After 2011’s awesome trip to Everest Basecamp, there had to be a followup. I personally, have never been to Africa (or many other places in the world, to be honest), so what better excuse to visit the continent of man’s origin than to climb the highest mountain on the continent!
Mount Kilimanjaro is situated in Tanzania in the lower south-east of Africa and is home to the Masai, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater.
Mount Kilimajro has a max altitude of 5,895m - a mere few hundred metres more than our (approx.) previous max height of of 5,550m at Kala Patthar. Also, like the trek out to Everest Basecamp, there is no real climbing involved, just a lot of walking.
Incidentally, there are many, many reasons visit Africa asides from Kilimanjaro. I’ve seen more than my fair share of David Attenborough documentaries and have always been fascinated with the plains of the Serengeti and the jungles of the Ngorongoro. Alas, these will have to wait till next time.
There’re a few different ways to get up the peak, with all the different routes offering a different experience - some are more scenic with wildlife, while others are more direct (with less time to acclimatise) Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be taking the Machame route at the end of February. The Machame route is a trek of about 60km and is considered ‘medium’ difficulty compared to the other routes.
Being that Kili is such a prolific mountain means that the route up is well-documented and detailed:
So … on to preparation!