This journey to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro all began about two years ago. I was reading a list of epic hikes that everyone should take in their lifetime. The Inca Trail, El Camino, Hadrian's Wall...and Kilimanjaro. What? But I can't climb mountains! Turns out that you don't need to know how to climb mountains in the mountaineering sense in order to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. You just need to be in decent shape and find yourself a trekking company to travel with. Well, alright! Seed planted.
At this point, my mind hearkened back to a time when my brother and I were making bucket lists together on our living room couch. At the time, he said he wanted to try to climb Mount Everest. Being the good sister I am, I wanted to save my brother's life...so I convinced him to climb Kilimanjaro with me. I figured he would realize how exhausting a venture that was and decide Everest was no longer a must. Mission Accomplished!
While things were coming together behind the scenes, they really got going in July 2019, when we put money down on the trip for the following January. We went with a company called Peak Planet that seemed to be well run, had good reviews, and focused on safety. After the trip, I can say I have no regrets about choosing them. They were amazing! Plane tickets were purchased, and then came the long months of getting into shape.
So how does one prepare to climb the tallest mountain in Africa? Stairs...I climbed so many of them. Luckily for me, my apartment building is 7 stories tall and has a great set of stairs that I climbed once or twice a week. I would do sets of 4 flights and then walk down them and start over. To begin with, I was fighting for breath and had shaking legs after just 6 sets of stairs (24 flights). But by the time I headed off for my trip, I was able to do 60+ fights. I think doing stairs was better than a Stairmaster because I also had to come down them, and you can't just climb a mountain. You do have to come back down. Living in Kansas, stairs were my best chance to practice the ups. I also spent many Sunday mornings at the YMCA doing long "hikes" on the treadmill of 90-120 minutes. And other than that, my workout plan consisted of time on the elliptical and my weekly training sessions (Thank you Josh, for helping train not just my legs, but my arms because they were very important on the way down!).
After months of training, the trip finally arrived! After work on January 23rd, I flew up to Chicago where I was meeting my brother for our trip to Tanzania, Africa, home of Kilimanjaro. The trip to Africa was journey in itself. Thankfully everything went to plan...it was just a really long ways. We flew Chicago to New York; New York to Amsterdam; and lastly Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro International. We had a couple hour layovers in each airport, which lead to a total travel time of something like 26 hours.
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| Ready to go! Look how awake we were then! |
I had booked a window seat for the flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro, because if I was traveling to Africa for the first time, I sure as hell wanted to be the first to see the continent. We passed over the Alps, followed by the Mediterranean, and then there it was! Africa! We crossed into the continent somewhere over Egypt, to the west of Alexandria and Cairo. We got to see the Nile zigzagging below us. We were able to see the lake created by the Aswan Dam that crosses the Nile. Mostly what I was able to see looked like sand dunes or desert, but every now and then, you could see crop circles that mean irrigation. It was dark by the time we reached the Equator so I wasn't able to see if there was a dotted line below us. 😉 There were no flashing lights either. As we descended into Arusha, Alex got his music cued up and we listened to Toto's "Africa" as the plane touched down.
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| First look at Africa |
Upon arrival in the city of Arusha, Tanzania, and an hour or so wait through customs, we were officially in Tanzania. And just like was planned, a person was waiting outside the airport with a sign that said "Peak Planet", and they had our names on their list. Whew! They picked up a total of 6 of us from our flight; three friends traveling together: Ashley, Bre, and Tim; and solo traveler, Jay. As we traveled to the hotel located near Moshi with the windows open, I was trying to figure out what I thought Africa smelled like. I decided it smelled sweet to me.
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| Outdoor lounge at Stella Maris Lodge. |
Our hotel while off the mountain was called the Stella Maris Lodge. It is a place that caters to the trekker and was perfect for what we needed. A neat thing about the hotel was that it supports a school (located right next door) for AIDS orphans. Excess funds beyond upkeep for the hotel and staff, go to supporting the school. On our last day before returning home, we could hear the kids reciting their English lessons and playing outside. The school isn't completed yet. They have the majority of the classrooms built, but are still finishing the rest of the building.
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| Stella Maris School |
I think I'll leave it here for now...more to follow!
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