The Big Kilimanjaro Adventure

We arrived in Moshi on Thursday evening. We didn’t know how difficult it would be to book the climb. Somebody said that in high season you will have to wait 1 week to get a free vacancy. The latest possibility for us would have been to start the hike on Sunday.

It turned out to be very easy to book a tour. All over Moshi there were agents trying to sell the tours. We managed to book the 5 day hike on the arrival day, so we started the hike on Friday morning.

After we rented all the equipment that we needed, our team, led by the great guide David, drove us to the Marangu Gate. Besides our guide and assistant guide, there was a chef and some porters who carried the food, water and all the other stuff we needed. That day we just walked for 3 hours through the rain forest. Although we didn't see any animals, it was a nice atmosphere and a new experience for all of us. We arrived at the Mandara Camp at 2700 m.

On the second day we walked six hours through moorland. To our right we saw Kilimanjaro and to our left a thick layer of clouds that lay below us. In the afternoon we arrived at the Horombo Camp at 3720 m. To help us acclimatize, our guide took us an extra few hundred meters higher and then walked back with us.

In the early morning of the third day, we started walking up to the last Camp, the Kibo Camp at 4703 m. We walked for 6 hours and when we arrived in the afternoon, we went to sleep pretty soon. The reason for this was that we were going to get up at midnight to climb to the summit before sunrise.

This was the steepest and hardest part. The way up was a long hairpin turn. Thanks to the darkness, we couldn't see the top, which would be pretty demotivating. All we could see was our group and all of us kept concentrating on the legs of the man in front. We walked for around 5 hours to reach Gilmans Point. It was freezing cold (-15°C), so even the water bottles in our backpacks froze. It became increasingly hard to breath due to the low oxygen content in the air. This is what made the climb really hard!

When reaching Gilmans Point we knew the worst part is over. From Gilmans Point you still need more than an hour to reach the peak but its more or less easy walking. From Gilmans Point we could see a big fire at the bottom of the mountain. Finally we reached Uhuru Peak, the highest point of Africa at 5895 m. It’s impossible to describe what we felt. After all the hours of planning and weeks of travelling we really made it. Months ago we had this picture in our heads: the three of us on the summit of Kilimanjaro and we made it happen. Nobody got altitude sickness and had to turn back. We arrived at Uhuru Peak right before the sunrise over Kenya, which was unbelievable beautiful.

After taking some pictures and enjoying the view we headed back to Kibo Camp. The way down was much more fun because you can glide down the path of crushed rocks. After some rest at the Kibo Camp we walked further down to the Horombo Camp.

The next day we walked from Horombo Camp to the Marangu Gate. We passed the area where the fire was that we saw from the summit. It was much bigger than imagined, lots of plants had been destroyed. Back in Moshi we enjoyed a long awaited shower (starting with white towels and ending with brown towels) and the good Italian food in the restaurant next door. Climbing Kilimanjaro was the hardest thing we have done in our lives but well worth it. If someone is interested in a really good guide for Kilimanjaro, we have David’s details ;)