Climbing Kili with Kaka

Kaka being the Swahili for brother, not the Brazilian footballer getting in some pre-World Cup high altitude training.

The day before we set off I had my most stressful day in Arusha so far due to my aforementioned brother forgetting his phone, getting lost in Arusha, a car breaking down, driving that same broken car for the first time, going out for a meal and then getting back to find that Nick had then lost his keys and couldn't get back into his room, so we had to drive the broken car again to the restaurant (getting stuck in a banana grove en route) to search for the keys and question local taxi drivers whilst being mobbed, and not finding them, so Nick spending the night on the sofa awaiting the early rise of my landlady to explain the situation.

Not exactly ideal pre mountain climbing conditions. But luckily O-S's are tough, so after a slightly late departure whilst a fundi broke into the room, we set off.

What I hadn't quite appreciated was the small army involved in helping 2 Mzungu climb a mountain. We had 2 guides, a cook, a waiter and 6 (yes, 6) porters. This all seemed a little excessive to me, but it turned out I was wrong. These porters are unbelievable. They carry their own backpacks on their backs, and then additionally to this they carry a further load either on their head or balancing on their neck. Apparently new laws have come in restricting the weight they can take to 20kgs each, which I am quite glad about! It was previously 32kgs.

I realised my first mistake as soon as we reached the gate to the Machame route. I had not brought a day pack. For some reason, in my mind, the porters would be walking at the same pace as us, and if you needed anything you would just be able to get it. This is not the case. The porters set off after you each day as they need to take down your camp, and then run up the hill in order to be at the next camp ahead of you to set up before you arrive and greet you with some Chai.
So not having a small pack was somewhat troublesome, to everyone but me, anyway. Nick had to carry some of my bits in his pack, and the guides had to carry the rest. How to start off as Miss Popular!

That aside, we started off relatively quickly after paying the (extortionate!) park fees.
Scenery-wise, the walk is interesting as you climb up through several 'zones' from rainforest at the bottom, to Arctic desert at the top. As each hour passes you find decreasing signs of life, and it happens surprisingly quickly, presumably a testament to the steep angles that you are taking. There wasn't much in the way of wildlife, however, with the highlight being an eagle that was circling our camp one day. We heard Colobus Monkeys, but couldn't see them, and other than that there were ravens, robins and one mouse.

According to the guides, the way to make the summit was to walk pole pole (slowly), drink 3 – 4 litres of fluids a day and eat as much as humanly possible. We were both good at the first point, I excelled at the drinking of water, and Nick relished the guilt free eating. That along with altitude sickness pills to get us up the mountain, and a bit of luck with the weather, and we made it pretty easily.

Most days were relatively steep, but not difficult walking other than one descent down a waterfall, and although we had gone for the 7 day option to try and ensure success, it was fairly obvious that we would have been fine doing it in 6. We didn't have any particular aches or pains, but I guess 4 months marathon training for both of us earlier in the year will have provided us with some decent endurance training.
The hardest part of course was summit day. They wake you at 11.30pm for a midnight ascent after some tea and biscuits. Nick (again, thank you!) came appropriately laden with energy bars and gels and we set of with our headtorches glowing. We weren't the first to leave the camp that night, but we slowly but surely reached and overtook the other climbers. It may sound good, but I would rather have either gone slower or set off later and then not have had to wait around on the mountain getting cold in case we made it to the summit too early.
The main difficulty of the ascent was the cold – real high ski resort kind of cold, but with very little activity to keep your warm. I was dressed as perfectly as I could have been (the day before the guides check out your clothing for suitability) with fleece thermal leggings, cargo pants and then ski pants, and on top, a long sleeved thermal, a thin fleece, a think fleece and a ski jacket, two pairs of gloves, one of them skiing and 3 pairs of socks.
I think Nick maybe overdid the layers, against the advice of the guide and seemed to spend a lot of time playing about with his clothing.
So despite all this clothing, the bitter cold still penetrated and by the top my feet were numb, painful blocks and my fingers too.
Reached the summit after nearly 6 hours walking at 5.55am, well before sunrise! It was pitch black when we got there, and our photos are a testament to this, but after a bit of jumping around and singing Bob Marley songs daylight finally arrived and we could scurry down, taking photos from the roof of Africa as we went. We watched a couple get engaged at the top, and then passed several groups still making their way up, not looking very happy at all. You don't really know what to say – it seems slightly patronising to say 'nearly there' with a big smile on your face, but we tried our best.
What they don't tell you about in advance is the descent back down to last nights camp. What took you 6 hours to climb in darkness takes 1hour 45mins to run down (yes, run) afterwards. They literally fall / run down the mountain, a much steeper route than you came up, along scree. They claim it is the only way to do it, but it didn't really align with my western ideas about the best way to come down a mountain. However, I went along with it as best I could and as much as my scared-i-cat-ness would allow. So whilst Nick was the first to reach the summit that day, I was the first back at camp, and very happy to get some of the layers off and wash the dust off my face. A weirdly timed brunch followed and then a further ascent to the next nights camp and a very early nights sleep.

The most impressive injuries we have to show for our adventure are a nasty bruise on my leg for me, some comedy hand sunburn for Nick and a really quite impressive odour from both of us after 7 days with no washing facilities and limited clothes.

My god, did I enjoy my first shower when I got back home! Unfortunately for Nick – as I think I may have been a little greedy with the hot water. After a lunch of Kuku and chipsi and a celebratory slice of (European style) cake, we were back to normal.

Check out the photos!