Nina and Ola flew to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro together with our wonderful South African friends. It was a spectacular trip, and quite exhausting towards the end.
We chose the Rongai route and started our hike 12 August (altitude 1800 m). We slept in a tent and had porters who did the hard work for us.
From the tropical cloud forests, the vegetation shrank to bushes and then to tundra. The views were stunning!
Our route took us via the Mawenzi peak first. We acclimatized for an extra day there, at an altitude of 4300 m.
On our summit day, we started climbing at midnight, from an altitude of 4700 m. It was dark, cold and steep. Our guides said “pole pole”, meaning “slowly, slowly” in Swahili. They were right about that!
We reached the Kibo summit (5895 m) in the early morning hours 17 August. The view was marvelous. We could see that the horizon was curving - the world is not flat after all!
We did not linger for very long at the summit. It was freezing, around -15 degrees temperature and a strong wind. On weak legs and with aking lungs, we started our descent.
We descended to 3700 m that same day. We were completely exhausted. Our friendly guides and porters sang a song to us, to celebrate our achievement. They were kind enough not to mention that they had climbed Kilimanjaro dozens of times, without much effort…
We reached our hotel in the town of Moshi in the late afternoon on 18 August. After our first shower in a week, the beer (appropriately named Kilimanjaro) tasted very good in the company of our South African brothers and sisters.
And to those of you who are
wondering - no, our kids did not climb Kilimanjaro with us. It is too dangerous
for children. Temba, Disa, Tinna and Atlas enjoyed a warm summer week in Sweden with
Nina's parents.
Volcanic greetings from Ola and Nina
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