Bound for Tanzania

I had booked a hiking trip to go to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro using the Lemosho route. After much planning, and anticipation, it was time... I was on my way!


The trekking company we selected was Ultimate Kilimanjaro, middle-of-the-road in terms of cost (not the cheapest but certainly far from the most expensive.) They have a good reputation, as far as we could tell, from online comments, and word-of-mouth. (I was paying $1875.00 for the 8 day trip - not cheap, but a lot is provided for you on the trip, including accomodation and food, and porters to lug all the baggage up the mountain!)

And the Lemosho route was chosen also based on positive online comments. In particular, the Lemosho route is longer, 8 days, compared to 4 and 5 days for some of the other routes, and as a result there should be more time to acclimatize to the altitude and less likelihood of suffering debilitating altitude-related problems. (This was a big deal for me - my previous attempt at a high-altitude hike, or Longs Peak in Colorado, ended badly for me. I hiked too fast to high altitude without being adequately acclimatized, and I started to get crushing headaches, had no appetite, and eventually called it quits and descended without getting to the summit of the mountain.) Another reason for Lemosho was that it was described as the most scenic of the routes, passing through a diverse variety of different terrains and climate zones during the 5/6 days before the final Summit night.

Kilimanjaro is a long way from the States, but most people travel there using the same route -- flight to Amsterdam, then a direct flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro Airport (which is just a couple of hours away from the main gate of the Kilimanjaro National Park. I flew to Amsterdam, and spent a day there in an attempt to break up the very long journey. The next stage, the flight to Kilimanjaro, was the crucial one. There were many stories of luggage being lost on that route (indeed, I met a few people during the trip whose luggage had been lost or delayed) so I tried to organize things so that I had all the essentials on my person or in my carry-on - my hiking day-pack. (Particularly, my boots and my warm clothes for the final ascent - very difficult to replace if they went missing.)

In any event, the flight to Kilimanjaro went without a hitch and all my baggage arrived without problem. (It was surprising for me how many tourists were on he plane and how few Tanzanians - I had been expecting a slightly different experience, flying to Africa, but we could just as easily have been flying to JFK, judging by the passengers...)

10 PM - I had landed in Africa, and I was ready for the trek. (Now, things seemed exotic, and I was excited and looking forward to it.)