Pre-hike
Oct 8th & 9th 2024
They say that at sea level there is 20.9% oxygen in the air and at 19,000 feet that drops to 10.1%. So, you lose half your breathing power, if you can call it that. This was going to be my highest ascent ever and I had wanted to do it for a long time now. I am no athlete, but I generally stay fit in the gym and have done multiple 2–3-day backpacking trips before, so its not completely new to me either. All I did to get ready for this trip was a few months of cardio (60-minutes on elliptical / stair-master / treadmill on an incline at a time) alternated with 30-minute lightweight HIIT training.
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Before all that, I needed to first get to the starting point, and it was a long journey to just do that. It started off at 9:30AM with me driving to Houston Hobby airport from Austin, TX to park my car in the garage there and take an UBER to Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental airport (coming back was to Houston Hobby), where my departing flight was from. It was a one-stop to Doha and then to Arusha, Tanzania. The first 30 minutes after take-off was just as it should be, but after that the next hour as we crossed over US airspace and were over the Atlantic, we got hit with some really rough turbulence. We experienced mid-air drops, with the noticeable revving of the engines to increase speed to gain back the altitude by the pilot. After that rough patch, the rest of the flight was uneventful. Had a 9-hour layover in Doha, which I spent for the most part walking around and using one of the sleeping pods before boarding another 5-hr. flight to Arusha. An empty row of 3 seats next to me, meant more sleeping!
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After walking off the tarmac and into the airport, got my VISA on entry which was a simple process. They did not look at any papers, itinerary or bookings. Just a form to fill out and $50. It’s a small airport so I was able to pick up my duffel bag from the belt, which was right next to the immigration booth and as I walked out the representative from Thomson Safaris was right there. It was a short ride to Planet Lodge where I met up with my friend who had come in the previous day.
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After a heavy lunch, which came with a banana split sundae there was nothing else to do, so I re-packed my duffel and backpack and watched TV for a while. Skipped dinner and I’m not sure if it was the time difference or the long flight but I went to bed early by 4:30pm
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Oct 10th
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Up at 6am, but was pretty much up from 4am. There was some kind of animal or bird screeching outside the room the whole night. But that was more than enough sleep anyway. It was time to get this show on the road. Showered, which was I was expecting to be the last one with water for the next 9 days, or at least I thought. After breakfast we met up with the rest of the group by 8:30am in the lobby, where we found out that we were going to be split up into 2 groups. I was part of the smaller group (7 hikers) while the other one was 12+ hikers. Definitely in the better group size!
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We had our pre-trip briefing with our respective guides, where we learnt that the mountain covered 5 different ecological zones (Rainforest, Heath, Moorland, Alpine & Arctic) and we will be hiking through all of them as we climb from 2,300 meters (7,546 feet) all the way up to 5895 meters (19,341 feet). We went through in detail the route we were going to be taking along with the medication we should take for elevation sickness and the weather conditions to expect.
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We would be starting at the western base of the mountain, climb up and then across to the eastern side of the mountain before making a final ascend to the summit and back down to the eastern base of the mountain
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We also took a baseline reading of our vitals (O2 – 98; Heartrate – 91)
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What I did not know was they would be carrying a hyperbolic chamber (just in case) along with CPR equipment, food, cooking supplies, tents and more. I had brought my own sleeping bag, but after that little talk and about how cold it would get I opted to rent the better sleeping bag and inner liner from them for 0-degree weather.
​Loaded up everything into the van and headed off on our 90-minute drive past Tanzania’s village towns before hitting a dusty dirt road. And who did we run into here, a herd of giraffes having their mid-day meal, chomping on some trees and few more minutes down the road, Zebras! I did not sign up for a safari on this trip, but this was a nice little bonus to begin the trip.
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The Ndarakwai (https://www.ndarakwai.co.tz/) ranch was a rustic looking series of thatched huts in the middle of an expansive open area under the foothills of Kilimanjaro. We were welcomed with a mango drink and a hot towel.​​
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​​At the first sight of a weighing scale, we jumped on it to start weighing our bags. My backpack was around 18 lbs., and my duffel bag was 32 lbs. The duffel needed to be 33 and under, since that was the maximum our porters were going to carry for each of us. We were shown to our individual tents, that were separated from each other by quite a distance. They were similar
thatched tents/rooms with beds and a bathroom that had hot water, so another last chance for a warm shower! My friend and I shared a room.
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Lunch was to be served at 2:30pm, so we were all back at the dining hut, which was surrounded by the forest. We were served some amazing chicken curry with chapati and rice, salad and a brownie with ice cream. At 4:30pm we went on a bit of a nature walk through the plains and woodlands. Even here the terrain was diverse, with acacia covered savannah, open grasslands and forests. We ran across warthogs, gazelles, wildebeests, giraffes, Thomson gazelles and blue monkeys. We also came across skulls that belonged to an elephant and and a wildebeest. We did not see any elephants but we did see some elephant tracks. After a decent stroll through the plains, we were back at the ranch by 6:45pm, just as the sun was starting to set. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy so, couldn’t see Mt. Kilimanjaro from the planes
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Dinner was at 7:30pm, which gave us just enough time to go bring our phones and portable chargers that needed to be charged up. This was the last chance to have them at 100% for the next 9 days, so nobody was going to miss out. Dinner was another delicious meal of banana soup, lamb, salad, spinach and dessert. The night was extremely windy, so sleep did not come easily and if you add loud animal noises, I was pretty much up from 2:30AM