stopped for lunch bang just feel asleep. I really felt horrible, that night i checked the bottle with the pills. It wasn’t the diamox(thingy) i asked for but something else (probably dads “academic” recommendation) but worse the name of the prescribed person was Mr S Thurely, now thats a pretty bad attempt of the family name or someone else’s pills, eveidence of having parents as doctors has more disadvantages then advantages!

The summit night (we got rid of the summit attempt as it was physiological disadvantage) we all got up at 11pm, got on enough clothing to make us look like zombies and climbed the finale 1200 vertical meters to the top. The first bit was a cool scramble in the dark, with only a head tourch and a little sunshine from our full moon we climbed the hill in the dark. 8hours of climbing uphill, we went pole-pole= slow slow (Swahili) literlay half a foot at a time all the way. I had my ipod for company but zinc air operated implant batteries died- with little oxygen the impland didn’t have the power to hear a thing. The future lets you down eh?

We got to the summit at about sunrise, a what a beautiful sight, some people belive that you could see all of Africa from the “roof of Africa!” nope, but you could see allot of the mountain, sunslight bounching of the glacier etc it was all so beautiful. We posed for our photo next to the infamous new sign. I was angry that the old cool battered sign had being replaced by a modern plastic ugly thing.

Now the decent, i was still wearing all my clothes from the cold weather (6ish layers) coming down a scree run, not much fun. The sun had come out and i was boiling up getting reidicoulsy hot and yet the water was still frozen from the summit so a heatstroke started. I wasn’t the only one, but at  least me and wayne managed to get escorted (unfortuantly we still had to walk!) down the mountain. A total of 14 hours climbing in one day- splendid.

3 weeks today before i fly back- unfortunately after mums big birthday!

Happy birthday sis#!

Simonx