Day 4 of 7

Kilimanjaro Climb (7 day Machame route) Day 4/7

After breakfast we will leave Barranco through the Karanga Valley for an 7-hour walk. 

Trek from Barranco Camp to Barafu Camp (4681m) via the 257m high Breach Wall across the valley from Barranco. 

We've been told that we should be aware that there are three rises and falls before reaching Karanga Camp where we have lunch at 4040m.   

We depart from Karanga the route ascends 640m to Barafu. Distance from Barranco to Barafu is 9.4km. 

They say that it is advantageous to have a mental image of today’s profile so we don’t get psyched-out by all the rise and fall:

OUCH!

We overnight at Barafu camp at an elevation of 4600m.

Tonight the Full Moon rises. Climbers are generally advised to try and plan their summit attempts to coincide with the Full Moon. Can you imagine being on the roof of Africa on a cloudless night with the light of the full moon shining on you?  

We've actually planned our summit to fall 2 days after the full moon because we've been told that at this time we will still have the bright light from the full moon, but a couple of days later it rises later, which means it'll up and shining later in the night (early morning) when we need it most.

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

This particular day did not go as planned above. The route that we took was much better, I think.

We were woken up at 7:30. Later this morning as today was to be a short day for us. We took our time getting ready and eventually left at 9am.

The total hike today was only 4 1/2 hours. The first portion of the hike was going up Barranco Wall. This was very steep and required some 'climbing' and 'kiss the wall' manoeuvres to get up and around. It is very steep and if you are scared of heights this is the one part of the trip that could be quite testing for you.

Luckily none of us were, so we enjoyed it. This was an absolute highlight for me. The views were spectacular. 

Unfortunately, however, my camera battery died and the manual charger I had brought along was not in my luggage - this charger never turned up, so I don't know where it went missing. I suspect somewhere around the time I had all my gear laid out on the ground at the start of our climb when I was repacking everything.

What I did have was my cheap point & shoot which had been brought along for our Zanzibar diving trip. It has an underwater casing and was (luckily) accidentally packed in. Although the pics from here weren't great, we're happy to just have some.

After we got over the wall, we hiked up and down valleys which seemed never ending. It was also very cold here. Very cold = around 0 Celsius - I think.

There were more strange plants that we came across:

On arrival at Karanga camp, we had lunch at about 2:30pm and then dinner was at 5:30pm. We could just chill out for the day, which was pretty awesome.

This particular camp is pretty steep and has mist and fog rolling in and out very quickly. We're advised not to wonder off as ppl have wondered right off, never to be seen again. Pretty scary thought, so we just hung out together with the other hikers and talked about the climb so far and what each of us was expecting for the next day.

The "Queen" as the guides referred the peak is very elusive - only showing parts of herself through the clouds every so often.

Day 3 of 7

Kilimanjaro Climb (7 day Machame route) Day 3/7

After breakfast we will trek from Shira Camp to Lava Tower (4600m). 

Our climb on the moorlands eventually comes to an end and we follow a rocky path leads us towards Lava Tower.

We've been told that if the weather’s good (and if we have the energy) we can ask our guide to take us to the summit of the Lava Tower (4688m) where the views are supposed to be magnificent. 

Lunch is normally taken at the foot of the tower.

The rule for acclimatising is to climb high, sleep low, so we'll descend and overnight at Barranco camp. 

Distance from Shira to Lava Tower is 7.0km (4 hours). Distance from Lava Tower to Barranco camp is 3.7km. (Elevation is 3950m)

When we arrive at camp we can freshen up. We've been told that each couple will be supplied with a bowl of hot water for washing (Yippeeee) and enjoy dinner prepared by our cook with passion! Peanut butter sarmies & popcorn anyone?

This is reportedly one of the most difficult days - so wish us luck!

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

After another good night's sleep we were woken up at 6:45. After the usual breakfast and getting our gear organised we were ready to go by 8:15. You can see it's taken us an extra 30 mins today to get ready - between the cold and the thinning oxygen everything takes a bit longer to do.

The weather was fine we we got going and some of the views were amazing too. You can see again how the terrain and the flora have changed along the route.

From here to Lava Tower the weather turned and we walked in rain and hail for many hours.

It also started getting very cold. On the way to Lava tower Marco started experiencing some headaches and sense of humour failures. Ali throwing a snowball at his head didn't go down too well (even though we thought is was funny)

Ali was also dealing with migraines that seemed to come and go. I was very fortunate that I hadn't felt any problems as yet.

The walk from Shira camp to Lava tower took us 5 1/2 hours.  Again we got to the lunch spot long after everyone else had left. So ours was another quick lunch before heading off again. 

The weather was really bad and we couldn't even see the top of Lava Tower so there was no point in going up. 

To be honest with the headache that Marco was having and as tired and cold and miserable as we were getting the best thing to do was to move on to Barranco camp.

In the photo below we walked all the way down through the first and second valley you can make out in the centre of the photo.

This portion took us another 2h15 and was all downhill. 

Today we walked up to 4900m at Lava Tower and then almost back down to the same altitude as where we woke up: 3950m at Barranco camp. 

Again, this is all to help with acclimatising. On the way down were saw lots of strange plants - this was a good distraction as the way up was mostly barren.

I started getting very pressing headache on the way to Barranco camp (which, even though we were at a much lower altitude than Lava Tower, is apparently normal.) I took 2 neurofen and that was the end of it. I was very fortunate not to have any further affects from altitude for the rest of the trip.

On our arrival our porters were singing and dancing again for us. This did help put a smile on our tired faces :)

We had arrived back at 4:30 in the afternoon and with no more hikes planned for the day, I took the opportunity to have my first "bath". This is to say that I cleaned from head to foot with LOTS disposable wipes. This was my first and last official bath of the trip. The rest was just a case of washing hands and face - where possible.

I got into clean clothes (I'd been wearing the same trousers for the past 3 days - I had only managed to change underwear, socks and t-shirts) so this was quite a treat. I started feeling much better and we walked around this absolutely AWESOME campsite. 

The thinning oxygen was becoming very apparent. Marco and Ali both dashed from the mess tent to our tents to put gear that had been drying back in the tents when it started pouring with rain (again). They both came back exhausted as though they'd just done a 1km sprint!

Day 2 of 7

Kilimanjaro Climb (7 day Machame route) Day 2/7

Trek from Machame Camp to Shira Camp (3847m) on southern edge of Shira Plateau. 

We'll get up early and after breakfast climb an hour or so to the top of the forest and then for 2 hours at a gentler gradient through the moorland zone. 

It is normal to experience mild headaches on this day, which should be alleviated with paracetamol. 

Those choosing to take Diamox should begin their course this morning with half a tablet (125mg) in the morning and the other half prior to supper in the evening. 

After a short lunch and rest, we'll continue up a rocky ridge onto the Shira plateau and after a short hike we will reach the Shira campsite.

Distance hiked today is 5.2km - 6 Hours. 

Enjoy dinner and overnight. (I wonder if Mr Delivery will make it up here and how long do you think they'll take?)

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

We had a good night's sleep although not everyone did. I highly recommend taking ear plugs- you will need them every night of the trip. 

The other piece of kit that is pretty much essential is a compact thermal blow up mattress. Ours was very thin, but did the job perfectly. It doesn't take up too much room or weight and I don't think our trip would have been the same had we not taken this item.

We were woken up at 7am. Breakfast is at 7:30 and we begin day 2 of our hike at 8:00.

Breakfast, by the way is oats to start. There was also bread with any eggy thing on top and jam / peanut butter etc. Coffee was still on the menu at this altitude as well as the tea & cocoa.

The first portion of the hike (8:00 start to 12:30 for lunch) was surprisingly steep. We just kept going up and up and up.

Here you can see the porters and other climbers making their way up the very steep gradient

Here is Rayson, our guide at our lunch table. It took us 4 1/2 hours to get here so we were very grateful for the break and lunch.

After our 30 minute lunch break we hiked for a further 2 hours.  The terrain changed again, it did flatten out a little. The weather also rolled in. It threatened to rain on us, but we were prepared with our rain gear, poncho's etc.

With the clouds in and most the hikers way ahead of us, it was eerily quiet and felt as though we had the mountain to ourselves. 

Well, not entirely to ourselves - there was some debate over the possibility of zombies and vampires hiding in the cloud cover...

We finally reached Shira Camp at 2.10pm. I think we were the last ones to the camp (again!) but we were greeted with our porters singing 'Kilimanjaro' songs to us, which was really awesome!

Once we got in, unpacked and got to the mess tent for our snacks (popcorn & drinks) the rain and hail came down - we were lucky to just miss it.

We were given an hour or so to relax, during which time the weather cleared and we got another awesome glimpse of the peak.

We were quite happy that today would be a 'short' day. All that walking is exhausting and by Shira camp we were starting to feel the air thinning. Its a very strange sensation - everything you do just seems a lot more difficult to do. Walking from here to there leaves you feel a little tired.

Nevertheless, our guide thought it would be a great idea to go for a hike. Hmmm, what else are you going to do up there, I suppose?

The point, of course, is to 'walk high, sleep low'. Its all part of acclimatising. So we hiked for an hour and spent some time on top of a rock - it did have stunning views which made up for it.

After the hike we were allowed to have the rest of the day off. Which meant just moseying around the camp site. Getting to know some fellow hikers and of course having dinner. It was lights out (sun down) by 8pm, so we got an 'early night'.

So, to recap; today we hiked from Machame Camp to Shira Camp (3847m). In total this took us about 5 1/2 hours. We then hiked in the afternoon for a further 1-2 hours.

On the Diamox front, we were feeling fine so they recommended that we don't take anything until we needed to. Diamox is of course a diuretic and so we didn't want to have to deal with those affects until we really had to.

Speaking of which... Toilets: They have long-drops at each camp. If you need to go en-route, you have to find a place off the path that is acceptable to you. As the days go by you become much less fussy about where you go and how much privacy you need. 

The long-drops themselves are little wooden boxes (no doors) that have a hole in the ground and two wooden foot places on either side of the hole. You have to stand on there and then squat.

Very unfortunately, a lot of people don't seem to have the ability to aim well (perhaps it's the altitude!) and they frequently miss. Making our toilet going experience really, really awful. 

I won't go into detail about the smell, but I will say, take something to cover your mouth and nose and if you have something like Vick's or tiger balm - use it.

For the most part, I waited until we left camp to go - the idea of nearly vomiting while squatting was too much to bear.

Day 1 of 7

Today is the BIG DAY: we start our Kilimanjaro Climb (7 day Machame route) Day 1/7

At 8:00m we meet our guide in the Outpost lodge reception were depart to Machame Gate to register. 

The journey is around 1 hour 20 minutes. 

Trek from Machame Gate (1828m) to Machame Camp (3020m). The distance is 10.8km, over 1200m of elevation gain. Today can be quite tiring, particularly the final two hours.

THAT’S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

In the morning, we woke up, met our guide again and 2 other climbers who only arrived this morning (flight issues). They still had to collect their rented gear and have their briefing. 

The delay was good for us as we were trying desperately to get an update on the missing bag. We were taken to the Leopard Tours head office office in Arusha were they kindly called Dar airport and confirmed that the bag had been forwarded to Kilimanjaro Airport.

As it happened, they had a representative at Kilimanjaro Airport to collect Ali, another climber, who happened to be in our group. Ali was also only arriving on day one of the climb as his flight from Nairobi the previous day had been cancelled and he'd been left stranded at the airport for most of the night. (So its not just the luggage that gets left behind!)

They managed to round up the missing climber and the missing luggage and would meet us en-route.

We went back to the lodge and waited for our lift to Machame Gate.

We eventually met up with Ali & the luggage. As the drive through to the gate was about an hour and a half, they were not going to let me go back to the lodge to pack. This meant that when we got to the gate, I had to unpack and repack all my gear. 

The reason for this was 

1) the bags have a 15kg weight limit on them as the porters cant carry more than that. 

2) in addition to the Kilimanjaro kit all our Zanzibar luggage had been stuffed in there too.

So there we are at the gate; we're a good few hours later than everyone else and we have all our belongings strewn across the ground.

I have to admit at this point I was getting a little stressed. We were taking stuff out and repacking so quickly that we didn't really know what was where. In the end we gave the driver 2 bags to take back to the lodge for us, to store for the week.

** To add at this point - we eventually found out that our toothbrushes didn't make it to the right bag - Thank Goodness for Ali, who was sooo organised that he even had 2 spare brushes & some toothpaste which he gave us, for the rest of the trip! Thanks AL!

Some 'points to remember' as posted at Machame Gate

We collected our rental gear (sleeping bags and walking poles) and went to the office to sign in.

After getting organised and then waiting around for ages, we finally got going at 1pm.

A short way into our hike, through the rain forest region we had lunch. The set up a little camping table and fold out chairs. We had a waiter who brought us food, fruit, drinks. Very civilised :)

Because our particular group was so slow to get going, everyone else on the trial had already eaten and left by the time we got there, so ours was a quick stop and back on the 'road' again.

This, by the way, turned out to be the theme for the rest of the trip - we were always lagging behind. The good thing about that is that we were rarely told to go "pole pole" (Swahili for slowly, slowly) - we were doing that anyway.

The first part of the trail is very beautiful. We're walking through rain forest. We were lucky with our weather - we didn't actually get any rain through the rain forest although this is pretty common. 

After many hours of walking the terrain begins to change. The rain forest starts to thin out and we follow the trail ever-upwards towards our first camp.

On arrival at our camp at 6:30 pm (we'd hiked for 5 1/2 hours) we had to go up to the 'office' to sign in. We have to sign in at every camp. The signing in is a 2-page spread of name, address, passport number, occupation, favourite colour, highest bubble bubble score, etc. (Ok, not the last two, but after a few days it gets a bit tedious filling in all the same useless info)

After the official paper work was completed, were greeted in the mess tent with snacks which consisted of popcorn & tea / coffee / cocoa. 

After snacks we unpacked our gear in our tents, got our sleeping bags ready. And were sent back to the mess tent for dinner.

Dinner consisted of cream of cucumber soup to start. Followed by potatoes, a meat slice and a tomato. ("Meat slice" is the best description I can give you.)

Today we trekked from Machame Gate (1828m) to Machame Camp (3020m). The distance covered was 10.8km, over 1200m of elevation gain and this took us 5 1/2 hours to complete.

When we reached Machame Camp we were greeted with a glimpse of the peak, which after all those hours of hiking, was a very beautiful sight indeed!

Arusha

Today we leave the Peacock hotel in Dar es Salaam and head to Arusha airport. From there we transfer to Outpost Lodge in Arusha.

We'll have most of the day to relax, check out the town, maby even meet a Maasai warrior or two if we're lucky.

At 18:30pm we're meeting up with other climbers for briefing at the lodge, where we'll be staying the night.

THAT’S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

Leopard Tours collected us at 7am for our 9am flight - the day begins with more waiting at airports. 

This particular airport is pretty basic as you can see from the pics. After 2 hours at this airport we knew every inch of it!

Below is the departure lounge:

The flight went from Dar to Zanzibar to Arusha.  The plane was Teeny Tiny, below you can see 2 of the passengers plus the pilot. I think there were only 10 passengers in total. It was pretty cramped but got us there in one piece.

On the way to Zanzibar we passed over a few smaller islands - below is one of them - it looked really idyllic and a perfect teaser for things to come!

Leaving a couple of passengers in Zanzibar we headed out to Arusha.  After about 45 mins of flying we could see the top of Kilimanjaro above the clouds. It was a very intimidating sight, knowing that in less that a week we would be up there...

The total flying time was about 2 hours and we got Arusha at around 11:00. 

There we were once again met by a Leopard Tours representative who took us through to Outpost Lodge, via a cultural village - a tourist trap where they have lots of tanzanite to sell you -> they know you are fresh off then plane and still have some $'s left in your wallet.

From there we were taken to Outpost Lodge where we could finally relax for the day. It was much less humid than Dar. They had a lovely 'coffee lounge' area outside that we chilled out at for the rest of the day.

Towards sunset the mozzies came out and although we (luckily) did have our anti-malarial pills, we didn't have any anti-mosquito creams or patches as they were all packed into the missing bag.

A few bites later and we finally had our briefing (we met our Kili operator and guide at 8pm (we'd waited since 6pm as requested...).

We'd mentioned the whole missing luggage thing to them and they were confident that we could sort something out and we were told to just wait till the morning to get an update.

Marco still had constant stomach problems all day. Towards the end of the day they were becoming less severe, but they were still there.

We eventually went to bed at 10pm, not knowing whether or not we'd be climbing Kilimanjaro in the morning. Lots of prayers and positive thinking was how we ended the day.

And so it begins

Fly from Cape Town 6:45am to Johannesburg 8:45am

Fly from Johannesburg 14:55pm to Dar es Salaam 19:25pm

Transfer from Dar es Salaam airport to Peacock Hotel

Overnight at the Peacock Hotel

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

The night before we left we sent our cat to the cattery, packed the last of our gear and headed out to my dad's house. He lives much closer to the airport and we had an early start - we had to be there by 5am so we were up at around 4 am.

The flight from Cape Town to Joburg wasn't too bad - we did have 2 men sitting behind us who chatted non-stop for the entire flight (more than even Joy & I could manage!) and I gathered from the conversation that they had just met... They had business in common - but sheesh... 2 hours of jibber jabber! 

Upon arrival at O.R. Tambo International Airport Marco's stomach bug that he'd already had for nearly a week at this point starting giving him trouble again. The man was wallowing in agony, doubled over in pain (you know how boys are when they get sick!!)

** Just to add a note in at this point - it emerged much later that he's taken all six Imodium a few days prior - which may account for the pain he was currently feeling!

We were lucky to find a company that stores your luggage while you wait at the airport as we had a good few hours to kill and walking around with a trolly full of gear was just a little too much to bear.

We also managed to find a pharmacy and bought all sorts of natural 'fix your gut' type meds and prayed that Marco would be fine in 2 days time when we actually begin the climb.

After spending a delightful (!) 6 hours at Jozi airport, we finally headed off to Dar es Salaam. The flight was little over 3 hours long and nearly empty so we each had 3 seats to stretch out on and relax.

On arrival at Dar we were surprised at how hot (humid) it was. It was nearly 8pm and we could not stand the heat. 

Hot and bothered, we headed out to the luggage collection area and realised after not too long that my luggage had not arrived.

We spoke to some guy, who seems to be permanently set up there to give you forms to complete when your luggage does not turn up. From his broken English we gathered that this 'happens all the time'. Especially on SAA and KLM flights. Great.

He says they just don't bother putting all the luggage on - they just send it on the next flight which is 24 hours later. In fact while we were there completing forms and cursing SAA another couple who had arrived the previous day were there collecting their belated luggage.

The problem of course that we had was the very next morning we were flying out to Arusha and could therefore not be there to collect the luggage 24 hours later.

We arranged for them to send the luggage (when it arrived the following night) to Kilimanjaro Airport in the hopes that we would be able to intercept it in time for our climb. This particular bag had all my Kili kit and included some other essentials such as our anti-mosquito creams and patches, which we'd need in the coming days...

We left the airport with the rest of our kit that did manage to turn up and were collected by Leopard Tours, the ground organisers for the trip, who took us directly to the Peacock Hotel.

We checked in and pretty much went to bed as we were tired and we were being collected again at 7am for our flight to Arusha.

doit4charity & Amathuba

THANK YOU

We're furiously packing duffel bags and checking gear lists and ensuring that we have everything we need and have done everything we're supposed to do before we leave in less than 2 days.

Exciting times! One of the most exciting things on our list by far has been our charity drive. In a relatively short space of time our wonderful friends, family and colleagues have dipped deep into their pockets and together we have already put together an astounding R6,848.90!

doit4charity has been so impressed by our collective performance that they have us on the homepage of their website as "Fundraiser of the month". See here:

http://www.doit4charity.org.za/star.htm

In addition, I received an email from doit4charity today, who forwarded an email that they received from Amathuba directly:

Hi Jolene

I just received this message from the people at Amathuba. They wanted to post it on your blog, but were not sure how to go about it.

 

Dear Jolene and Marco

Thank you very much for choosing Amathuba for your fund-raising. We really appreciate your support. It makes such a difference.

Wishing you all the very best for your climb!

Suzy and Zuma

Amathuba

As far as I know, the money you are raising will go towards the next build which they are planning right now. Will keep you posted on progress.

Also, wanted to add my best wishes to theirs for your climb. Have a friend who did it last year and it was awesome! 

Kind regards,

Sheila McCallum

http://www.doit4charity.org.za

P O Box 321 Kloof 3640

Tel. 0 31 764-5123

Cel. 082 7848090

I want to take this opportunity to once again thank all of you have had a hand in making this happen! 

If you would still like to contribute, you can still do so - we only summit on the 12th of Feb, so you still have time to make your donation:

http://www.doit4charity.org.za/fundraisingpage.php?userId=TWpBPQ==

2 more sleeps....!