CHALLENGE ONE;
TREK; MOUNT KILIMANJARO - COMPLETED - FEBRUARY 2015.
So yes... This is where it all began.
In April 2014, I had the mad idea of following through with an ambition of mine and that was to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I knew I wanted to do it through Charity Challenge having seen them do the Comic Relief climb a couple of years ago and had at regular times kept an eye on their website to see when future events were happening.
After much deliberation and checking how tough various routes were (given that I'd only ever climbed Bennachie, a 500m hill down the road from me, once!) I decided the Rongai Route was the one for me. I knew however I'd need some extra motivation if I was to get up the mountain and as such, fired a Facebook message to my good pal Johan Linklater who quickly said yes to joining me on the challenge.
In June 2014 once we were all booked and everything cleared, we informed the world of Social Media of our plans, set up a JustGiving Page combining our fundraising efforts and pushed on with setting about the £10,000 target we set for CLIC Sargent (me) and Fight for Sight (Jo).
It was a slow burner to begin with, the climb being so far away it appeared people were more willing to wait until closer to the time - probably because they weren't expecting us to follow through with it!! We held a Race Night in September that really got the ball rolling, making just over £1000 profit before a 20 hour charity cycle in Tesco raised around £2,000 for the weekend (10 hours of cycling non-stop each day!). Our Bingo night didn't go aswell as we'd hoped for but an incredible £1,000 donation from my Grunny took us up past the £6,500 we had to raise before the end of November... From there, people seemed to be in a giving mood over the festive period as donations rolled in during the start of 2015 given that we were only one month away from the climb. We held a Quiz Night in January which was our final fundraiser before the climb and our total stood at just over £8,000. Before we left though, there was one final boost as the Inverurie Round Table donated an incredible £750 to our cause.
We set off to London on February 5th but due to the flight times, there was an 8 hour wait at Heathrow before the flight to Ethiopia followed by another flight to Tanzania itself. Having already found some of the folks doing the Challenge with us on Facebook, Jo & I played a game of 'let's spy a stranger' and looked out for people doing the trek via their Facebook profile pictures. I won by spotting Daz, sending him a really dodgy Facebook message along the lines of 'I've never met you before but go and look over your left shoulder and you might see us waving at you...' - fortunately, it was him!! We went down the stairs and the majority of the group were down having a few drinks and feeling scared about what the next 10 days were to bring.
The flights came and went without any hiccups (apart from a dodgy landing in Tanzania and Gwen deciding to meet our Doctor earlier than expected!!). We were met by our Charity Challenge Rep Rhiannon, the aforementioned Doctor Sarah and our guides from the Tanzania Travel Company.
We settled in to the hotel for one night as we got to know everyone before a short briefing from Rhainnon, Sarah, Richard (who would be our main guide on the Trek) and Sam, the director of the Tanzanian Travel Company.
Day 2 came and it was time to set off for the Mountain. We were packed into 2 buses like sardines with all our luggage, day packs, guides, food, drink, tents etcetc all squeezed in and stuck on the roof - brilliant banter though! We signed in at the Rongai National Park gate and a short transfer later we were off the bus and ready to rock and roll! Our lunch was provided, a fruit juice, carrot sandwich, chocolate biscuit (which obviously melted!!) and a boiled egg being the plan of attack for today. 4 hours and a group of baboons later (referring to the Monkeys and not the people doing the trek!! ;p), we made it to our first camp where we were greeted with my now favourite tune of all time - the Kilimanjaro Song (was something along the lines of);
Jambo! Jambo bwana!
Habari gani? Mzuri sana!
Wageni, mwakaribishwa!
Kilimanjaro? Hakuna matata!
Tembea pole pole. Hakuna matata!
Utafika salama. Hakuna matata!
Kunywa maji mengi. Hakuna matata!
The song is literally saying 'Welcome, How are you? Kilimanjaro? No worries! Walk slowly - no worries, you'll get there safe - no worries, drink plenty - no worries!!
The guides had set up all the tents, were prepping food, cleaning water and singing away without a care in the world - it was amazing. We had specific guys and girls assigned to us who looked after everything not in our 'Day Bag' and carried that up the Mountain - again, very much appreciated. A special shout out to George Emmanuel who carried the GoPro camera and equipment I was given on behalf of Charity Challenge to record footage of the trek for them on the way up.
Day 2 of trekking was scheduled to be a longer one with 1000m of altitude gain and approximately 8 hours of trekking ahead of us. Sadly, the weather took a turn for the worse and we ended up in a thunderstorm inside a cloud which was a pretty surreal experience - when inside a cloud... You can't see a thing! Upon arriving at camp, I made the sad discovery that my Blackberry had died... It was flooded along with the rest of the contents in by day bag and I could hear all my friends at home celebrating over the fact I would now have to get a new phone!! Meals were pretty basic and we learned quickly that the lunch box received the day before would be the standard along with different types of fruit & porridge in the morning along with some sort of soup in the evening followed by rice or pasta - the 2kg of Jelly Beans I had in my bag were to be put to good use for energy!! Special mention to Wayne here - he was the 'largest' man on the trek with us and wasn't full of confidence starting the trek, purely on it to support his nephew Darren... In the Mess Tent that night, the altitude hit him pretty hard and honestly, I've never laughed so much in my life - our little corner of the tent was on the deck with what 'Altitude Wayne' was coming away with.
The next day we headed to what was to be our home for the next 2 days - the Mawenzi Tarn. It was a short but steep climb that took around 4/5 hours to do but the views when up there were incredible - we had gone so far in such a short space of time that we were now above the clouds, amazing. The altitude was around 4,300m high (the summit of Kili being 5,895m) and the headaches were starting to kick in for some people. In the afternoon, we went for an acclimatisation trek up the right hand side of the Tarn before heading back down as the weather closed in on us. Sadly, I forgot to take my sunglasses up with me and effectively burnt my eyes - my head was killing that evening and I genuinely wore my sunglasses to bed as looking out at anything was agony. I was also slowly losing my appetite, the eye/head ache making me feel sick at the thought of another bowl of soup and pasta... I did decline and really, anyone doing the trek in future - I advise you don't!! lol, I felt knackered that night and with the headache getting worse, it was horrible.
The next day, I still felt a bit ropey but our main men in the 'kitchen' brought out porridge.... again..... Before unleashing a plate full of BACON!!!! I rejected the porridge and thought the next few days were going to be horrible but how they managed to hide bacon from me for 5 days was a feat in it's own sense - I scoffed some down, kept the shades on and finally got back to a bit of normality!! We climbed up the Mawenzi Tarn again, this time heading up to the top. Here we got a taste of what the summit climb would be like as we walked in a diagonal direction back and forth to counter the scree that we were walking up - very weird and tough going to get a grip on... But we all made it and for the first time, everyone pulled together to say 'Y'know what... We can actually do this'. We headed back down to camp and I was feeling quite down at the thought of leaving the place tomorrow - it was an affa nice area, a random lake, three quarters of the way up a Mountain setting the scene, clouds below in the distance, the Tarn behind us and Kilimanjaro's summit on the right. We messed around in the afternoon, playing card games, teaching the Tanzanian lads how to play snap (which, when one of the guys had a hand the same size as my size 13 boot, was not fair!!!). It was only that evening we realised in 36 hours, we'd be at the summit.
After a 'better' sleep - something of a rarity on the trek, we got up on the Wednesday knowing that the next 24 hours was going to be hard... Very hard! We walked across the 'saddle' between the Mawenzi Tarn and Kibo Hut. The hut was visible in the distance and everyone looked forward to what was a pretty flat, short looking walk..... 5 hours later, we were parked up beside pieces of a broken plane which had crashed many years ago and sadly, the huts looked just as far away as they did 5 hours prior. As each hour passed, we realised this was going to be a long trek and knowing the summit climb started at midnight, some of us panicked we weren't even going to make Kibo Hut for then!!!! Finally, after 9 long hours - made worse by the fact that it was absolutely roasting - we made Kibo Hut for about 5pm. Most folks, including myself, had a cry just at reaching this point because we were physically and mentally gone. I took a moment myself to have a wee think about my Grandma, the anniversary of her death being just 2 days away and knowing that if I make it tonight, she wouldn't be there to tell the story too, despite all the headaches, hunger, dehydration, lack of sleep etc - this to me was the lowest point of the trek despite being over the moon at reaching there at the same time.
I didn't really get any sleep before the summit climb - Jo's snoring keeping half the camp awake (no, seriously.. Just ask Lee!!!) - and after some porridge being forced down me and a handful of popcorn, I'd stocked up on water and wrapped the bottles up in Gaffa tape to save the water freezing during the trek (at midnight, it's negative degrees and we're wrapped up in 4 layers of clothing all round and I was still cold!!).
We set off slowly and had to make a point of not looking up above - we knew it would be seven hours and I personally just knuckled down, followed the 2 feet in front of me, drank my water and waited for the 5 minute break at every hour. The pace was quicker than I expected it to be come hours 4 onwards and the group did break into 2 groups effectively - I really just wanted to get up there ASAP so stayed with the 'quicker' group... In hindsight, pushing myself this much was probably my downfall and should have continued 'pole pole' (slowly, slowly) - my thinking was, the slower I went, the longer this leg pain was going to last!! The sun slowly started to appear through the clouds and that was a massive boost, my legs genuinely felt like they were on fire and the terrain was terrible. I could see Gillman's Point in the distance but sadly, in between the end point and where I was were 3 foot high rocks - disaster. It was at this point I began to capitulate, using the walking poles to lift myself up between the rocks having been digging them into scree for the last 6 hours was horrible and I could feel myself getting light-headed - more from exhaustion than altitude issues however. We made Gillman's Point and I was over the moon - unfortunately, we had a 2 hour trek around the summit to look forward to yet and I reluctantly headed off to Stella Point. At this point.... I genuinely have no idea what happened next except from what I've seen on photos and videos - I am delighted to say that not only did I make Stella Point but Uhuru Peak aswell, leaving behind a lock given to me from Allison at the very top, before heading back down the Mountain where I woke up in the tent and panicked over my memory loss!!! lol.
The final 2 days coming off the Mountain were a lot easier but the whole experience was absolutely amazing. The group, the guides, the main man Richard Kikoti (who I now enjoy casual conversations with on Facebook!!) and especially Rhiannon, Sarah and Johan helped make the Trek one I will never forget. The tipping ceremony at the end put everything into context, these guys are over the moon at any tips they receive and given the work they put in during the week, if I brought more money with me, I'd have given them the lot! We spent a day in Tanzania (at ground level) and had a cracking wee meal at the Blue Heron (or something along that lines) before heading back to London and going our separate ways. We held one final fundraiser upon our return which was epic - another Race Night, ending the fundraising how it began but the profit on this was so large that only did we pass our £10,000 target but we also smashed the £11,000 barrier!!
Amazeballs.
Talking of amazeballs - here's the video put together by Charity Challenge & have a look on my Youtube channel for all 80 videos taken on the trek!! lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3UiS2HUFaI
Below are some of the photos taken on the trek aswell.