The ATM wasn't prepared to shell out three million shillings in one go, the 2.4 million we had managed to get our hands on was about twice the sixe of a brick. I think if my wallet could speak it would have expressed how inadequate it felt to find that it had been left on the bedside table while the daypack was promoted to money holder of choice.
The nice man accepted our passports as security and we were on our way to the gate a few minutes later.
The gate was bustling with people, not like Meru at all. There must have been 60 people planning to do the same route as us. On Meru there were 4 others. Still our guide (Mark) ran around and sorted all the paperwork and then in his perfect english sent us off on the trail with the assistant guide who speaks not a word of it. The assistant guide was called 'Leavin'. I wanted to make a joke about us leavin' but I could sense that I would be wasting my comedic skills.
Mark was supposed to catch us up in 5 minutes. after an hour and a half we had a lunch break. No sign of Mark. After Lunch Leavin set the pace at 'Snail'. An hour later Leavin stopped us about 5 minutes from the camp for an rest, he was clearly desperate for Mark to arrive with the park permit and a knowledge of English before we met the Rangers at the camp. After a 10 min break we set off again at 'snail negotiating stairs' speed.
We walked to the camp first of all through lush rain forest. This ended abruptly (around 3000m) and the vegetation turned to that which is only found above 3000 metres. Strange shaped trees covered in green woolly moss. Was really quite a beautiful walk.
Got to the camp and had dinner. Very nice. It included the battered fish best described as sole of shoe in cardboard, which we'd asked them to strike from the menu after previous experience on Meru. But as it was served with enough roast potatoes for 6 people so we were happy enough. Mark arrived after dinner with no explanation of the delay though we think he discovered the mess tent he promised us was missing and he had been trying to sort it. In the absence of a mess tent the table and chairs were set up outside our tent and our meal was lit by candle light. Rather nicer than sitting in a mess tent really. It was quite a cloudy night so we were nice and warm in our tent.
Clouds cleared in the morning and we got a view of Kili up close for the first time. Doesn't seem too big when you're already 3000m up.
Day 2 on the great Klimanjaro trek and the Bennetts are on their way to Shira Hut at 3800m.
It started as a lovely day. Had breakfast in the sunshine. The clouds came down just before we left, the drizel started an hour later and turned into real rain just before we reached Shira hut. This is when you really start to miss a mess tent. Our tent is good, it's warm, it's light to carry, it stays dry inside, but it's also tiny. You can't even sit up in it. you have to lie down side by side, facing each other, pressed back against the tent walls and put the dinner in the two square feet of space not already covered by your bodies.
Emanuel the waiter (you know you're being looked after when one of the porters in a dedicated waiter) brought us....
Two bowls,
A pan of soup,
A plate of bread,
A tray of butter,
a flask
two mugs,
a brimming sugar bowl
a box of tea bags
a box of tea bags
a tin of powdered milk
a pot of honey,
a pot of honey,
a pot of coffee
a pot of hot chocolate
a t-spoon, soup spoon knife and fork carefully wrapped in a paper napkin.
We thought we had it sorted, we discarded the bowls and shared the pan of soup and stuck everything else but the sugar bowl outside in a plastic bag.
Then Emanuel brought us...
a brimming plate of rice,
a brimming bowl of vegetable sauce.
a plate of chicken.
Eating was difficult, then the altitude combined with the over feeding and the gasoeus discharges that were to become the signature of our Kilimanjaro tent living began. Eating became a nightmare, except when it was your stink, then it was funny!
As the weather stayed rather wet we remained in our tent for the rest of the day playing Liar Dice and attempting to read one book between us.
Guides porters and cook all sharing tents.
Day three of the great Kilimanjaro trek and the gaseoooous Bennets are on route to Baranco hut 4000m
The weather broke briefly to give us a view out from last nights camp onto the Shira plateau. Pretty.
The walk to Baranco takes about 6 hours according to the book and theres an optional side trip up to Lava tower which takes you up to 4500m for a bit of extra acclimatisation. This is where the extra time on Meru started to show it's worth. Most guides were walking their groups at snail pace to let them acclimatise and in many cases so that they could cope. We were much quicker and never out of breath. Even after dawdling around Lava tower to get the best acclimatisation we completed the walk in 4.5 hours.
We were particularly glad of the fast pace because it either rained, snowed or sleeted all day. For some reason we never expected to be in snow, we were in Africa after all, but snow it did and it was a case of head down walking to get to the next camp. It was nice to be able to walk fast and get out of it. Though I felt the real benefit was in the pleasure of walking past a group that left 2 hours before you looking all organised and keen in the morning and looking knackered as you walk past.
This is a picture of me just after watching vicky push the 'power off' button on the camera instead of the 'take a photo' button (again)
they have big flowers here. they only grow above 3000m, they told us the name but we can't remember it.
they have big flowers here. they only grow above 3000m, they told us the name but we can't remember it. Today on arrival at the camp we told Emanuel to stick everything in one pan and give us two spoons. Didn't help with the farting though.
We also asked for two bowls of hot water so we could make some attempt at washing. There are no showers at the campsites just a very basic long drop toilet. I (vicky) went and hid around a rock and splashed some water around a bit. It helped but didn't remove the prevailing smell of mingingness that was starting to accompany us and our clothes/tent. That was to be the last 'wash' we had as after that water became a bit difficut to come by. From then on wet wipe washes were the best we could hope for! You kind of had to grin and bear it and try to ignore the state of the long drop toilets particuarly after used by 30 people not all with the best of aims.....
The weather cleared just defore sunset, tomorrow the route goes up that cliff on the right of the picture, they call it 'Baranco Wall'. If you weren't impressed by the porters ability to walk happily for hours with 30kg on their heads, you'll be impressed by the time you've seen them climb a cliff balancing the same bag on their heads like a circus performer. Think we may have converted our porters who carried our bags. On the first day despite outdoors companies spending thousands on research to establish the best back straps for carrying your bags the porters still preferred to carry our bags on their heads. However, after Phil adjusted the straps for them and packed the bags up with all their stuff they seemed to take to carrying the bags on their back and carried them that way for the rest of the journey. Could not persuade them that the hip straps were a good idea though!
Sadly the wall is infamous among porters and we're told a few have broken legs here. I suspect that if the fall they took could break their legs, it could do worse and I'd bet a few have died here. There's a stretcher at Karanga 1.5 hours away, but your friends have to carry you that far and then its another 3 hours down on a stretcher to the gate. You need strong friends. With our park fee alone coming to $1200 you'd think the park could afford some metal bolts and a few lengths of rope. The route up isn't much more than an easy scramble and a fixed rope would probably prevent all the accidents. The porters have managed to organise a society and so at least they (and their families) recieve free basic health care at the park gate. Break a leg and it's still no income for 6 weeks though.
Day four of the great Kilimanjaro trek and the Bennetts are lazing their way to Karanga.
Nice weather at last. Up the Baranco wall with a pleasing absence of broken bones and at the top we got a view to reward us. Meru looks a lot smaller from up here. It's 4800m high so still 700m above our current height, but you feel you should pat it on the head and say 'Ahhh'. After all we're on Kilimanjaro now.
After that we drop into and out of two valleys before arriving at Karanga 3900m up after an hour and a half. The weather turned so we hid in the tent for a while, but it improved about 3pm so we walked up to the pass that leads to Barafu hut on tomorrows walk. The pass is about 4300m and Barafu is 4400m. The view was great so we sat around until 4:30 and then headed down. On the way back down we passed the two Austrian women we'd seen on the way up. On the way up they asked if we weren't cold and gave us an incredulous look for wearing shorts and T-shirts. The sun was out, we were storming uphill and were plenty warm enough. On the way down they asked what was wrong? No, No we explained, we're not going the wrong way. We only came up here to acclimatise, for a bit of a walk, something to do. We're staying at Karanga tonight. They gave us a mix of evils and incredulous looks. It must have been a little disheartening given that they'd been walking for 4 hours to cover a distance we'd done in 2.5, still had another hour to go at their pace and had to get up at midnight to start the journey to the top.
This is the view from the pass.
That evening we were treated to a really spectacular sunset. Was really very special.
Day 5 of the great Kilimanjaro trek and the Bennetts are acclimatising again.
Got up early and were on route to Barafu by 8:30. Arrived about 10:30 and had a cup of tea. Then headed on up for some acclimatisation. We're 4400m up at the camp and the air feels noticably thinner. Mark has gone to bed with paracetamol and an altitude headache so we're headed up with Leavin again. He's well named, despite Marks warnings of 'slowly slowly, his pace is almost too fast for us. We reached 4700m in about 40 mins. and sat down for a well earned rest. It's 12pm and we can see a few groups decending from the mountain. The first couple of blokes were a little surprised that we were just up there acclimatising, but happy to accept some sweets in return for their stories on the mountain. The third of their group joined them, She'd thrown up every day and about 20 times on the way to the summit. She still made it.
The next person we met was a girl who'd had to surrender at Stellar point 45mins and 150m in height from the summit. she was so effected by tiredness and altitude she could hardly walk and her Guides were helping her down. Leavin took over from the knackered guide and earned himself a hug from the girl (and vicky) when we got back to camp.
We sat in the tent the rest of the day, ate too much in preparation for the top and farted LOTS.
Mark came to see us and suggested we leave at 1:30am rather than the customary 12 midnight as we tend to travel fast. Some people were leaving as early as 10pm. We were happy with the idea of extra sleep. Sadly neither of us slept more than 2 hours. I blame a combination of overeating, farting, altitude and excitement. Whatever the cause, we could have done with more sleep...
Day 6 of the great Kilimanjaro trek and the Bennetts are STORMING IT!
Got up in the dark at 12:30 to discover it had been snowing. Which is good news, the snow makes it much warmer it was around 0 degrees instead of the clear skied -10 we'd been expecting. It can be colder than that if the wind is blowing and it was dead still. So we had pancakes and tea in the relative comfort of the snow.
We left at 1:30 and Mark set a slow pace compared to Leavin the day before. It took us an hour to reach the same point we'd got to yesterday in 40 mins, but within an hour and a half of starting out we were passing the first of the groups that set out before us. We never stopped...
Mark was asked something by a guide who's group we passed. We speak enough swahilli to work out that he was asking why Mark was leading white people (Msungu's) so fast. The tone of voice implied we were over doing it. Mark's reply was 'My Msungu's are crazy, they don't know what slow is'.
We passed everyone in sight, around 10 groups by the time we reached Stellar point and 5700m at 5:30. I picked up a headache at around 5500m, but paracetamol sorted that out and Vicky showed no signs of fatigue whatsoever. The only concern was just before day break when our hands and Vicky's toes were starting to get very very cold. At that point we were both a bit apprehensive as to whether the clothes we were wearing were good enough for these conditions (our best warm gear was left in england as generally it didn't tend to drop beneath freezing in africa!). However, as soon as we reached Stellar point and the sun came out we warmed up a treat.
We had a hot drink on Stellar pint and enjoyed the sights of day break for a few minutes before heading on to the top.
Vicky had a little happy dance with the guides.
The worst is over by the time you reach Stellar point. The last 500m on the way up are like a sand dune made of volcanic ash and they're very steep. After Stellar point it's all easy going by comparison.
We got to the top at 6:15 in time to enjoy the views. We passed a 5 groups coming back from the top on our way up from stellar point and there were 4 more groups on the summit. (I'm sad I admit it, I was counting, I wanted to know how many people beat us there.) The views are amazing. It was Vicky's first sight of a glacier, she was amazed and I'm looking forward to seeing some big ones in Patagonia with her next year. The Kilimanjaro glacier is small by glacier standards really.
Vicky: being at the top was such an amazing experience for me. Without wishing to wax lyrical (which I'm not going to be able to avoid) it was probably the most stunning place I'd ever been to. I was completely and utterly flabbregasted and when we reached the top I felt really quite emotional and had a little cry I was sooo happy! Kilimanjiro was in a way what inspired me to want to come to Africa - it kind of grew around that. So it had been a dream for over 4 years. To be one the top after thinking about it for so long was probably the best point of the trip so far for me (particuarly after hearing so many horror stories of people failing to make it I'd kind of prepared myself for the possibility of not making it). The fact that both of us made it and felt well enough to enjoy being there on top of africa was just perfect.
We headed down after about 10mins on the top. 
This is a picture of the route up and down. 
The route down is so much easier, you get to scree run down for 1000m! the whole journey down took us less than 2 hours. We passed 4 of the 9 groups which were ahead of us and came into camp on the tail of the 5th group. Mark was enjoying it, he kept telling other guides that we were the last ones out of camp and the first back down. 'strong group, strong group'. This did not assist me with my desire to show off, you may have noticed?.
We packed up within about 30mins and headed off again. The cook had prepared pasta, but all we could manage was a bowl of soup, we wanted to get lower. 4400m is still too high to recover from the top. By 12pm we were down at 3100m at the next camp.
Day 7 of the great Kilimanjaro trek, but the Bennetts finished yesterday!
Oh, didn't I mention. ? It's only 2.5hours from the last camp to the gate and as it was only 12pm, we had 10mins rest and, driven by the thought of a hot shower and proper bed, we marched out to the gate at 2000m. That's 4km of vertical decent!
Job done !
We have spent the last two nights since leaving the mountain drinking beer and wine! We had given up alcohol for about 6 weeks before the treks to help us be fit enough for all the mountain trekking coming up. We've taken a particular delight in drinking Kilimajiro beer!
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