Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

Tova and me at the summit

I just got back yesterday from my six day trek up the mountain. It was amazing, I ended up getting placed in a group with four other people a Norwegian couple and a father and son from the states. I was supposed to go with teacher as my guide but somehow the women I was supposed to go with on the 16th just never showed up so I ended up with this group and we left on the 17th. I was pretty nervous the first day and even and a little lonely, we got to the starting point for the machame route and it was packed, I mean so many people were there, we had to wait around for about an hour and a half for permits and stuff then we signed in and started hiking, after a few hours going through rainforest we stopped for lunch then walked for a few more hours where we were camping for the night. there was a portable toilet set up and a mess tent, It was truly camping in style. I got a knock on my tent around 6 and raphilie (we didn't learn his name tell much later) was like "hey sister, i have water for wash." It was nice to get to wash my hands and splash a little water on my face. then about thirty minutes later raphilie was back saying it was time for tea, the tea spread was awesome, we had tables and chairs and popcorn and peanuts and who knew all I had to do to get some milo ( my favorite drink from New Zealand) was climb Kilimanjaro. Dinner was awesome too, it usually consisted of like three courses, soup, main and then fruit for dessert. Jackie and I thought we were good on a camp stove these guys were like gods, One day for lunch we had fried chicken and french fries. After dinner our guide Innocent came in and took our oxygen levels and told us the plan for the next day, The second day hiking seemed really long it was pretty steep. I was spoiled rotten though because all we had to carry were day packs. The porters carried all our luggage plus tables, chairs, food and tents. there job truly looked difficult and they did all the walking we did in about half of the time! this time we were walking through really shrubby areas and we had only walked about four hours that day so after taking a break we went and took a hour walk to acclimatize a little  it was so beautiful. I guess we were in what is called an alpine desert the the mountain just seems to go on forever. While I was hanging out reading though I did get homesick for the orphanage and Jackie and Elena. The second night we were finally above cloud cover even though mist would roll in occasionally and swallow everything up, it usually drifted by within ten or so minutes so the stars that night were amazing, unfortunately I was a little cold in my big tent all by myself, in fact a was a little cold almost every night. The next day we had a big day of hiking it was about 7 hours we were all really glad to make it to camp. By this point we had all really started to bond and we got each other laughing a lot while we were enjoying meals a common joke was when someone would do something clumsy we would call out "altitude sickness!" cause we heard that loss of coordination was a side effect. Then there was another day of hiking (imagine that...) and we reached base camp. Where we had an early dinner and then all went to bed around 7 so we could wake up at 11 and get ready to leave for the summit around 12. This is about the time when I went into my backpack the get my long underwear only to see that they were NOT in my bag. It turned out fine though I had enough layers and I didn't really ever get to cold while I was hiking. The night was so beautiful, when we woke up I was nervous but mostly just tired. We started our trek up the mountain, about 3 hours in my guide took my day pack which made walking fairly bearable. we had occasional breaks for water but we couldn't stay still to long or we would get cold. One of the Norwegians had to turn around I'm not quite sure what time but he wasn't taking altitude medication and was starting to feel really sick. Finally we reached Stella Point which is about 45 minutes from the actual summit. Here Tova the other Norwegian had to take a long break she really wasn't feeling well but she pushed on. We Made it to the summit around sunrise but it was pretty cloudy so we couldn't really see to much, It was still really beautiful. One wouldn't really think of the summit of a mountain being a busy place but it was PACKED there were so many tourists it was crazy, in fact the whole way up the mountain was really pretty busy. When we were leaving for the summit and looked up all you could see was this long trail of headlights winding up into the night. I got really tired coming down from the summit and was really happy to make it back to base camp but we only got about an hour to rest then we ate lunch packed up our stuff and walked another four hours to where we were camping for our last night. The Norwegians brought chocolate as a celebration and man was that good. The next day we hiked all the way down where a zara van brought us back the the Springland hotel. There were a bunch of people trying to sell us stuff as we left and I had forgotten how nice it was to go six days without someone being like "Hey you want to buy this" "what about this" or "its a very good price" luckly on the drive back to springlands we drove past Dr. Greg, Jackie and Elena they were across this little train track canyon thing so I couldn't run and hug them like I wanted but Jackie tossed the house keys over which I was so happy about cause all I really wanted to do was go home and shower! After getting our certificates I went back to the house got all cleaned up did my laundry. Jackie and Elena got back and I was so happy to see them! it was awesome being reunited I was extatic! Greg came back about an hour later and it was great to see him too then we headed over to the Orphange and that was the best! being greeted by all the kids there after being gone was so awesome. I was so happy to see everybody and just hang out with them for a little bit. Greg picked up Shannon last night at the airport and we got to see her today, she is such a great lady we are all very happy she is here, especially Greg. All is going well, great to be back very very happy I got the climb the mountain.

-Brook