I am currently sitting in the Amsterdam airport, so tired from the last flight. For some reason I can't seem to be able to sleep on airplanes but I can sleep on busses fine, unless I am carsick. I want to write about my adventures but they seem so far away now. I wish I had written while I was there. So I guess I will start with my trek up Kilimanjaro, and see what I can recall. One hilarious moment the day before happened with Maria and Juanita when we were walking to a dala, I was walking up the tiniest hill thinking about climbing a huge mountain, and I was out of breathe from this tiny hill. I said to Maria and Juanita I really don't want to climb a huge mountain tomorrow and as I said this I looked up and the guy, Godfrey, who had been organizing the trip with me, was standing right there. The look on his face was so funny and I was so embarrassed! He started cracking up and told me its fine, you will make it I promise.

So the next day I went to placement and came home to start packing. Godfrey was picking us up at 3 to take us to Moshi. Being in Tanzania, Godfrey didn't pick us up until around 4, but I was getting used to this lazy way of keeping time so it was ok. It is a lot less stressful because if you are late, its fine, and if others are late, it's fine too. We went to pick up Vivian and headed to Moshi. Once there we met at a warehouse to get the stuff we needed for the climb. This warehouse was unbelievable! It was like a small version of Gander Mountain or REI. We gathered everything we needed and headed to the hotel. At this point I was extremely nervous and really doubting my decision to go. The whole time deciding and preparing to go I was not even close to 100 percent sure I wanted to do this, or I could do this. That night sleep was amazing though, because there was air conditioning and I cranked it all the way up.

The next morning we headed out to the mountain. We boarded a dala dala with a bunch of men we didn't know and a ton of gear. The ride of course made me feel sick so once we were there I was ready to start walking. We were fed a box lunch, which was actually delicious! Then we had to pay the rest of our fee for the climb. Chelsea and Vivian's cards wouldn't work! So we were sitting there wondering what to do and I was the only one with a working card so of course I had to pay for them and they would pay me back on the way down. After about an hour and a half of figuring everything out we finally started the walk. The first part of the trail was just a really steep road, and I kept wondering why we weren't driving up this part. Then we entered a narrower trail that led into the rain forest. This rain forest was like any rain forest you would imagine, it was kind of dark because there was so much vegetation and pretty humid. The trees have vines hanging all over them and everything is covered in mossy greenness. The trees were the coolest part, they are so big there! And the trunks look like tangled roots going all the way to the top. The first part of the trek wasn't horrible but then the path started getting very hilly, we would hike up really steep inclines, wind around a bit, and then go back down. The first day I think we hiked about 5 hours. At the end of the hike I was getting really tired and wondering how the hell I was going to do the rest of the mountain if I was tired on the first day. I even said to our guide Jon, "wow that was a hard hike" and he said "you're climbing a mountain, did you think it was going to be easy?"

The end of the first day we ended up walking out of the rain forest into a landscape called Mooreland. The trees get a lot smaller and more spread apart and more rocks start to appear. We only hiked through a small bit of the Mooreland before we came to our campsite. I slept alone in the tent this night and actually felt a bit lonely. The food was wonderful though and there were plenty of shrubs to go pee behind. Every camp site I arrived to the first thing I did was scan out where I was going to pee, because the bathrooms were unbelievably disgusting. But sadly this first campsite was the only side with enough vegetation to hide behind. By the end of the trek I was a pro at using squat toilets, and actually started to prefer them by the end of my trip in Africa!

The second day Chelsea woke up and was feeling really sick. She thought it was because of her malaria pills. This day was really hard because she was sick and our guides started the day telling us we were only walking 5-6 hours. By the end of the day we had walked 9 hours and were completely exhausted (at least I was, Vivian was like an ox the whole time and never got tired and never even complained.) And poor Chelsea, she definitely had a stomach bug or something because she was "going to see a baboon" every hour or so. Our guides, Jon and Jeff told us when we had to go pee the code was "I'm going to go see a monkey."

This hike was really hard but also really rewarding. The moorlands started turning into just rocky landscape that you had to maneuver your way around. There were pretty much just big boulders everywhere and you had to get through them, and up them like a maze. The weather was also wonderful and we had a great view of Mt. Meru off in the distance. By the end of this very long day, we were so happy but too exhausted to show it once we got to the campsite. Really the only thing that "hurt" on my was my Achilles tendon from walking up such steep inclines. Other than that I just felt like I had been swimming all day, drained and ready to sleep. But once we arrived to the campsite, the beauty of the landscape and the view blew me away. We were starting to get up in clouds and we were on a flat area for camping, but looking out towards Meru was a huge drop off, and behind us was a clear view of Kilimanjaro (the summit, which still looked like a HUGE mountain!) Once we were settled we were told we had to do an acclimatization climb. I really didn't want to do it but I knew that I had to for my safety of continuing. On the way up to the climb, we stopped by a cave that porters and guides used to sleep in when it was still allowed back in the 70's. The climb looked high and long, but was actually really easy and revealed an even better view! Now you could see all around, and what we were going to be walking the next day. There is no way to describe the vastness and gorgeousness of this mountain and the fact that I had climbed to that point. It was really rewarding to look out and see for hundreds of miles.

The next day we woke to the summit completely visible again and a fresh (pretty cold) crisp morning.

After breakfast we packed up and started the hike up towards the summit. This hike was different because there were no trees and you could see out forever. You could see the summit and where you were walking unlike the days before. This was exciting but it was also hard because being able to look at the miles in front of you that you have to hike is exhausting. Its like you walk for hours and don't make it anywhere. It was very hard for me to get going this morning and I could feel the altitude starting to get to me. I was breathing a lot harder and was a lot more tired than the days before. We finally could see our destination, not our final destination but the next place we had to get to called Lava Tower. Lava tower was at an elevation of 15,190 ft. The last camp we had slept at was at 12,500 ft. By the time we made it up to Lava Tower I was exhausted and started to REALLY feel the altitude. I got a really bad headache and felt extremely dizzy. We were supposed to have lunch at the top but I felt so sick I could barely it. I rested for a bit to build up the courage to eat but by the time I was able to eat it was time to go.

The clouds were rolling in and it started getting really cold and then the sleet came. The descent was extremely difficult and scary for me because a lot of it was climbing straight down. I am NOT good at going down and would always rather go up, so when it started sleeting and we were going down a mountain, I was not feeling the greatest. Finally the path started evening out and we emerged under the clouds (weird right?). We thought maybe camp was close but we weren't even half way there. We started another trek this time winding through some hills and mostly going down the rest of the day. Finally we arrived at Barranco camp (13,044 ft.) At this camp we had real bathrooms! They were kind of a trek away though and after all that walking the outhouse right next to our site was my main choice. As we descended into this camp our guides sheepishly (because they knew heights scared me) pointed out our path for the next day. It wasn't a path at all but a wall, a really really big wall that we were going to have to climb up the next day. Half of it was covered in clouds and you couldn't really make out how steep it was but I am pretty sure I had nightmares about falling to my death that night.

The next day we started out by crossing a half frozen river on the way to the wall, which was getting scarier and scarier the closer we got. You could see the people moving slowly and steadily up the wall (tiny specks of bright colored jackets all the way up). As we started ascending the wall I was already starting to get dizzy. But I soon figured out that it really wasn't that bad and it was really just climbing over big rocks about 5 feet away from the cliff (nothing like the hike I did in Maine where I was about 6 inches away from the cliff the whole time) There was only one point in the ascent where I had to scale the wall and try to not close my eyes. This climb was definitely my favorite of the trip. It was like something you would see in a movie, you climb over the edge at the top and the view was just amazing. There was the summit right there! It was covered in snow and now it seemed like it was really close! On the other side you would look out and just see the tops of the mountains and clouds covering the whole landscape. This time we were really above the clouds and it was such a fantastic feeling making it this far.

Next we started descending, yeah I know, didn't we just climb up and now we are climbing back down again? We climbed down and down and zig zaged around until we came to a VERY steep descent down into a valley. Once you got to the bottom of this valley it went right back up again as steep as it was going down. If they had built a bridge across this ravine it would have been a lot easier. And then on the other side of the ravine you could see a camp where we would be eating lunch.

At the top of the ravine I was already starving and was so excited because you could see where we were eating but then it took another two hours to get there! The descent down into the valley was very difficult because the path was made out of all loose little rocks that were very easy to slip on. We all fell a couple of times (even our guides accidently slid down a little.) Once we made it to the bottom we rested and then my nerves started to hit me again scaling another wall. This time this wall had a lot less room before you could fall of the edge. We climbed up and up and I had to stop many times to catch my breath and be able to see straight (I was getting very dizzy.) Finally we made it to the top and the altitude really started to hit me. The rest of the day was a blur because I was extremely dizzy and out of it. We walked away from the camp some people that were hiking an extra day stayed at. The weather started to worsen and the trail was completely desolate, only huge boulders and rocks everywhere. We went straight up for about 2 hours and then down and straight on a FLAT surface and off in the distance you could see another wall that went straight up with base camp at the top. This flat surface was the hardest of the hike yet; I was so dizzy and had to stop to get my bearings every 15 minutes. Finally we made it up the wall and up into the campsite, where you could see what we would be hiking in just a few hours to try and reach the summit. We were at base camp.

We ate dinner and went to bed as soon as possible because we had to wake up at 12am to start the summit hike. I wondered why we couldn't hike it the next day but during the day the wind is too strong to stand on the top of the mountain. We woke and I was feeling better, tired and a little out of it but not as dizzy as before. We started walking in the dark, only having our headlamps to direct us. It was probably about 15 degrees and the wind was blowing pretty hard. As we started hiking up the thing that scared me the most was not being able to see where the edge was, but knowing it was there. Maybe it was a good thing that I couldn't see, it might have made me more dizzy. About 4 hours into the hike I started getting extremely dizzy and using my hiking poles to balance my every step. When we would climb up a big rock I felt like I was going to fall over backwards. Every time I would stop to take a drink of water I would stumble backwards a few feet and then balance myself out. I knew the altitude was affecting me and I told my guides what was going on. They said that I would only start to feel worse from here, which made me realize I needed to turn around. I didn't want to be one of those people I saw being carried down the mountain because they ignored the signs and pushed on. The decision was hard and I so badly wished I could have crawled up the rest of the way but the summit was another good 2-3 hours, 400 meters, and 1,312 feet away from us. I then turned back with one of our guides, Jeff, and watched the sunrise on the way back to camp. It really was amazing being up there. I got back to camp around 730am and fell asleep, waiting for Chelsea and Vivian to get back. I really hoped the made it and they did! I even gave them my bracelet to tie to the top for me. After resting for another hour we had brunch and started the decent. We opted to stay at the closer camp that night and hike more the next day because we were so tired. Everyone else hiked 10 hours the day before, woke up at 12am, got back at 11am, started the decent at 1pm and hiked for ANOTHER 5 hours to the further away camp. I can't even imagine. We hiked about two hours and went to bed around 7pm. The next day we hiked all the way down to the bottom. It only took us about 5 hours and man did it hurt. Going down that fast was extremely hard on your knees. By the end of the hike I was almost to the point of tears from exhaustion and pain. But I did it. At least I did it up to 400 meters. It was disappointing not making it to the top but the days and energy I put in before that final 1,300 feet was so extremely hard I couldn't believe it I made it that far. It was a tremendous accomplishment and I can't believe I did it!

Thanks for reading :)

Jess