Day 1 on Kilimanjaro

I have finally typed up my notes from on Kilimanjaro ... I will post them as a post per day ... only because otherwise it would be a 10 page post ... which I think would be quite overwhelming!!!  Pictures will come shortly ... I promise :)  My little inserts in italics are thoughts I've put in after the fact.

Day 1 – July 6, 2013

We started this morning with a 5 hour van ride to the base of the Rongai Route from Arusha (as Rongai is the only Northern approach there is a significantly longer drive to arrive at the start point than the other routes).  Upon arrival at base, we had a somewhat embarrassing lunch … let me explain that a bit … in booking with Team Kilimanjaro, one of the ‘perks’ offered is chairs and tables for all meals.   This, when I read it from the comfort of my desk, did not sound like a huge and wonderful perk (oh how I have now discovered otherwise).  However, at the base of the route there is a tourist picnic area with benches on which all of the other climbers were sitting eating their provided boxed lunches.   We arrived and our guides promptly set up a full table, with table cloth, and proceeded to serve us a fully cooked meal.  We got quite a few jealous glances but also a good hint as to the level of care that we had signed up for!! Once we had all eaten our 3 course lunch and filled up our 3L camelbaks we got started.   OH WAIT … hint for the ladies if you are ever starting at Rongai’s base … nearest to the tourist area there are toilets that are only squat … walk down the hill to the further toilet building and there is an amazingly luxurious (after a few days in Arusha, my definition of luxurious here is nice and generous) toilet building with actual toilets.   Trust me; this walk will be worth it as that is the last toilet you are seeing for a week!

The trek for today was a nice and mild one, traversing first through plantations, then through a pine forest (yes, that was as weird as it sounds … apparently the pine trees were imported) and then into bush country and, amazingly – I expected this to take a few days, above the clouds!   The total distance covered was 6.7km and our camp was at 2626m.

I felt really great finishing day 1.   We had great company in our group of 8, the guides were really fun and Luke and I had already learnt the Kilimanjaro song in Swahili before leaving so got to sing along with one of the most popular songs (this later became more of an irritant …but for Day 1 it was cool).

I did, however start to notice the dirt and was FILTHY by the end of the day (Lesson 1 – I will do a next blog post on the Lessons of Kilimanjaro that they don’t tell you about in the pamphlet).  But, as the temperature was still above zero when we arrived in camp I was able to have a warmish wash in my bowl and felt good by bedtime.