CLIMBING KILIMANJARO

Hello everyone,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported me in my Kilimanjaro adventure.  As you may or may not know I did make it to the summit, not only that but I decided to punish myself further by walking around the crater further to the highest point in Africa and the highest point on a free standing mountain in the world!

The first 3 ½ days were really very manageable and our group was in strong spirits marching up the mountain, making jokes about the ‘team shovel’ (lack of toilets…I’ll leave it to your imagination!) and excitedly talking about our big adventure.

We were walking through forest and cultivation first and the path was fairly gentle.  At the start of the route we had to dodge begging children and my friend made the mistake of getting out some food in front of them.  I'm not sure I could bring myself to pry some dry biscuits from the hands of a crying, orphaned 5 yr old who was dressed in rags- but he’s a growing guy so I won’t judge him!!

However at Camp 3 some of the group were vomiting and no one had much of an appetite, I was still fine at this point however as I concentrated on breathing deeply.

Nights were the hardest as, obviously, because it was a mountain, our tents were pitched on slopes and you spent the night trying to caterpillar yourself back up to the top of your sleeping mat…. the image of a beached whale springs to mind.  Also I found I was concentrating so hard on breathing that I couldn’t go to sleep as if I stopped I kept getting headaches, like someone had bludgeoned my head with a rounders bat.  Being woken up by a cheery voice saying “Washy, washy” after very few hours sleep does wear thin very quickly!  As does having to pack up all your damp dirty clothes in your bag and roll up your sleeping mat and bag every morning.  This was probably what I hated most about the trip as the higher you got the longer it took. Even looking for your hat in your bag took 20 minutes as you got out of breath with every movement.  What was amazing was even turning over at night woke you up, as your heart started beating in your mouth, you got out of breath and felt like you were about to have a heart attack all due to the lack of oxygen.

Although I was lucky enough not to suffer from nausea, sickness and hallucinations from the altitude, many of our group were. I found it really disturbing to see such strong, stubborn members of the group so weakened, to the point that they couldn’t walk or even see they were just being dragged up the mountain by our guides.  In fact at one point I burst into tears saying, “There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m just sad because everyone’s getting sick”  (pretty pathetic and very embarrassing!)  The altitude did make me into an emotional wreck; it was all just so overwhelming.

Getting to the top was the single hardest thing I have done in my life and the summit day (Day 5) was the longest of my life.  It started at 11pm on Day Four after 4 hrs sleep, a cup of tea and a biscuit.  We walked in the dark for 8 hours. All you could see were thousands of headlights that snaked up the mountain until they joined the stars - an amazing sight until you realise you don’t think you can actually make it that far.

Once at the top I burst into tears as a wave of relief and pride overcame me.  However, I wasn’t going to go all that way and stop short of my ultimate goal, to make it to Uhuru peak, so I then walked for a further 4 hours, which did nearly finally finish me off, as I was then starting to get nauseous and headachy.  We then walked back to the camp. I say walked - it was 4 miles of loose scree, so it was more slide-fall-slide-fall -not the most dignified of procedures.  After that (no, it wasn’t over yet) we had to walk down to the next camp, which took a further 3 hours.  All in all we walked for just under 16 hours in one day.

I have many more anecdotes and private jokes but you would all think I had gone mad so I won’t bore you all with them!

Thanks again to everyone who sponsored me, gave me advice, told me to start training (!) and wished me well. I couldn’t have done it with out all of your support. I will be eternally grateful.

Love Ellie