Day 9: Kilimanjaro- 'Dave brought a book, Dan some juggling balls and Kie and Brad each brought their Gameboys' (Joe)

Kilimanjaro day!

For a trek to the base camp of the highest mountain in Africa, we’d obviously packed our bags and come well prepared: Dave brought a book, Dan some juggling balls and Kie and Brad each brought their Gameboys with them (with Pokemon Emerald and Mario Kart, respectively)

Climbers should be fit (and have a sore throat)

We got picked up, late – aka on time, Africa style – by our guides and headed towards the entrance of Kili, where we had to sign in and proceeded to be ripped off for various popular chocolate brands (90p for a KitKat!) and buy some particularly boring postcards with Kilimanjaro in them – I was disappointed as I wanted something bordering on fun for my postcard, but apparently they don’t want to advertise anything else. Cue posing for photos in the cold Tanzanian morning (it’s hot during the day and pretty nippy during the night and early morning) and after checking we were physically fit, over the age of 10 and not suffering from any illnesses, we set off. It was about 8km to base camp, then another kilometre to the Maundi Crater.

Although 8km isn’t far, we were about 3,000m up, and so the constant uphill was tiring, and by the time we got to Base Camp I was ready for a sit down and a surprisingly good packed lunch. Base camp’s where most people stop overnight to let their bodies get used to the altitude in an effort to prevent sickness, but obviously we weren’t going to the top so we headed back down after an hour of taking in the surroundings and locating a toilet that wasn’t the rainforest or a hole in the floor.

We didn’t see any animals on the way up (bar thousands of ants), but on the way down our guide proved he had an amazing eye for spotting wildlife; the highlight was ending up metres away from a baby monkey eating up part of the dense forest that surrounded the majority of our journey. It was a relief to get to the bottom with no more than a twisted ankle, with it being quite tricky going constantly downhill.

Our guide told us he ‘went to the top once or twice a month.’ As if that wasn’t impressive enough, we saw people carrying huge tents on their heads up Kilimanjaro – it was unbelievable. Although I enjoyed it, I don’t think I’ll ever be doing it with a packed up tent and several metal bars on my head. Having said that, I’m hoping that one day I might just get to the top.

-Joe