Top of Africa
Kilimanjaro - or "White Mountain" translated from Swahili - is certainly the most famous and with 5'895 metres the highest mountain of Africa. Climbing this beautiful dormant volcano in 1998 was one of our greatest travel experiences and one we always look back on with great memories even many years later.
The deciding factors for our chosen route were a less touristy one, a scenic and varied route and also importantly, enough time to acclimatise. We therefore chose the Machame route giving us 6 days/ 5 nights, whereby on the 3rd day, from having reached ca. 4'900m you descend again to ca. 3'900m and from there on again up up up, giving your body more time to get those red blood cells ready for these altitudes.
The route starts in tropical mountain rain forest first passing through some remote settle-ments and where lovely kids ran alongside us calling out "where's my pen?" (we'd brought some with us to give on these occasions and their happy faces were a pure delight 😊.
Breakfast turned out to be a bit of a feast - our great guide, Romel, had carried along a full load of fresh eggs... So eggs for breaky were on the menu! Just amazing this attention to detail by our guide and his team of porters.
After an 11km hike from the Machame Gate (1'500m) we arrived at Machame Camp (3'000m) just above the tree line and spent our first night in the tent. It was freezing cold and we were glad we'd brought our own warm sleeping bags to keep us nice and toasty!
Just this October 2020, we saw news about a nasty bushfire on Kilimanjaro. This one unfortunately destroyed 5% of the mountain's flora - which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is actually a huge area, making it approx. 95 square kilometres of vegetation... This gives an indication of the tremendous size of this beautiful mountain. Looking back at our own photos of 22 years ago, we realised there would have been a bushfire the year before our visit.
The second day's hike was shorter and took us uphill for 5km to the Shira Camp on the Shira Plateau at 3'700m. Romel told us the most important rule to help acclimatise is "pole pole" - slowly - slowly! So each time we got caught speeding up the pace - he'd smile brightly and say "pole pole"! And of course - this way you can really enjoy the beautiful scenery too. The landscape changed here for the first time - from rainforest to semi-alpine, the second of five distinct ecological zones on Kilimanjaro. It was this beautiful heather and open moorlands area that reaches from 2'800m to 4'000m.
We started our 3rd day fully energised after another excellent camp-breakfast. This day is an important one to help acclimatise to the altitude and many hikers get altitude sickness. A long trek took us through amazing landscapes, climbing up to just under 5'000m then down again to Barranco Camp at 3'940m. What a great place this was where the top of Kilimanjaro called Kibo is right in front of you.
Above 4'000m we reached the alpine desert zone with extreme changes in temperature from night to day. The highest point is the Lava Tower – a 100m high volcanic rock formation. Up here, the vegetation is pretty sparse being a stone-desert and you're mainly walking through vast areas of scree and volcanic rocks.
Hiking downwards we passed through this magnificent area with these amazing giant groundsel, lobelias trees, and red hot pokers plants. These were truly some of the most fascinating plants we had ever seen! They grow at around 4000m in altitude and the giant groundsel is only found on Kilimanjaro!
On day 4, after a short descent taking in more amazing and beautiful flora, we reached the start of the Barranco Wall. This rock wall of 257m height is the only place where you will occasionally need your hands to help you climb.
At the top of the Barranco Wall, there's this fantastic view of the rock and ice formation of Kibo. Kilimanjaro is actually the name of the whole mountain range encompassing three volcanoes: Kibo (5'895m), Mawenzi (5'149m) and Shira (4'005m). The photo below gives a good indication of the magnificent and massive size of Kibo alone.
On this day we enjoyed a cooked lunch instead of sandwiches at Karanga Camp. The idea is to eat as much as possible before hiking to the next camp at 4'680 metres, because around this altitude many hikers loose their appetite and even get altitude sickness. The trek of 9 km brought us to our last camp at Barafu Camp before the summit climb. So here we had to get to bed early to be ready for the big next day!
Our summit climb started at midnight. We actually felt great and were ready for this very long day. But at an altitude of 5'000 metres, just when we'd reached the final climate zone - the arctic zone - Aaron was suddenly hit by altitude sickness. He at first felt sure that there was no way for him to climb another 1'000m to the top... After a drink of hot sugared tea, Romel and I shared his daypack and off we set again - Aaron wanted to at least reach the rim of the volcano. He's always been and still is very ambitious 😊. It was a bit scary as he was pretty lethargic - he found the only way for him to move on was by looking at his feet, saying 'left foot, right foot, left foot,' ...
... So six hours later at 6 am we arrived at the Stella Point ridge at 5'739m. Exactly at this moment the sun rose above the beautiful Mawenzi peak and the ice just turned pink! Wow! This was mind-blowing! Everything around us just started glowing in the most beautiful and delicate of sunrise colours - pink, copper and gold. We will never forget this moment of happiness, of pure nature in all its glory - a time for tears of joy!
The fields of upwards-facing icicles were turning from pink to orange right in front of our eyes. These icicles are this way up because the mountain is at the equator and the sun shines down on them vertically. This experience was just awesome and nature couldn't have made us more happy!
On the opposite side, we saw the huge ice field towards the crater. 13 years later we read that almost 40% of this ice cover had disappeared, the glaciers have receded further and in addition, are thinning.
On our final hike to the highest point of Kilimanjaro - the Uhuru Peak - we didn't walk to the mouth of the volcano. Instead, there is a shorter walk along the ridge from Stella Point to Uhuru Peak. This is not a difficult hike at all, but the emotions can get ahold of you - what with the altitude, the beauty of it all, the achievement of fulfilling a dream... - and it can take a bit longer... this happened to Clare, wanting some time alone, taking it all in... and so only very slowly reached the peak an hour later.
United at the top and we all made it! One of Romel's happy slogans on the way to the top was: 'it's a piece of cake'! And for this, we celebrated our arrival at the top holding 'a piece of ice-cake'!!
The vertical ice wall of the Southern Icefield was another beautiful sight. It somehow reminded us of Fuchur of the Neverending Story... It was a clear and sunny day and temperatures were around the freezing point. We were so lucky - all around! We met a couple who had tried to climb the mountain exactly one year earlier but had to turnaround due to a snow storm and -20 degrees Celsius.
It was time to say goodbye as we had to get down to Mweka Camp at 2'800m and Aaron wasn't feeling too good. The hardest part of the hike down was through dust and rubble. Terrible for the knees and lungs and on top of that, Aaron's altitude sickness turned into a really awful headache - every step was like somebody hitting a drum right in his ears. Miraculously though, once we arrived at the camp his headache disappeared. It was sure proof that in case of altitude sickness you really need to climb down. It can be a killer if you don't react soon enough. At 3 pm after 17 km and 15 hours of hiking we reached our last camp.
The final 10 km hike from Mweka Camp to Mweka Gate at 1'400 meters through rain forest was relatively easy despite our tiredness. And.. as a reward, our porter-crew brewed us some banana-beer which we definitely enjoyed too much and suffered from too, the next morning... 😊😊.
Overall we did 62 km of hiking. As a foreword for this trip in our good old photo album, Clare wrote: 'We felt good. We looked good. But my golly, we smelt funny...' So the hot shower at the end was a definite and a total luxury!
After this adventure of a life time, we travelled on to spend a breathtaking week safaring in the Serengeti & Ngorongoro and another week discovering the pristine beauty of the island of Zanzibar. Mountain trekking, safari and beach life - Tanzania has it all!
Since that trip we have been fortunate enough to travel around and experience other stunning and sensational places in Africa - ones such as Uganda & the Gorillas, Masai Mara & The Great Migration, Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique.
Our other African blogs so far:
"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name"
(The Call - Thomas Osbert Morsdaunt, 1730-1809)
Travel blog and travel guide by Aaron Matzinger & Clare Walker
© 2020 Aaron Matzinger & Clare Walker
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