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Memorable Kilimanjaro climb
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The Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania
Climbing the Kilimandjaro was our first motivation for coming to Tanzania. The day after the Safari, we were in a Landrover, with porters and guides, heading towards the Machame village. The climb would last 6 days in total (up and down), it doesn't take so long to climb, but 3 days are dedicated to acclimatisation.
We chose to climb via the Machame route which is a camping route. Most people choose other routes with huts on the way, but we heard this one was more scenic. Finally, all the expensive and heavy gear (mattresses, sleeping bags, thermal clothes, trekking boots, ect.) we carried all the way from France would come to a use.
The climb was very pleasant as the landscape gradually changed from lush rainforest to lunar landscape. We walked four to six hours a day, gaining and sometimes loosing altitude to acclimatise. Fit and young, we were proud to pass most fellow climbers. However, our three porters, who carried around 20 to 30 Kg each, were always faster than us!
Mission accomplished!
We suffered from altitude sickness, mild headaches mostly, and fever one day for Patrick. Luckily, we did acclimatise eventually, and didn't get any symptoms on the final climb to the summit.
The day of the final 1200m climb, was certainly the toughest one. After a six hours morning ascent, we had to wake up at midnight to walk another 6 hours to reach the summit by sunrise. The night climb was steep, icing windy (our bottles of water froze, and so did our fingers and toes ;-)). Once again we passed most fellow climbers and arrived at the top exhausted (saoyuth only of course!) and cold. To reward us, our guides gave us a hot cup of tea they had carried with them in a thermos (that was great).
The top of Kilimanjaro was beautiful: an imposing glacier on one side, a crater on the other, and stones on the ground twinkling with frost. As we took some shaky pictures with our frozen hands, the rising sun cast warming beams on the landscape. After an hour at the top we decided to come down to back to our base camp. It only took two hours to come down. On the same day, we had to walk 3-4 more hours to reach our next campsite: it was a long day!
Finally, after the climb we made our way to a more restful place, the island of Zanzibar. This Tanzanian island is easily accessible by ferry from Dar Es Salaam (the economic capital of the country).
Latest Comments (1)
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More ! (reply)
Nov 13, 2006 03:22 EST by gardomyn
Quoi, quoi ! Comment ça Coming Soon !
Coming Soon de suite, tudieuuuu ;)
Bon, ok, j'imagine que vous avez mieux à faire ;)
Faut vraiment que je retourne bosser (oui, vous savez le truc là qui fait gagner un peu d'argent ;) ).
(sorry for the non french speaking people... lazy guy here this morning ;) ).
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