Conquering Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

For the next couple legs of our trip my brother Jason is joining us! Jason arrived in early August and our first order of business was to tick a little something off our bucket lists in the form of the tallest mountain in Africa – Mt Kilimanjaro. Before tackling this 5895m monster Jason came and spent a few days at the orphanage with us to get to know some of the wonderful kids and to bring 2 massive, overflowing suitcases full of clothes, supplies, toys, etc. to the kids and aunties at Good Hope. Big thanks to my family in Canada who made generous donations to give all these people a little something extra! Everything went over amazing and everyone was very grateful!

Finally the time had arrived to make our attempt to conquer Kilimanjaro…… I don’t think any of us really knew what we were getting into!

Day 1: Starting Out

Pick up was at 9am at Good Hope and then it was off to the town of Moshi to the start gate of the Machame Route, our chosen path to Uhuru peak, the summit of Kilimanjaro.  After making stops for water, snacks and essential supplies (aka toilet paper) we arrived at the gate right around lunch time. While our guides and porters filled out paper work and weighted our supplies, we feasted on our lunch supplied in cute little lunch boxes, this was just a preview of the amazing meals got over the next 7 days.

After the paper work was done and supplies were divvied out across our crew, which consisted of a head guide, assistant guide, cook and 11 porters…….yup that’s right we had a 14 man crew to take the 3 of us up the mountain, we hit the trail.

Fresh faced starting out

The days trek was about 5 hours of pretty gradual uphill with a few more difficult parts, but all and all an easy day of walking. We made camp at 3000m, where after settling into our tents and washing up in the hot water basins supplied by our crew (nice touch), we feasted on popcorn, soup, bread, potatoes, veggies, chicken and mango! No wonder we needed 11 porters to carry all this stuff.  After dinner we chatted with our guides, Daniel and Joshua, for a while and they briefed us for the next day before we headed to bed.

Day 2: Steep but short

6:30am wake up & tea in the tent, 7:00 wash, 7:30 breakfast and 8:00 hit the trail loaded with our trusty lunch boxes. Day 2 was when they really started to drive POLE POLE into us. Pole pole means slowly in Swahili and you hear it non-stop while you are on the trail as many people forget that as you start to get into high altitude you can’t move at normal speed, there is just not enough air to use that kind of energy. Day 2 was filled with some pretty steep uphill but we ended early and by 2:15 we were resting comfortably at 3840m for the night.

Of our our porters on the trail 

Starting out on day 2

Jonny enjoying his lunch box

Day 3: Acclimatization

On day 3 I felt like absolute shit. I had woken up with a massive headache and all around lethargy that I just couldn’t shake. This was a day for acclimatization; we started the day by heading up to 4600m where we stayed for a while and ate our lunch boxes before heading downhill again to 3950m to camp for the night. Our campsite was buried deep in a valley and was amazingly picturesque but upon arrival I pretty much collapsed into our tent as the headache and fatigue got to me.  Luckily Jonny and Jason were still feeling good. After a couple Advil and a nap I had acclimatized and was feeling much better. At night we feasted again on a huge meal. With how much they feed us the first couple days it almost felt like they were fattening us up for the slaughter (in hindsight maybe they were).

Resting after lunch before our descent

My brother Jason washing up at camp

"The Wall" we had to face

One of our very large breakfasts

Day 4: The Wall

Day 4 started with us facing this massive rock wall that had been looming over our campsite. Around 8am after some tent side tea and breakfast we set off to conquer “the wall”. Turns out it looked a lot worse that it was and after only an hour of total uphill we had reached the top at 4200m. The rest of the day was pretty easy and gradual as days 3, 4 and 5 are meant to help us acclimatize and conserve energy for summit day. By 12:30 we had actual reached our camp for the night. We had a lunch and dinner feast this time, played some cards and then went to bed.

Getting ready to face the wall

Resting at the top of the wall with the team

Day 5: Base Camp

Another short day today to conserve energy for summit day and acclimatize since tonight we will be sleeping at our highest point, base camp at 4650m. That means we still need to get to 5895m and back before breakfast tomorrow! Day 5 was mostly uphill, but not killer and we pulled into base camp around 11:30am. Walking into base camp was like a scene out of some end of the earth movie, the landscape has no vegetation just shards of broken rock, no buildings just a sea of tent villages with some people manning the tents and other people looking like they had just come out of battle (these were the people who has just come down from the peak).

View of base camp

Jason and Jonny at Base Camp

View to the peak from base camp...... still so far!

Day 5 night/ Day 6: Summit Day

Bed time was early since the wake up time for starting our push to the summit was 11pm for our midnight start. I found myself in bed at 5:30pm, sun still shining in our tent, willing myself to fall asleep. No luck. Instead I found myself thinking of everything under the sun, including naming all the characters from Beverly Hills 90210 (original of course) to myself - I think I got them all including Jim and Cindy Walsh. Finally around 9pm I drifted off to sleep to be abruptly awoken at 11:10pm. After tea and a couple crackers we packed on our layers and started our ascent. They don’t serve a big breakfast before the summit because if you had that much food in you then you would puke.

Our ascent was estimated to take about 6-7 hours. Now we knew this was going to be hard, but nobody could have really prepared us for the actual level of difficulty. It’s a damn good think that you actually climb this thing in the dark because if I had seen this terrain in the light of day I would have taken 1 look and said HELL NO!

But like good troopers we set on our mission to conquer Kili one very Pole Pole step at a time. The 1^st hour was ok, the 2^nd was manageable but for me once3:30am hit I thought I was done for. By this point our guide had already started carrying my backpack because he could see I was struggling, and after needing to stop 3 times in under a min because I thought I was going to faint I really thought there was no way I was going to make it up. Our guide made the executive decision to split the so that I could go at my own pace. So with much trepidation Jonny and Jason headed on with the assist guide Joshua and I stayed with Daniel and Lison and summit porter.

Somehow I was able to continue on with wobbly steps, shallow breaths and many many stops, although the stops had to remain really short so we didn’t freeze to death, especially as you get close to the top the cold and wind can be vicious. The only way I can explain the cold is if you have ever spent 6 hours outside in Ottawa on a -30 wind-chill day when the wind is blowing so hard that it feels like it is slapping you in the face. That’s what it’s like.

Finally around 5:30 we reached Stella Point, the last major milestone before the peak, about an hour left! In most cases you would like that at this point adrenaline would just kick in but in my case my tank was so empty that the only thing keeping my going was repeating left, right, left, right in my head telling my feet to take steps. After a while I could see a peak in the distance…..I would make it! And just as the sun was about to rise too! Psych……not it. But after I hit the top of that peak I could actually see the real thing off in the distance about 100m (flat) away. Tears started to well up in my eyes partially because I knew I was going to make it and partially because I still wasn’t there!

 As I approached I found Jonny and Jason who had arrived about 10mins earlier. Jonny headed back to the peak with me while Jason and Joshua headed down. VICTORY!!! All this work for just 10mins at the top but really by the time we made it up there we just wanted to snap a few pics and get back to our tent lol. It sounds crazy but it was totally worth it.

Jonny and Jason at the peak 

Jonny and I celebrating at the top

At the top overlooking one of the glaciers with my note from the Good Hope kids

To add insult to injury after you have climbed all this way in the middle of the night you still need to head back down to base camp and then another 4 hours down on top of that.  After that we were at final camp and were 100% exhausted. We rested, said our goodbyes/thank you’s to our crew and then went to sleep before one last trek down on this journey.

Back at base camp after climbing down

Day 7: Finale

We hit the trail early on our last day so we could make it off the mountain and get safely into a bed where we could SLEEP! The last trek was about 3 hours downhill before making it to the exit gate. Hugs and high 5’s ensued as we finally crossed the finish line and signed the exit book (first ones of the day!). We hopped back on our bus for the hour long ride back to Arusha where we were dropped back off at Good Hope to reunite with the kids and then we very quickly went to BED!

Saying Goodbye to the entire crew

Just a few steps away from the end gate

Making a run for it at the end

We can safely say that we are incredibly proud and happy that we conquered Kilimanjaro and got to see all the amazing things along the way………….but we are NOT doing that again lol! Thanks to all the crew at Focus in Africa (http://www.focusinafrica.com/) and Jungle Adventure tours for getting us to the top!

OOO_Talia & Jonny