Watching the wild!

I never got as far as posting a blogpost on what happened after the Kilimanjaro climb, but we spent two weeks on a safari and on Zanzibar. Here is a few pictures we managed to take with our compact cameras, I must say, I really missed my SLR for this part of the trip. 

It has to be said, the safari started the minute we checked inn at the first hotel!!

The last part of the trip were spent on Zanzibar, a beautiful place.

The top of Africa!

Finally we can enjoy our vacation without wondering if we are going to make it or not. About one month ago Håvard Sneve and me decided that we would like to do something this summer and landed on climbing the highest point in Africa followed by a safari and a week on Zanzibar. Two weeks later, the trip started and now we are just back from reaching the top! A nice feeling.

Here is a brief summary on how the trip went.We started by booking the trip through Eco Expeditions in Norway, and were met by a company called Zara in Africa which does most of the expeditions up Kilimanjaro. Both very professional companies that have made this trip a very pleasant one. Everything went as planned and the team we worked with, lead by a man named Benjamin was fantastic.

Day 1
We started from Springlands, one of the nicest hotels in Kilimanjaro/Moshi and drove up to the Kilimanjaro National park where we started the walk, we were going to do the Lemosho route. Lemosho is the longest, but also the most beautiful and best in acclimatising for the summit night. It starts around 2200 masl and the first base camp, "Big Tree" is at 2900 masl. Still in the rain forest!Two truckloads of sherpas ready to work.

Planning

Two truck loads of sherpas

The Team

Big Tree Basecamp

Day 2
Probably one of the longest days with 8-9 hours walking. We got out of the rainforest, up above the vegetation and through the Shira Plateau. Basecamp, "Shira 2" at 3840 masl. This is where the first ones started to really feel the altitude and had turn around.

Looking for lions


De-hydrating

Day 3
One of the best days for acclimatising after leaving the base camp we walked up to Lava Tower at 4630 masl. And then we went down to the Barranco base camp at 3950 masl. A 5-6 hour walk.

Day 4
Mostly a resting day, a 3-4 hour walk to Karanga base camp at 3963 masl.

Relaxing

Wtf?

Day 5
About 4 hour walk ascending to Barafu base camp at 4600 masl. A absolutely gorgeous place with a view far above the skies.

Next to God.

Begged for no wind while I was inn there taking a dump.

Day 6
Summit day!! We started at 00:00 at night to be able to get to the top just at sunrise, first we got up to Stella Point at 5780 masl before ascending up to the top of Africa, Uhuru peak at 5896 masl. A freezing (-20 with strong winds) 6-7 hour walk later. The scenery was absolute amazing, but the hight really made it's marks on the body. I felt relatively clear mentally, but my feet wouldn't always listen to what I wanted them to do, a strange sensation. After descending back down to the Barafu base camp I also got a nasty headaick. I seemed to be the one who got off easy though, there was a lot of nose bleeds and one person even came down blind because of the height! After a short rest we continued the descent down to Mweka Base Camp at 3100 masl where we were met by cold beers ;)

If you look close you can see God dining in the horizon.

Day 7
The last day was just a 2-3 hour walk down to Mweka Gate where the cars stood waiting for us and took us back to the hotel.

 
Håvards nose couldn´t take the preassure!

Jungle!

A big thanks to the teammates for making the trip a very funny and nice one! Besides Håvard Sneve and me the team consisted of Gunnar Nybø, Rune Garen, Rune Aamodt, Dag Jevne, Helga Marteng and Magnus Brimsholm! Hope to see you again on future expeditions. If you are reading this and have any questions, don´t hesitate to send me an e-mail.