Day 8 – Getting of the mountain

Yesterday was tipping time. A special occasion for the guides and porters because it’s an important part of their salary. Of course we thought it through and gave good tips. But, as stated in the Kili guide, the guides pretended that the tip was not enough. What a hassle. But when they found out it [...]

Day 7 – WOOOOOHOOOOO!

This morning at 7:15 (local time) the five of us stood on Uhuru Peak, the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
We started around midnight. Everybody was climbing with headlights, so before and after us a lot of little lights were queing on the route, like stars on the mountain.
It was cold, exhausting, but worth it! At Stella [...]

Day 6 – 4600 meter camp

Today was a short day. We climbed from Karranga camp to Barafu camp at 4600 meters. It’s only 12 o’clock, but our program is eat and go to sleep, wake up at 5 for dinner and sleep again, and tea of course. Because around midnight we wake up, eat and start our final push for [...]

Day 5 – Pole pole

Pole pole is Swahili for slowly slowly. And that is what we are doing now. Going up goes slower than normal, if you don’t want to get out of breath. We only did a short hike today, maybe three and a half hours, so we left late. This was a good way to avoid the “traffic [...]

Day 4 – Crowded

Today our route (Lemosho) joined with the Machame route, which we will follow from now, because Lemosho goes via Western Breach, which is more dangerous. When joining with Machama all of a sudden the route is crowded. Much more hikers and a huge amount of porters. The feeling of being alone on the mountain is [...]