It is a little more than year ago since I was standing at the summit of the highest mountain in Africa, Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro is actually a 5895 meters high volcano situated in the northern part of Tanzania. Since it's the highest summit in Africa it's included in the Seven Summits, which is the common name for the higest mountain of each continent.

 

It was back in December 2010 that I, together with three Norwegian girl friends travelled to Tanzania to try to climb the highest mountain in Africa. We landed at Kilimanjaro International Airport late in the evening to be welcomed by the fact that one of the girl's luggage was missing! Sadly she never saw her luggage again...

Early the following day we started our climb. Our poor friend was in a good mood in her rented African mountain equipment.

 

We met our guides and porters at the gate to the national park; Marangu Gate. The first day we walked through the rainforest to the first camp site; Mandara Hut at an elevation of 2720 m a.s.l. It took us about 4.5 hours to get there.

 

Already the first evening I felt the height. I had a headache and felt a bit nauseaous, which gave me a reduced appetite. It was nothing else to do than drink a lot of water and go to bed early.

Every morning we were served hot tea and we were also provided with some hot water so that we could wash ourselves. After that it was time to enjoy the breakfast before we started today's climb.

After about one hour we came out of the rainforest and the landscape became more open. We could see trees looking like palm trees and colourful flowers. Around noon we always had a break to eat our lunch packets.

 

After 6 hours of walking we reached today's goal, Horombo Hut at an elevation of 3720 m a.s.l. Here we were welcomed by a well deserved dinner.

 

The painful headache came back during the afternoon, but a try to cure myself with far too many painkillers and lots of water actually helped. We celebrated our achievements so far by buying rather over priced Coca-Cola cans, since it was the day before New Year's Eve.

 

On New Year's Eve we had planned to have an acclimatization day. We walked up to Zebra Rocks at an elevation of about 4000 meters and then back to the camp site at Horombo. This was to get our bodies more used to the height and maximize our chances to reach the summit.

The weather was clear and we had a nice view over the mountain range Mawenzi. Some of us seemed to be in a very good mood!

On New Year's Eve we all went to bed at around 20:00 and most of us had huge problems to sleep up in the high altitude.

 

The next day we woke up to a new year; 2011! Today's climb would take us to Kibo Hut at an elevation of 4700 m a.s.l., the last camp site before the summit. We walked over the Saddle, a very windy desert looking place. The weather was sunny and we had fantastic views towards both Kilimanjaro and Mawenzi. Happily we could see that there still was snow on Kilimanjaro, but it was actually alarmingly little snow.

 

After almost 7 hours we reached Kibo Hut. Here we were lodged in a room together with another couple and our guide informed us about the coming night. I felt excited and impatient, I wanted to start climbing directly!

 

In the evening we lay down to rest for a while. We were woken up at 22:30 to prepare ourselves for the departure. When I woke up I had a nightmare of a headache and I felt very nauseaous. I tried to eat an energy bar, but only managed to finish half of it.

In the light from our head lights we started to walk up in a zig-zag pattern. The weather was clear, but the wind was quite strong. Despite the fact that I was wearing all my clothes I felt cold. We walked quietly, too tired to talk. I was counting my steps to entertain myself. I counted to 100 and then I started all over again. In that way we kept on going for 6.5 hours, before we finally arrived at the crater rim at Gilman's Point. Up here at an elevation of 5681 m a.s.l. we stopped to have a cup of warm tea, that our amazing guide Alan has carried up for us. From here we watched  the sun rise over Mawenzi.

We are on the Kilimanjaro crater rim and can look into the crater. We are very tired but we have to keep on walking for 2 more hours along the crater rim to reach the true summit; Uhuru Peak, at 5895 m a.s.l. We are close but it feels still far away!

The last part felt like we were walking in slow motion, but finally we reached Uhuru Peak. I had been thinking about this moment and wondered what it was going to feel like standing at the summit. Now when I was standing there I felt absolutely nothing... I took some photos of the famous sign and our guide wanted to be a model for the day.

 

When I sat down for a while I felt almost dissappointed over the fact that I didn't felt happiness over my achievement. I had reached one of my goals in life and I was not feeling happy. The fact was, that I was far too tired!

 

We started to walk down againg and that was actually much easier! ;-)

 

The last day we walked back to Marangu Gate. After a couple of hours the adventure was over for this time. In the afternoon we were back at the hotel Mountain Inn and finally we could have a shower! The shower was followed by a three course dinner. Life was good and the thought of one week of vacation on Zanzibar didn't make it worse!

We chosed to climb the Marangu Route also known as the Coca-Cola Route which is the most popular route. The lodging is in small huts with two separate rooms with four beds each. At the last camp; Kibo Hut the lodging is in dorms.

Problems that we had with the high altitude was mainly headache. It's not easy to get rid of the headache, painkilles don't help too much. The best thing to do is to drink a lot of water and put in extra days for acclimatization so that the body gets time to get used to the altitude.

 

To reach the summit you must be really determined and have a strong wish of making it!