Day 3 - 18th September 2010

Off we go!

I managed to get a reasonable nights sleep considering we were in a strange country and about to take on the toughest challenge of our lives. The rain was hammering it down when we were woken by the hotel early alarm call. I can’t remember exactly what Audra and I said to each other but I’m pretty sure it involved the word SHIT or FUCK!

We got ourselves sorted and went down to meet everyone for breakfast, knowing full well that we should tuck in to what could possibly be our last half decent meal. Actually it wasn’t even half decent as the hotel food was pretty damn bland! We all took our bags down to reception, everyone discussing how much their bags weighed like our lives actually depended on it. The one person that stood out on this front was Scotty who somehow managed to have 3 kilos less kit than everyone else, I don’t think we ever did discover why! It was quite hilarious to see that between Donna, Karen and Paula L they had taken 5 carrier bags of stuff out of their kit bags to leave at the hotel…god alone knows what was in them but knowing Donna and Karen it was probably bottles of Laurent Perrier!!

Another 2 hour bus journey round to the Rongai gate followed and more sights of the real Tanzania battered our senses along the way. We looked so touristy sat in our buses taking photos out of the windows; women walking along the road carrying huge bunches of bananas on their heads; children walking god knows how many miles to school; market stalls selling home grown vegetables; men making bricks by the side of the road; donkeys pulling carts; men pulling carts; cows wandering around aimlessly. The poverty was striking but even more so was the dignity and pride of the people we were gauping at. I felt uncomfortable being on the inside looking out and wondered what they were thinking about us as they looked in.

We eventually arrived at the park gate and briefly met the guides and porters that were to become our heroes over the coming days. A new toilet block had recently been built and all us ladies rushed off for the last wee on a proper toilet…oh the luxury!

The hotel had given us all a packed lunch and we were told to eat it here before we set off so that the lunch boxes could be returned. Everyone was feeling nervous but also excited that everything we had been working towards over the last year was finally about to start. Jenny completed all the paperwork at the gate, every one had to be signed on to the mountain and then eventually signed off it too.

We set off, everyone chatting to who ever was close by, there was plenty of laughter and everyone seemed happy to finally be under way. We weren’t long into the 4 hour trek when we came across a clearing with some shacks and a few children came rushing over. Their little faces, covered in dirt, wearing clothes that had clearly seen much better days many years ago, a little hand held out in anticipation and the word chocolate quietly escaping from their lips. My heart melted and I felt terrible that I had eaten mine from my lunch box only an hour earlier. Thankfully Annemarie was behind me and she still had hers. She handed it over and you would have thought she had given them gold.

Certain people in the group were beginning to make an impression on me and Scotty in particular struck me as a young man who was much more of a deep thinker than he liked to let on. He won my heart with his reasons for taking on the trek and I absolutely insisted that I was going to be his Kili mum, a title that I had to battle several of the other old biddies to keep!! I just want to put it on the record that I am very proud of you my Kili son. Xx

At some point during these few hours I had my first ever wee outdoors, well as an adult that is! I couldn’t have been more proud!!

Getting into the first camp was very exciting and we were told to choose a tent for the night. Audra and I headed for the one next to the toilet tent, with the idea that we wouldn’t have to go far should we be caught short in the night. Oh my goodness, what a mistake to make!

After unpacking our kit bags, inflating our thermarests and getting our sleeping bags out we tried to find a spot within the tent that didn’t have a rock under. In the end Audra and I decided that we would have to sleep side ways in the tent and have the rocks between us in the middle and we had to giggle when I discovered that I was longer than the tent was wide!

We headed off to the mess tent for our first experience of mountain cooking and ended up sitting with Julie and Louise, two ladies that I hadn’t had a chance to speak as yet. They quickly became known as Thelma & Louise and we all had a good laugh at our end of the table. There were large plates of popcorn and flasks of ginger tea and plain boiled water. Milo (the drink of future champions!) and hot chocolate were available too. We couldn’t believe our eyes when pots of roast potatoes and plates of fish arrived and we eagerly all tucked in amazed that such food could be cooked in these conditions. From down the other end of the table we could hear that there was some discussion going on about the fish but it didn’t become obvious until the following morning that indeed it was the very serious issue of ‘the fishgate scandal!’.

Back in our tent and being virgin campers we hadn’t even considered that if we needed to go to the toilet then every other bugger in the camp would too and what with hearing every single wee that happened that night and the herd of elephants stampeding through the tent next door (or was that Ronnie snoring?!!) Audra and I managed very little sleep at all. I began to feel really nauseous through the night and my heart was racing. I got up at 4.30am and decided that a trip to the ‘tent of hell’ was the only option. I was feeling quite disorientated and very nearly went flying, practically taking the toilet tent out with me! The stars were majestical though and I sight I will never forget.

Day 2 - 17th September 2010

Reality Hits

I knew I would be shattered by the time we reached Nairobi but once there we all regrouped and found ourselves a lovely spot on the floor for the four hours we had to wait for our connecting flight to Tanzania. Scotty and Paul D went off on a scouting expedition and eventually came back to excitedly report that they had found a café with seats and everything! Believe me that was very appealing in the oppressive hell-hole that is Nairobi airport but unfortunately coffees were already in hand and the group decided to stay put in fear of losing the one available seating area to be had (the floor!). There were rumours going around that Ronnie had managed to get himself, Gemma and Paula into the first class lounge and we all jealously wished we were there too.

Eventually we boarded the flight to Kilimanjaro, a dual prop plane that wasn’t powered by elastic bands…a vast improvement on what I had been expecting! The 50 minute flight took us over the top of Mt Kilimanjaro to the left and Mt Meru to the right. Meru was imposing its way through the clouds and I was grateful not to be sat on the left hand side of the plane because I really didn’t want to see what we were about to climb.

A big sigh of relief came from various members of the gang once we had landed and we all excitedly had photos taken outside with the ‘Kilimanjaro Airport’ sign in the background. The kit bags were unceremoniously thrown on top of two rickety old buses and we were loaded on board for the 2 ½ hour transfer to the hotel. The journey was quite some introduction to Africa and it became quite clear what a culture shock we were in for. The roads in themselves were a challenge, mostly just dirt tracks, and even though they officially drive on the left hand side the driver pretty much drove wherever he could to avoid the potholes in the road. On several occasions it seemed as though there would be a head on collision but these guys were obviously used to it and yet another near death experience didn’t seem to throw them at all.

Arriving at the Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort Hotel brought relief for everyone but I couldn’t believe my eyes when a very young girl insisted on carrying my kit bag up the three flights of stairs to our room…my first taste of being humbled by these lovely people.

Unpacking, packing, weighing, unpacking, packing, weighing took over the time before dinner and the team talk. At dinner our leader Jenny went over what to expect on the trek and for the first time we were all firmly brought back to reality when the first thing she asked for was our next of kin details.

I was already feeling very nervous about the health implications of altitude for myself in particular. The night before the trek I had received an email from the trek doctor informing me that the medication I was on would put me at greater risk of a DVT at altitude and that this should have been discussed with my oncologist. Needless to say that at this late stage no discussions had taken place and it completely threw me. I’d already put my family through so much over the last couple of years the thought of something so dangerous happening half way up a mountain was a little difficult to deal with. I decided to take aspirin with me to help thin my blood and Claire (the doc) explained what symptoms I should look out for. Not a good start. It really didn’t help that whilst checking out the hotel myself, Paul and Helen came across a woman sat by the pool who regaled us with her recent Kilimanjaro experience. This had involved getting HACE and HAPE at quite low altitude and being literally dragged back down the mountain by her guide only to fall into a coma for four days. The hospital had phoned her next of kin to inform them that she was unlikely to come home. When she came round she didn’t know who she was, who her partner was, what had happened and where she had been. Not funny. The three of us felt a bit shell shocked from that little chat but I think for me in particular I had begun the slippery slope of self doubt and worry that was to be a huge learning curve for me over the next few days.

After dinner we met in the bar. Everyone was beginning to relax around each other and we had a few laughs before returning to our rooms to make sure that our bags were packed correctly and weighed no more than the maximum 15 kgs – just in case we had got it wrong on the previous 10 occasions we had checked!!

Day 1 - 16th September 2010

And so the journey begins…Kilimanjaro or BUST.

It had been about 14 months since that fateful evening in the pub, when too many glasses of wine had lead to the ridiculous idea that 4 forty something ladies-wot-lunch could possibly somehow exchange their high heels and lip gloss for walking boots, tents and shit buckets and drag their sorry arses up a 19,340ft mountain.

What the hell were we thinking? This was the only thought going through my head as we arrived at Heathrow airport at the beginning of our African adventure. Walking into the departures area it didn’t take long to spot a few familiar faces and I really appreciated the facebook group that had been set up enabling us all to ‘talk’ to each other over the previous months. Paula, Gemma, Scotty, Ronnie and Paul L (my boss!) were all there, looking equally worried, nervous grins on their faces. Annemarie and I said goodbye to our husbands, both looking a little awkward because they didn’t know any of the people they were leaving us with and probably feeling a bit left out as we were about to head off on our big adventure. It was soon decided that we would find somewhere to get a drink and some food and having met with the rest of the group we all trouped off to find somewhere to park ourselves. Donna and Karen headed straight for the champagne bar, a fact that really impressed me as I had been trying my hardest to be tee-total for the last month and here they were on the very eve of the trek putting it away without a care in the world…may be they were the sensible ones!

The rest of the group started chatting and getting to know each other and it was quickly apparent that it was a really great bunch of people and that there were going to be a few laughs along the way…we even got introduced to Scotty’s page 3 girlfriend courtesy of an appearance in the Daily Star that very day! I remember thinking how sweet it was that he was worried that a bunch of near strangers would be making judgements about him because of this when in fact I think most of us were actually very impressed! I had already adopted Scotty as my Kili son and soon realised that all these people would be part of a Kili family for the next 11 days. A bond was already forming.

Once we had boarded the plane the reality of what we were doing began to sink in. It was an eight hour night flight and we knew that we needed to sleep so as not to start the trek on a bad footing. The Kenyan Airways cabin witches didn’t exactly make it a welcoming flight and sleep didn’t come easily sat in the middle seat with nowhere to rest my head but it went surprisingly quickly considering and as dawn broke we found ourselves in Keyna.