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From rainy Gloucestershire walking up Kilimanjaro seems like part of another world, close to a dream.  I wonder how we'll remember it.  As the weeks pass I'm sure we'll forget how physically tough it was. 

I think this trip has shown me how strong people can be when pushed and how if we share what we have, how little we really need in terms of possessions.  There was a spirit of generosity and compassion for each other in our group and it contributed enormously to the success of our trip.  A huge thank you to everyone who came with me.  You are all wonderful.

I'll never forget walking down the mountain, from that completely barren landscape, through moorland into the intensely vibrant rainforest.  It's put a lot of things into perspective.

So this is the end of my blog.  I'll write another one when we go on another adventure.  Thank you to all of the blog's followers for your terrific support and encouragement.

We did it!

For

Richard Percy Bourdon Smith

In very loving memory

Horombo to Marangi

We were woken at 6 am and had a quick breakfast of porridge, baked
beans, eggs and tea before packing as our tents were dismantled around
our ears. A large pile of donated clothing was listed, secretly
numbered and as the porters chose numbers, given away. Moba,
responsible for water, ended up breakdancing in a Chelsea Football
Club towel given by Sam. The porters and guides sang and danced for
the last time and we started the seventeen mile walk back to the park
gate at Marangi.
It was a beautiful morning with clear skies and clouds in the valleys
below us to the south and as we descended the earth came alive. From
the barren landscape at Kibo, the Horombo campsite had clusters of
Senecio Kilimanjari looking as incongruous as plants in a garden
centre. We walked and slowly more and more flowers reappeared; white
heather, clumps of elegantly long, pale green grasses; longer grasses,
with seed heads golden in the sun; tiny violets, impatiens, scabious,
bright yellow bushes. We crossed bridges over small streams as the
country to our right stretched out into endless blue valleys. The path
continued rockily through fields of more flowers, passed grassy
dormant volcanos and hills wooded with Erica Arborea and Phillippa.
Suddenly in our descent birds started singing and the air became
scented. I was stung by a bee while taking a photograph. In the arid,
majestic landscape of Kibo, the occasional dead butterfly seemed like
a message from another world. The contrast couldn't have been
greater. We continued from open moorland into rainforest. Trees
dripped with lichen, the forest pulsed with life and the sunlight
became patchy as the trees grew higher. We all felt it was the most
beautiful walk we'd ever been on. It then became the most magical as
we watched a colony of Colobus monkeys playing in the trees over our
heads, their long white tails almost indistinguishable from the beards
of lichen. Thunder before a lunch of sardine stew in trilaterally
constructed park buildings at Mandara. In wet weather gear we
continued walking through the forest in the rain. Wild mangoes
decaying beside the path, a black land crab, a tame colony of blue
monkeys with babies who threw fruit at us.
Then the familiar blue Ferrari disguised as a bus. Two hours later,
the hotel. I unpacked, repacked, organised until I couldn't bear it
any longer and showered.

Sent from my iPhone

The summit and down the other side

Yesterday was the most physically exhausting day of all of our lives.
We went to bed on Wednesday night at 6.30. It was impossible to sleep
because the porters seemed to be having several parties. We were up
again at 11 pm and we started walking very, very slowly at 12. Six
hours of watching the heels of the person ahead of you, heel to toe
all the way. I've never walked so slowly, so monotonously. Like
miners with our headtorches we snaked our way up this steep mountain
through 1,200 metres in altitude of volcanic dust and rock. Above us
bright stars, ahead and behind us more miners. We stopped every hour,
crowding onto ledges to drink water. At various intervals people
rushed passed us with guides on their way down, unable to go further.
It was a very long way and nearing it's end we had to clamber
exhausted over rock. An marginally advanced party of Rowan, Ian and I
reached Gilman's Point at 6.30 am. Then with the rest of the group we
watched the sun rise over Africa. It was an emotional moment. We were
exhausted and the top of the mountain in the early morning sun with
the glaciers looking internally lit was sublimely beautiful. Our next
challenge was Uhuru. Although not as steep, we had to walk along paths
around the crater in the snow for a further two hours to reach the
summit.
Descending took nearly four hours. Ian, Sam and Rowan skied on their
walking boots through the shale leaving clouds of dust behind them. At
lower altitude we joined in. We were dusty and completely knackered
when we finally returned to Kibo camp to vegetable stew, we hadn't
eaten for 14 hours, half an hour's rest, no water to wash, before
packing up and setting off in a snow storm to the next camp 3 hours
and 15 kilometres away.
None of us had any idea how difficult this was going to be. Walking
daily for hours to get to Kilimanjaro. Camping in extremely cold, wet,
muddy, under equipped campsites. Coping with altitude sickness. Then
reaching the summit. Tanzania is heartbreakingly beautiful. Our 30
porters were amazing. Delicious meals were conjured out of bags
carried on their heads, ahead of our slow progress. Our guides
cajolled and encouraged us to the summit.
Now we're in the coach returning to the hotel talking about hot
showers and flushing loos. Peter, the leader of this expedition, has
just suggested beginning it all again..
I'm low on battery and will write about the most beautiful six hour
walk (that's what we've been doing today Elaine!) back to the Marangi
Gate, later.

Sent from my iPhone

We made it!

Eight and a half hours later. We are exhausted. Now three hours to
walk down. One hour to collapse. Three hours to next camp. This isn't
a picnic....

19th January

A rest day at the beautiful camp below Mawrenzi. After a late
breakfast we set off on an acclimatisation walk up a narrow ridge
several hundred metres above the camp. The closest to rock climbing
we'll come. We perch on the top and look at Kilimanjaro in the
distance. Then down for lunch, an afternoon of r & r and an early
dinner. Everyone quite quiet thinking of the challenges tomorrow. Dear
Lucy Long Legs has a problem with her eyes, either resulting from
Diomox or a build up of pressure from the altitude and after taking
advice has decided not to come to the summit. Lovely Cath has a
tenacious stomach bug she thought she'd left behind in Nairobi, but
it's back.

20th January

Up early and a long, six hour trek across a bronze, barren landscape
to Kibo base camp at 4,700 metres. Passed the remnants of a crashed
plane. We found dead butterflies and a beautiful moth. All victims of
flying too high. A packed lunch among some rocks watching a storm
trying to rise from the west against winds from the east. We're all
doing well. Cath's feeling better. We rest this afternoon listening to
thunder, have dinner at 5.30, then try to sleep before waking up at
11.30 to leave for the summit at midnight.

Campsite below Mawenzi

Sudden email connection

Yesterday

18th January

Three days of silence because I have'nt been able to access email, this is being transmitted by text with many thanks to Caroline Hall .

On Saturday, we drove for five hours in a blue coach through fertile farmland with corrugated roofs and people everywhere.  Men sitting under trees talking, vividly dressed woman shopping in markets or transporting massive branches of bananas on their heads, small children waving.  At one stop a child showed us a damaged chameleon he had in a bag.  Ally picked it up for a proper assessement, it sensed an ally and climbed up her arm into her hair.

We arrived for a quick lunchat the beginning of the Rongai route and signing in I nearly got away with becoming the oldest person to clib Kili at 105, but the park warden was older.

After lunch of bananas, avocados , cheese, peanut butter and bread, we took the path first through fir plantations, then rain forest, then heathland, lichen dripping from trees and stream tumbling over boulders; the route ended at our first camp and songs greeted us from our porters. We shared this camp with a large group of powerfully built South Africans.There wasn't much space,  we shared tents, tried to keep the mud out and keep warm.  The temparture plummets after sunset.

Yesterday we walked for about seven hours up through more heathland, wild thyme, sage, heather and flowers everywhere with views of Tanzania spread out like an intricate carpet below us.

Arriving completely soaked from a hailstorm the porters welcomed us again with more songs and dancing at the second camp.  It was on a windy hill side and bitterly cold.  Today we walked up steep, rocky ridges, passed trees burned by honey collectors, until reaching camp at lunchtime; the plants on the way becoming smaller as we got higher and the landscape increasingly lunar.  This camp's in a green lake below Malwenzi mountain.  We'll be here for two nights.  We've been walking very, very slowly to acclimatise and are now above 4,000 metres.  The air's thin and clear and as the sun sets last night we looked across a sea of clouds below.  The stars are breathtaking. 

A few personal messages from me:
Peter - Texts work!
Roan says which holiday are you on Erica?
Everyone wants you to know its bloody hard work.
Sam needs a less romantic version.
Here i s a joint effort - cold, cold, cold, headaches, smelly loos.  Lucy has snow blindness.  Diamox is giving everyone pins and needles.  The hail was horrible and drenching.  The porters are amazing, so's the food.  we're so slow we have the  mountain to oursleves.  No meal passes without pee and poo discussions and Lucy's 'She Wee'- we are getting to know each other that well!  This environment isn't in any respect for the faint hearted.  We're counting the camping nights left.............

Day 1

A three hour bus ride collecting people on the way, through fields of
maize, bananas, coffee plantations. Small houses built from brick the
colour of gingerbread. This part of Tanzania's very fertile. Inside
the bus, several boxes of eggs tied with bailing twine, shifted from
seat to seat as more passengers arrived, ending up precariously on the
dashboard. A mobile telephone occasionally ringing with a whistle and
an imperious woman's voice calling for a taxi. A bubble of voices,
anxious consultations about Diomox. Daniel, sitting next to me, is
asleep, after an exhausting debriefing about corruption in Zimbabwe.

So many images from today. Vividly dressed people shopping in markets.
Children sitting outside a school being taught by a nun. Corragated
roofs, poverty, dark earth.

We walked through rainforest then moorland covered in yellow flowers,
over streams. All most beautiful. Now in a rather crowded camp all
doubling up in tents.

Had to walk further up the mountain to get a signal, it's dark I must
get back

Sent from my iPhone

We're off!

K2

We've been checking to see if any of you have been responding. Only
three people, we're all extremely disappointed... Well done Ally's
Mum, Sarah and Linda. We'll bring you back some rock.

An Australian hotel guest asked Iris which mountain we were climbing
today and she replied K2...

Sent from my iPhone

Moivaru Coffee Plantation

Here's a picture of one of the little cottages we're each sleeping in.

We've been on a walk around the garden and are meeting for drinks
later, for some reason to do with caterpillars, in our sleeping bags.
Photographs to follow, if it's possible to email photographs to the
blog, which Ian's decided should be renamed
beyondthispointwithdragons...

Arusha

We've all arrived safely and so has our luggage! There were beautiful
views of Kilimanjaro, rising through morning haze just before we
landed. It's unimaginably high and had one long cloud hovering over
the summit. Slight problems because the Visa printer wasn't working
at Kilimanjaro airport and Rowan had to be smuggled passed an official
looking doctor in a white coat checking Yellow Fever certificates.

And now, having been welcomed by Cath, who was already here, we're all
lying round the pool of the Moivaro coffee plantation in an
increasingly hot day. Cicadas making the noise of several thousand
wash boards, butterflies, flowers everywhere, more tranquil than we'll
be for the rest of this trip. Ian smoking steadily. Sam asleep. Iris
making up scurilious tales to augment this blog and keep you all reading

Sent from my iPhone

Chocolate

24 hours to go.  There's been more snow in the UK, I hope everyone manages to get to the airport. It's amazing how many people have walked up Kili, it's like a secret club.  The advice over the last 24 hours is to take it very, very slowly to acclimatise and conserve energy.  If you get exhausted at altitude you can't eat and have to come down.  Someone I met last night lost 6 kilos on the trip, which is an excellent excuse to buy lots of chocolate at Heathrow tomorrow.

Three days to go

I'm nervous.  All today I've been hearing about people who didn't make it to the summit of the mountain.  I'm sure I'm going to forget to bring something essential.  What's a treking towel?  Should I take soap?  I've tried to make Anzac biscuits three times and they turn into ginger pancakes.  Is this a bad omen?  Up to London tomorrow and to parties in my treking boots and trousers, looking like a Yeti. My home is warm and comfortable and I'm going to spend a week in a cold tent feeling sick.

Anzac biscuits

These biscuits release energy slowly and are given to the New Zealand and Australian armies
when they're out on exercise. I'm going to make some and eat them on the way up the mountain.
Anzac Biscuits
1 cup plain flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
125g butter
2 tblspn golden syrup
1.5 tspn bicarbonate of soda
2 tblspn boiling water
And this is what you do
Preheat the oven to 160 C
Combine sugar, flour, coconut and oats in a large bowl
Melt butter and golden syrup in saucepan, combine bi carb and boiling water
in a jug. Add to butter mixture
Combine all ingredients, mix well
Roll level (he says teaspoons) I think desert spoons, of mixture on a lined
baking tray and bake until golden brown for about 10 - 15 minutes
A good Anzac should be chewy in the middle

KILIMANJARO

Eight days to go and I'm testing to see if I've set up this Blog properly