This morning I awoke rather early in order to have my last shower and savour every moment of it knowing that I would not shower for the next 6 days! It wasn't the warmest shower in the world, but better than a cold shower or nothing at all. Breakfast was ready at 7am; I had fried eggs, pancakes and watermelon, a rather substantial meal and a perfect way to start the first day of hiking. After all final preparations for my ascent were made I headed outside; the bus was due to arrive at 8:30am, but this is Africa, whenever is something going to be on time?! Never. It wasn't as late as I thought it would be though, only 20 minutes late.

Our journey to Kilimanjaro involved several stops; the first being a stop at a pharmacy to get altitude sickness tablets. 3000 Tanzanian shillings for 20 tablets, that's just over £1. The other stops involved picking up porters, tents, food and gas. One stop was at a butchers, where we watched them dice up the beef which was then brought on board the bus. Brave bringing meat up the mountain... I was wondering where they would store it and keep it cool.

The americans were rather loud the whole journey. I suppose I should tell you their names; DJ from Michigan, Melissa from Ohio, Corinne from Seattle, Parker from Florida and Drew and Tyler from California. They all met through their organisation GIVE and have been volunteering in Zanzibar for two weeks teaching English to children.

I was enjoying the scenery and gazing out of the window when we picked up the last porter; a drunk, and of course he would sit next to me. The white of his eyes was yellow and bloodshot with a thick glaze over them. He stunk of alcohol and continued to sip his bottle whilst on the bus. His speech was slurred, the more he spoke to me, the more I didn't understand him but just nodded my head and agreed in hope that he would leave me be. I am not a fan of drunks. In my mind I was just hoping that he wouldn't ask to carry my bag, as I would feel very uncomfortable with that!

11:30am.... Finally we arrived at the gates of Machame Route, Kilimanjaro. Walkers, porters and bags everywhere! First task; register as walkers which didn't take very long, just your name, nationality and passport number. We then retreated to the eating area where lunch was provided, nothing to brag about, bread and butter sandwich, a banana, a piece of carrot and a piece of avacado. Whilst enjoying our extravagent lunch we got talking to a mother and daughter from Canada. They both seem very nice. The daughter, Chelsea, was the same age as most of us and so there were a lot of discussions around differences in University between Canada and America. They all seem shocked that I decided against University. 2 hours had gone past before we eventually disembarked on our journey from the Machame Gate at 1800m.

Within the first few minutes I got told off for having plastic water bottles but they weren't going to take them off me, I just had to hide them in my rucksack. They have a very strict littering rule up Kilimanjaro but I wasn't going to litter two plastic water bottles when drinking water was one of the most important aspects of the climb. The start was relatively easy, a wide track with a steady incline, nothing too taxing. Many porters stormed past us carrying bags on their back and head, there were even one or two women as porters! Today is classed as Segment 2 of the mountain, the rainforest; surrounded by tall tree and a thick cloud of fog, our views were very limited and meant that our focus was on the path we were trekking. Gradually the track narrowed into a steep path. It progressively got steeper and steeper, my body started to question what I was doing to it, I think it went into shock. It made me think of my family and Arnold, as well as doing this climb for myself, I was doing it for them. It felt strange walking without Arnold as we had planned to do it together, in my mind I could hear him spurring me on and encouraging me.

Corinne started the hike in trainers.... Who does that?! And when I thought that was outrageous, we overtook a man walking in flip flops... Are people crazy? What goes through their minds when they think of this ideas?! It's beyond me that's for sure. The girls asked so many questions in regards to the length of time we will be walking, how steep the path will get, when can we have a break, it was beginning to drive me crazy and we'd only been walking just over an hour. How i'd cope with this for 6 days I was unsure, I just kept quiet and continued forward. Towards the end of the day we were exposed to hundreds of stairs, they were endless, uneven and ridiculously steep! Some of them required me to put my hands on the floor in order for me to get up them.... Can I even class that as a step?! The trick to walking this mountain is to walk slow (pole pole), there was no way I could contemplate attempting the stairs at any decent speed, slow was going to be the only way. Our tour guides, Erasto whom we call Rafiki and Carmello whom we call Boss are very supportive and encouraging, I suppose they have to be, it's their job, but they've really helped break me in to the first day.

We arrived at Machame Camp at 6pm, elevation of 3000m. First task; sign in - this would be the first task at every new camp in order for them to keep on eye on who has made it to which camp and an idea of how many people are staying at the campsite. We headed straight to the tents after registering in order to layer up as it began to get cold quickly. I was cold in trousers, the girls were all in shorts, so I dread to think how cold they felt. Shortly after settling into our tents we were provided with a bowl of hot water for our hands and feet; by this time my hands were almost number and so I took a cautious approach when placing my hands in to the water.

A trip to the toilet was rather interesting.... Non closing door and human feces everywhere, clearly some people hadn't quite picked up the nack of using a squatter yet, understandable, it's not the easiest of tasks standing on two raied planks and aiming in to a small hole.... Much easier to be a guy at this point in time! Hand sanitiser was my best friend, and lathered my hands and wrists. Heading back to the tent I was directed to our food tent where there was a cup of tea and popcorn. Our food tent had a small table and camping chairs, it was very cosy and became very warm very quickly. Dinner arrived shortly after popcorn. We had leek soup followed by a vegetable sauce and potatoes and fruit for after. Food up a mountain is far better than the food I was eating in the orphanage!

We used the time in the food tent to get to know one another slightly better, well actually, for them to get to know me better and vice versa as they all knew each other pretty well. Tyler told us all about his girlfriend, the way in which he described her was unbelievable, I don't think i've heard a guy talk about a girl that way in a very long time; he even added that he is trying to wife her!

By 9pm we were all wrapped up in our sleeping bags and ready for bed. I'm sharing a tent with Parker. I woke up at midnight needing the toilet and with Parker no where to be seen, I stayed awake until 1am and decided to go back to sleep as I didn't know where she was and thought that I could figure it out in the morning.

A tiring first day.... My body has not been exposed to exercise for almost 6 weeks!

H