After the best night's sleep ever, we woke up for our final day of the Kilimanjaro Marangu Route. Today, we were to cover the path covered in days 1 and 2 downwards.
We packed our wet mess - here's Jenni diving with her headlamp into her bag for her stuff:
Our clothes had barely dried and the room at Horombo was a mess!
Group shot at Horombo Hut. Melissa was feeling better, although her upset stomach stopped her from the final ascent the day prior.
At Horombo Hut, there was a girl who got severe altitude sickness after reaching the top and had to be carried down with porters. They do this by wrapping you in a sleeping bag, then rolling you down the hill in these one-wheeled wheelbarrows:
The rain had made everything muddy, and as regularly as the previous days, it started raining at around 10 am.
The walk down was slippery. My Montreal habits of walking in 'd'la sloshe' must have been helpful as this was much easier for me than the scramble down the scree hill the previous day. The walk was rather uneventful - aside from getting wetter and wetter, but thankfully the poncho came in handy.
At the gates of the park we all had a Kilimanjaro Beer and posed for a good picture.
Everyone was tired but happy. It had been an unforgettable five days and a beautiful experience, in spite of some stomach troubles, lots of rain and cold, and much sneezing for me. So what is harder, Kendra, Kili climb or marathon? ... she answered marathon. Probably the fact that it wasn't arctic temperatures helped. Kendra's blog around the world can be found here.
Very muddy shoes attesting to the four days of rain (out of five). Two important concepts to remember for the Kilimanjaro hike: rainproofness and gaiters!!!
My porter, Rashid, who was always smiling and was waiting dutifully for me yesterday under the rain when I was last to come back to Horombo Hut completely shattered.
Thank you so much Tafaeli for "carrying us" to the top! (here with Georgie)
The certificates we get for summitting at Uhuru.
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