Best Night of my Life....

Yes people...it has happened, the best night of my life!  Okay, so maybe that is a bit over dramatic.  It all started one february afternoon while I was at work and I was listening to my favorite band, Blue October, on my ipod.  They had made there very first trip overseas last year, so I thought I'd check out their tour schedule to see if they were coming back to London anytime soon.  They weren't, but there WERE going to be in Germany in just a mere two weeks!! They were playing on a Sunday night in Munich, which happens to be one of my favorite cities.  So what is a girl to do but book herself a 24 hour trip to Germany!  One EasyJet ticket, hostel booking and VIP concert ticket later I was going to see my boys in Munich!

 I landed in Munich around 10 am on Sunday morning, I had already seen most of Munich since I've been twice before so I headed to my hostel to drop off my bag and headed in to find somewhere good to eat.  Something weird happened...I was totally scared to go in anywhere and eat by myself!  This is so weird for me, after years of travelling for work I am very accustomed to eating by myself, I do it all the time in London.  In fact, I even prefer to go to the movies by myself...at least once a week.  Why now, I am going to assume it was the fact that I don't speak a lick of German.  So anyways, after trying to gather the courage at least 4 times, I finally settled on a Twix bar from a vending machine and a nap at the hostel since I had woken up at 4 am to catch my flight to Germany.

As you read before, I ponied up and bought the VIP ticket since it had a "meet and greet" with the band. Obviously.  I had visions of them immediately befriending me as soon as they heard my Texas accent in a foreign land, so clearly I had to go to the "meet and greet".  Well all of a sudden when I was waiting for the U-bahn I got this giant pit in my stomach, I was so nervous!  I suddenly realized that they would be the first "famous" people I had ever possibly conversed with, I was terrified, what would I say to them???  So I walked myself over to a bar and got myself a tall beer and called Annie for some confidence!  The beer calmed my nerves a little, by the time I showed up to the venue there was already a line of about 50 Germans waiting to get their posters signed...who brings posters?? not me, I didn't bring anything to get signed.  Darn the luck.  My big moment was quickly approaching, but I started to notice they weren't really talking to anyone, they were just hurridly signing the posters and feeding people through the lines...what?!?! How was I going to make my everlasting impression??  When it was my turn, I got to take a picture with them so I approached them with my best "Hi Y'all" hoping they would hear my Texas drawl and the rest would be history. Epic Fail.  But here is the picture...I look as giddy as a fat kid with cake and they look like they'd rather die than be standing there taking this picture.

While waiting in line I met a lovely Austrian girl named Daniela, she was still in high school and had lied to her parents and taken a train to Germany to come to the concert!  Had no idea that they had so many Germany fans!  After my picture, we were all basically kicked out of the concert venue to wait outside in the cold until the show started.  I was so annoyed!! The venue was in the middle of nowhere so we just had to sit there for 2 hours.  I was starting to rethink my whole decision as I saw my image of how this was all going to go down slipping through my fingers.  They finally let us back in and Daniela and I got a prime spot right at the front.  Before the show started I went to go get a beer and passed by the merchandise table when I had the sudden realization that the merchandise guy was probably from Texas too, so I stopped by and sure enough he was! So I chatted with Dave (the merch guy) for a while, it was nice to find another Texan in the crowd of Germans.  Once the opening band went of I went back to my spot with Daniela and we enjoyed the show, they were amazing as always, Justin is always one for the theatrics :)

Towards the end of the show, I went back to the bar to get another beer and I passed by my friend Dave again and offered to buy him a beer, which he accepted.  I came back with our beers and stayed back with him the rest of the show while we drank and chatted.  He told me the band was coming back there after the show to sign more autographs, so you know I hung around.  After everyone had cleared out a bit I bought the band Jaeger shots, since Dave tipped me off that they are Justin's favorite (mine too!) and the rest is history!!! They invited me to come back to their tour bus and hang out...not lying....I hung out in Blue October's tour bus with the band until about 4 am.  Best. Night. Of. My. Life.

They are actually all amazingly nice, cool, laid back guys.  I did have to leave for the airport in a mere 3 hours and go straight to work so I managed to make myself go back to the hostel at 4 am (what was I thinking, I should have gone straight to the airport from the tour bus!)  My new friend Dave was so sweet and walked me back to the train stop (I miss Texas boys for this very reason...covered in tattoos but still a southern gentleman!)  So I now have the email address and phone number of Blue Octobers Merch manager, saving that one for sure!  He emailed me the next day to tell me it was good to meet me at the show and that he hoped I had fun on the bus and to let me know next time I come to a show...you bet I am Dave, see you soon!!

Me and Dave

Zanzibar - Stonetown

Well folks...here we are, my final Africa post.  And only a solid 2 months after I got back, way to go me.  I have also missed NUMEROUS blogable events over the past two months...including the best night OF MY LIFE!   Don't worry...I'll get to that! 

So since my first Zanzibar post was getting OOC (out of control) long I decided to cut off after my trauma at the beach and do another post for our day in Stonetown.   I'm not sure if I mentioned this {and I'm too lazy to look} in my last post, but it should be known that Zanzibar had been without power on the entire island for like 2 months solid when we were there!  So the entire island was being run off of generators...big, loud, gas powered generators.  They whole island was abuzz...sorry I couldn't resist.  After our fabulous, yet slightly traumatic {for me} 3 days at the beach we headed into Stonetown for our last night.  Stonetown is a tragically delapidated city with an even more tragic past.  Stonetown was home to the last working slave market.  It only closed in 1873 and I forget the exact numbers, but we are talking hundreds of thousand of slaves were trafficked through Stonetown. Disgusting. 

We arrived in the city around lunch time and I think we were all quite shocked at the state of it after spending the last few days relaxing on a beautiful resort.  The town is made up of a bunch of decrepit stone buildings, with narrow dirt alleyways weaving throughout them.  The lack of electricity only exacerbated the situation. Stonetown is predominately Muslim, so very few women were seen on the streets.  Mostly men, trying to sell you something and loads of children, most barefoot, trying to get a little attention.  The stark contrast of the city set in one of the most beautiful locations ever really can't be avoided.

We went for lunch at this great Arabic restaurant...minus the fact that my chicken was on the bone and they had no AC, it was a pretty good lunch!

After lunch we walked along the seawall and saw these little bits of preciousness playing in the waves!

After lunch we visited the House of Wunder, which is an old house belonging to royalty which has now been turned into a museum documenting the history of Zanzibar as well as the Slave trade.  After the museum we headed to the local markets.

The fresh fruit/vegetable market...no thank you

Some GIANT 'nanners

Some Rambutan...fruits, similar to lychee

The fish market...you can count me OUT!

After deciding that I was not going to eat any non packaged foods in Stonetown we headed over to the location of the slave market.  There has since been a church built over the spot, but there is a memorial statue to commemorate the event.  We had a very adventagious tour guide who was not afraid to ask for his tip afterwards :)

After touring the old slave market we just wandered the lovely streets (ahhhm....alleyways) and did a little shopping from the oh so kind shopkeepers who couldn't wait to get us in their shops.  

said "street"...this is the main drag

a more scenic street view

That night we had our last dinner on the rooftop restaurant of our hotel...it was actually really nice, but I did opt for the veggie risotto after seeing the fish market earlier that day!  We were advised not to go out wandering the streets after dark since Stonetown isn't the safest of towns.  So we spent our last night up on the rooftop hanging out with each other.  We had a great group on this trip, we really lucked out!!

We just had time for one last "lunch with a view" the next day before we had to head to the airport.  I had another stellar trip to Africa, one I won't soon forget.  Again the people of Africa have amazed me with their joy, graciousness and their endurance.  They face more challenges daily than most face in a lifetime and once again I have been reminded of the abundance of grace in my life.  

I'll leave you with this little gem!  I think this lovely lady came to Zanzibar and never went home :)

Zanzibar - The Beach

Now before you get all jealous about me getting to go to Zanzibar, which is absolute paradise, please keep in mind that I earned it!! Not only did I spend 6 days climbing the tallest free standing mountain in the world without a shower, a toliet, a full nights sleep, etc...but I also went through the seven cirlces of hell to actually get to the island! It all started back at the Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort, to which we got to return after our 6 days on the mountain. It was such a treat to stay in a nice lodge with a swimming pool and nice rooms and showers...oh the showers! All was grand on our first night back.  The next morning we woke up and I couldn't move!  I was SO sore!!! The entire time on the mountain, I never once woke up sore, I attribute the soreness to the journey back down the mountain.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I FAR underestimated the downward journey, I was so focused on the journey up!  Well, let me tell you friends, besides the summit day, down was by far the worst part!  It kills your knees and your hip flexors, not to mention you are sooooo over  being on a mountain with no toliets or showers! So anyways, the day started off STIFF, but I couldn't complain, I was on my way to Zanzibar...just one short 2 hour flight separating me and a relaxing day on the beach.  Not so my friends, not so.

First we had to make the 2 hour drive on the ever so bumpy roads back to the Kilimanjaro airport in our less than air-conditioned van.  Not so bad.  We get there, rushing to the check in counter all 11 of us with our 15 bags to be checked.  What's that you say, you over sold the flight.  Of course.  I should take this time to mention that the airport systems in Africa do not run like the well-oiled machines you are so accustomed to in the states. There is not much official about any of it, think hand written boarding passes, outdoor waiting rooms with dirt floors, you get the drift?  So it turns out that 3 of us are going to have take a different flight from a different airport.  They were about to close our gate so the three of us who hadn't gotten our boarding passes (of course, we all know which group I was in) were separate from the rest of the group and given all 15 of the bags to be checked, chucked into a van with the luggage and were speeding off towards the Arusha airport before you could even say Hakuna Matata! What?!?! I'm sorry, can someone please give me some more details?  Am I headed off to a Kenyan brothel never to be seen or heard from again??  No, no...we were assured the Arusha airport knew we were coming and we were guaranteed to get on the plane to Zanzibar with all 15 of our groups bags.  Phew, that was a close one!

So about and hour and a half later we pulled up to the Arusha Airport, which was the dirt landing strip airport that Annie got to fly the plane and I wanted to push her out of the cockpit (and the plane altogether) and fly the plane myself...remember??  What do you know, the tiny departure check in desk was crowded with tons of people trying to get to Zanzibar.  It seems that over booking flights is not only a problem for the Kilimanjaro Airport.  We march straight up to some official-ish looking person and tell them we have come from the Kili Aiport and have been promised to be put on the next flight to Zanzibar with all 15 bags of luggage we just unloaded.  He looks at us with a mocking grin and says "of course you were, but it's Africa".   Luckily, he calls up some people and identifies who we are and gives us some of those official hand written boarding passes.  As for the luggage it is taken away in a little buggy and rolled to the side of the runway...that must be a good sign.  We go to wait in our high tech departures lounge  aka. a patch of dirt with some white plastic lawn chairs.  Two hours later we are boarding the plane, but we can see that our buggy of luggage has not moved an inch.  I'll give credit where credit is due, Dave fought tooth and nail to get that luggage on the flight, but they weren't having it.  Apparently when it is hot out the air is thinner (or thicker, I forget) and they can basically only carry the passengers on the plane because of weight restrictions so our luggage never stood a chance.  They told us it would be on the next flight to Zanzibar, tomorrow. 

So we finally arrived in Zanzibar about 4 hours after we were supposed to and met up with the rest of our group, who I didn't envy for a second.  They had been waiting for FOUR hours for us at the airport in Zanzibar. I should mention that the airport is almost entirely outdoor, there is no air conditioning and the humiditiy is about 110%.   We all made a trip into town to get some necessities since we would be without our bags for at least 24 hours.  You know, toothpaste and swimsuits!  The swimsuit I had to buy was not documented and has been donated to charity already as it was about 4 sizes to small and the top was made to cover a 12 year old girl who had not yet gone through puberty.  But I will show you a picture of some of the awesome shirts the guys got to wear.

We finally arrived at the Fumba Beach Lodge and it was paradise! We were greeted with fresh coconut juice and then we had just enough time to put on our tacky swimsuits and have a few beers in the pool and watch the sunset! 

Sunset from Fumba...not too shabby!

Then we all "got ready" as much as you can with no bags and enjoyed our first dinner at Fumba, it was amazing as was every other dinner we had there!  Then it was off for an early night to bed as we were all exhausted from our days crazy journey!  The lodge has a bunch of these thatched roof bungalows, which were really awesome, until I realized they did little to keep the abundant amount of gecko's out of our room.  You can imagine how restful my sleep was while at Fumba.  How is it possible that these stupid lizards can haunt me across the world!  There is a light above the front door to the bungalow of course all of the nasty lizards congregate right above the door and just stare down at you daring you to open the door.  Well, clearly, I couldn't possibly be the one to unlock the door.  So Annie, who is also deathly afraid of these things, got nominated to open the door and then I would run as fast as I could into the room and she would slam the door shut.  That was the plan.  The first night, she finally pulled herself together and went to put the key in the door and a lizard CAME OUT OF THE KEYHOLE!!!!  She screamed, I screamed....we heard people laughing across the whole property.  By this time our fellow travellers had come to know our mutual fear of lizards very well.  Luckily, Dave came to our rescue and opened our door, as we made him do every other night as well.  Needless to say, this was not the last time we were driven to screams due to lizards over the next three days. 

Our room at Fumba Beach Lodge

The next morning I had to face my second biggest fear (behind lizards, of course) snorkeling!  Yes, people, I am terrified of the ocean!  I have been ever since my family went to Mexico when I was 11 and I went snorkeling with my Dad and my sister and we saw a barracuda and all I could think about was that episode of Flipper (my favorite show at the time obviously) where the girl is attacked by a barracuda because she is wearing a sparkley necklace and barracudas are attracted to shiny objects.  And of course I was wearing a nautical themed swimsuit with a giant golden anchor embroidered on the chest like a freakin' bullseye, thanks Mom!  Clearly she did not watch that episode of Flipper. Anyways, so I am emotionally scarred.  I have tried snorkeling a handful of other times and they all end the same way, with me hyper-venhilating and sucking in copious amounts of salt water in through the snorkel.  Well, I was determined to give it another shot, I mean, I was in Zanzibar!  I had even bought an underwater camera for the occasion.  I should mention that while, yes, I did buy the camera for it's underwater functionality, the real reason behind that was that I lost a camera a couple of years ago in Cabo by dropping it in a glass of beer and I figured if it was waterproof it was beerproof too!  Anyways, so after a mild panic attack I put on my wetsuit - to protect from both sunburn and jelly fish, how convenient (please note heavy sarcasm).  We had to wade out to our dhow (traditional Zanzibari boat) and headed off to the reef. 

The dhow is basically a bunch of old rotting wood nailed together, so as you can imagine, I was less than pleased to be sailing out over open water in this "Titanic waiting to happen".  All of a sudden we stopped in the middle of the ocean and they told us to jump in! WHAT?!?!?  The only snorkeling I had ever done was the kind where you rent the equipment from the guy on the beach and wade out and see what ever you could right off of the beach. And I had enough of an issue with that. And this guy wants me to jump out of this future shipwreck  perfectly good boat into open water.  I mean has he seen the movie Open Water.  Somehow I managed to step outside of my body for a few moments and climb down the ladder into the water (I don't jump into any body of water, as a promise to my mother, after the "incident" at the lake that fateful 4th of July in 2005).  I did a few breathing exercises to calm myself down so as not to inhale a lungful of water and then I did it, I assumed the position and put my face in the water. It was BEAUTIFUL!! I had never seen a coral reef before, well in person, and I never imagined that it could be so pretty. Now I get why people are addicted to scuba diving.  But don't expect me to do a 180 anytime soon and grow fins, I still have a very healthy fear respect for the ocean and all that inhabits it...aka. sharks.

Proof that I got in the water

Nasty Sea Cucumber

We were supposed to have about 90 minutes to snorkel, but the weather got bad after 45 minutes and the water got really choppy and got stirred up so much you couldn't really see anything anyways.  I will say that I did enjoy myself, but that does not mean that I wasn't a tense, nervous wreck the entire 45 minutes that I was in the water.  I would turn around at least 4-5 times a minute to make sure that Jaws wasn't creeping up on me from behind.   So we had to get back on our dhow after only 45 minutes and we were wisked off to our private island to enjoy a picnic on the beach as well as a couple of hours relaxing on the beach.  Oh what paradise!

View of our Dhow from the private island

The next day we all spent hanging around the resort, mostly by the pool.  I also got a 90 minute massage in a treehouse in a Boabab tree, awesome!  The spa was literally a treehouse built in this giant tree!  It was so peaceful and all you could hear was the sound of the wind rustling the leaves and the waves in the distance.  I could get used to that!

A bunch of dhows

View from the hammock that I spent the better part of the day in

Simba...the lodge's dog...we made friends, he hung out with me on the beach all day!

That night was our last night at the resort so we got to have dinner as a group on the beach by candlelight...very romantic!  It was also a full moon, which was very cool to see the moon's reflection off of the ocean.  Since it was our last night at the lodge (we were headed to Stonetown the next day) we decided to have our very own full moon party on the beach!  It was very tame, by Thailand standards, but we stayed up until almost 5 am drinking beers on the beach and hanging out...a very memorable night!

Our very own Full Moon Party

Since this post has gotten rather lengthy, I'll stop here and continue on with Stonetown in another post!  I am am also still uploading my Zanzibar pictures to Shutterfly so look for those tomorrow!

Tanzania - Mt. Kilimanjaro

So I failed epically on last weeks promise to finish my Africa blogs!  I do have somewhat of an excuse since I was without internet at my new flat until last night.  Now I am up and running and I have lots to catch you all up on, but first I have to finish writing about my Africa trip!  This is the most important (and maybe most awaited) entry from my trip, since it was the whole reason for the trip in the first place!! It was funny, on the trip we were all saying how all we were focusing on and preparing for before the trip was the Kili climb and that we almost forgot about the safari and the Zanzibar portion! 

I left off on my last "Africa" post after we had spent about 4 days on safari in the Serengeti and we were on a small plane (being flown by Annie...still SO jealous I could scream!) headed to the Kilimanjaro Airport.  We had about a 2 hour drive to our hotels for the night, the Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort. Let me tell you, this place was a treat!  It was such a nice place to spend the last night before we were going to be camping in tents for the next 6 nights with no running water or toliets.  We spent most of the afternoon in the swimming pool, gooding off and having out obligitory Kilimanjaro beer...they say it helps with the altitude, ha!  I, in true "lauren fashion", almost sprained my ankle the day before our climb...not surprising!  We were all taking running jumps into the pool and I slipped and fell into the pool (luckily).  Never fear, there is definitely a picture of me mid-air, flailing about with a look of pure terror on my face.  I am NOT, however, going to post that picture on my blog (for one, I am in a bathing suit and for two, the look on my face is truly embarrassing).  If you are so inclined, the picture is posted on my shutterfly site, you can go hunt for it if it really means that much to you.  Luckily, my ankle was only sore for a couple of hours...I can honestly say that I remember exactly what I was thinking at the exact moment the camera caught me mid-air with the look of horror.  I was thinking "OUCH...no friggin way did I just sprain my ankle the DAY before this climb...how typical!"  We also tested out the underwater feature on my camera and got some pretty good pics!  After our swim we had our preparation meeting with Paulo, when he explained everything we would need to know about the mountain, what to expect each day, etc...I was thoroughly horrified by the end of the meeting, even though Paulo kept referring to this as the "easiest part of our trip"  or as a "piece of cake".  I kept asking for my cake {one day we actually GOT cake on the mountain, i had 4 pieces, it didn't help}

The next morning we all brought our "Kili" bags down to reception, this of course after Annie and I packed and repacked our Kili bags about 10 times the night before.  We had a duffel bag that had been provided to us and we were only allowed to pack in that one bag, and it couldn't weigh more than 15kg...it had to fit our sleeping bag in it and everything!  That may sound like a lot for 6 days, but I had a small pharmacy with me if you will remember. We had to drive for a little over two hours to get to the base of the mountain where we would meet our porter and guides.  Luckily, I was in the Land Cruiser that did not get a flat tire as it was about 100 degrees outside!  We took the Rongai route, which is the only route that goes up the northern/Kenyan face of the mountain, so it took a while to get there.  When we arrived we were met by our 39 porters and guides. thirty nine. There were 10 of us climbing, but we had 39 porters!  We were quite literally a small village moving our way up the mountain.  Of the 39, we had 6 guides who stayed with us during our hike each day and helped up set our pace, made sure we were drinking enough water and kept us heading in the right direction.  The rest of the 33 were porters.  These guys are amazing, they truly have the most difficult job on Earth!  They carried, not only our 15 kg bags (on their heads, none the less!) but also their own bags, enough drinking water for all 50 of us, all of our food for the next 6 days, our tents, etc.  And not only did they carry this, but they would stay behind at camp each morning after we set off for the day and pack camp up then within an hour they were already flying by us on the trail and had our next camp set up and a hot dinner ready for us by the time the 10 of us made it to the next camp.  Ridiculous!

So after we met our guides, we set off!  Our pace was so slow it was almost embarrassing. I really couldn't believe how slowly they were making us walk.  This was honestly what I was most worried about, the pace.  You see in my everyday life I am a slow walker, I always say that I like to meander through life.  When you add an upward slope to the mix, I'm even slower.  I was so worried that I would be lagging behind at the back of the pack everyday trying to keep up.  But we seriously walked so slow I was at the front!  I have photographic proof!

The first day was actually a really nice hike, it was pretty warm down at the base, but for most of the day we were in the rainforest so there was lots of shade. The incline wasn't very steep and we only hiked for about 4-5 hours.  Our first campsite we had all to ourselves, one of the benefits of hiking the much less used Rongai route. We all got settled into our tents and then had our first dinner on the mountain.  I was shocked at how good the food was on the trip.  They cooked everything on a couple of gas burners and they turned out food that I wouldn't be able to cook in my kitchen at home!  Annie and I shared a tent the whole time, and we were SO glad that we were sharing with a friend.  There is absolutely no privacy in these tiny tents and they are tight quarters! Plus, it was FREEZING at night, so we snuggled.

The next morning, after barely sleeping a wink (due to the fact we were on a slope and kept sliding down!), we were woken by our porters at 6 am with "morning tea" and "washy washy".  Seriously, this kind of camping is awesome! The porters wake you up and ask if you want coffee, tea or hot chocolate...how many sugars, milk, they make it just how you want it.  Then they pass it through your tent and you get to stay in your sleeping bag and have morning tea while waking up a bit!  Then they bring you a bucket of hot water for "washy washy." To be honest, I didn't even bother after the first day, I just gave myself a wet wipe bath and used the hot water to soak my feet in!  We had breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, fruit and oatmeal and then we were on our way for day two on the mountain!

Day two was going to be quite a bit longer than day one, we hiked for around 8 hours the second day, athough we did get about an hour break for a hot lunch!  The second day wasn't very steep, we were crossing around the side of the mountain, so it was just a gentle slope, but a very long time to be on your feet.  Day two was going well until it started raining. And raining.  And raining.  The last two hours of our hike it rained steadily the whole time.  Genius that I am, felt like I had spent too much money on equipment already so I didn't buy the waterproof pants like they "highly recommended".  I did have a rain jacket and a rain cover for my daypack (thank goodness!) but from the waste down I was absolutely drenched!  I'm not going to lie, it was pretty miserable.  Oh and I also had a pretty epic fall, again, not surprising at all!  To my defense the rocks were really slippery and we were going down a big rock face at the time. 

We finally made it to our camp that night and it was still raining and kept at it through most of the night. It was impossible to dry any of our wet clothes, so I had a disgusting bag of mildewed clothes when I got back! We were all pretty miserable that night, but when we woke up the next morning, it was a beautiful day and I woke up to a fantastic view from my tent!

The peak you see is Mawenzi.  Mt Kilimanjaro actually has three peaks; Kibo is the highest and the one we were going to conquer, Mawenzi is the second and served as out campsite for the next night, and Shira is the third and smallest. With the sun shining, we set off towards Mawenzi.  This day was a little steeper than the other days, but was also shorter at only around 5-6 hours total hiking.

This is our group of 10 at 4000 meters, were were all pretty excited about this milestone!

As you can see, a little steeper this day...

This is us at the top of the Mawenzi ridge on our acclimatizing hike. Most days after we arrived at our next camp we would go on an acclimatizing hike, these were only about an hour or so, but they would help us acclimate to the altitude better.  As you can see the altitude had started to affect us all!!

This night we slept at the base of Mawenzi and it was C.O.L.D. We woke up early, around 5 am, on our 4th day and headed off. We were all getting excited and nervous as this was our final day before our summit attempt!  This was a long day to say the least. I think we hiked around 8 hours this day.  First we had to decend from Mawenzi and cut across to the saddle. Don't get me wrong, the downhill was a welcome change, but why did I have to go up the day before just to go down the next day???  The saddle was the most deceiving thing you've ever seen!  We could see our next campsite as a spec in the distance. It only looked like it would take a couple of hours to get there, oh how wrong we were! about 5 hours later we finally had conquered the saddle.  The saddle is almost completely flat (except for the last half hour, which was pure hell bliss) but it is grueling.  First off, it is never-ending, second we are above 4000 meters and altitude is starting to really affect your breathing and third, did I mention that it is never ending!!! 

This is the whole group about to take off across the saddle.  Basically, it is that whole stretch of land between where we are and the base of Kibo. Oh yeah...that's Kibo!!!

So the above picture may give you some idea of how difficult the summit climb is. Like I mentioned above, the saddle took us about 4-5 hours to cross and it was relatively flat.  You can see that Kibo is obviously jutting up pretty steeply and we climbed from the base of Kibo to the top the next day, so that is a lot of altitude to gain in one day!  So we finally made it across the dreaded saddle to our next campsite, Kibo Hut.  This is the base camp for the summit and where all trails converge.  It is a much bigger camp with a lot more people, it reminded us that we weren't the only people on this mountain! We had an early dinner and then were meant to go to "bed" by about 6 pm just to be woken up at 11pm to start getting ready for our middle of the night summit attempt!  I say "bed" because we clearly didn't sleep!  It was so friggin' cold there was no way I could sleep.  Plus the altitude apparently affects your ability to sleep as well.  If anyone is keeping track, at this point I had only "slept" for a combined total of maybe 5 hours the entire 4 nights we had been on the mountain.  Delerium.  So we "woke" up at 11 pm and put on our million layers, which the sheer act of getting dress had me out of breath!  I wore 5 layers, top and bottom and was still freezing.  You do the summit hike in the middle of the night because the mountain is made up of scree (loose gravel) but in the middle of the night it is so cold that the scree freezes into a more solid form making it easier to walk up. How convenient. I, of course, wasn't ready on time so I didn't have time to eat a full breakfast or re-adjust my backpack to accomodate for the 4 extra layers of clothes I had on under it so I got off to a rocky start. 

Promply at midnight we started our ascent. I was quite flustered from the whole no food, awkward backback issue.  About an hour into the hike I was done.  I knew there was no way I was going to make it to the top. My backpack was not adjusted properly and was causing my sciatica in my back to act up, I was freezing, I was starving and I wasn't able to drink enough water since it was packed away in my backpack. {word of advice for anyone who wants to hike in general...buy a camelbak! I didn't have one and it is very difficult to reach around and get your bottle out of your bag, especially with 28 layers of clothes on} On the way to the top we had 5 check points along the way to know we were on track and also to take a small break (1-2 minutes small! If we stopped longer than that we would start to freeze).  At this point we were still about 45 minutes from our first marker and I was this miserable, I didn't see how I could make it to the top.  Isaac, one of our guides, literally saved me! He offered to carry my backpack for a while so I could rest.  After this, I figured I had to carry on at least to the first check point. In my mind I had already decided that I was going to turn around at the first check point.  So for the next 45 minutes I just kept thinking "left, right, left, right" to keep moving one foot in front of the other. Somehow I made it there, I was still really considering quitting.  At this point they decided to split our group of 10 into two groups, the "fast group" and the "slow group".  I don't think I need to tell you which group I got allocated into!  This made me feel a little better as I knew I could keep my pace slow and now I wasn't worried about holding any of my other group members back.  So I decided to keep on going. 

The second checkpoint was another 2 hours away.  This entire 2 hours, alternated thinking my usual "left, right, left" with "you can do this, you can do this, you can do this" and also a little "how embarrassing will it be to tell everyone at home you didn't make it" {just for good measure} and good thing I did because somehow I made it to the next check point!   They told me the third checkpoint was only about 45 minutes away and it was called Jamaica Rocks...I liked the sound of that.  So I kept on going.

About an hour later we were at Jamaica Rocks, now you have to keep in mind that it is pitch black outside and all you can see is directly in front of you from the light of your tiny head torch.  I was ectatic to be at Jamaica Rocks, the next stop was Gilmans Point!  When you looked up into the darkness all you could see were little trails of head lamps weaving their way up the darkness. It was really cool, but also really discouraging, I kept thinking they looked so far away!  We started weaving out way around some boulders and climbing up and over some.  I didn't mind too much, I was still just concentrating on keeping one foot in front of the other at this point. After about an hour the sun started to rise, we faced back to watch it for a few minutes and it was an amazing site.  It also gave me hope that we must be close to Gilmans point since we were supposed to watch the sunrise from Gilmans Point...so we couldn't be too far away, right?? 

Me and my life-saver, Isaac, at sunrise

So I turned back to face the mountain and look up to see how close we must be now that the sun was shining its light onto the mountain. This was the second time that I was sure I had to quit and go back down.  I was staring up at a never ending boulder field up, up, up. I was exhausted. I had no energy. I had barely been able to drink a liter of water (I should have had at least 2 by this point).  I was so done. This was all an internal battle I was having with myself.  I never actually voiced that I wanted to quit, but I think they all knew it.  Somehow we kept each other going.  Jamaica Rocks took us over 2 hours to get up, I was so weak at this point that I kept falling over.  Not because I would trip, I would literally just take a step and fall over. 

See exhibit A.

This picture should also give you a good picture of what Jamaica Rocks looked like. Needless to say, I no longer like the sound of Jamaica rocks!

At one point, I remeber hearing Annie (who was in the fast group), cheering me on from Gilman's Point.  That gave me a lot of encouragement to go on and also that we couldn't be far away.  I was wrong again, it was still about 45 minutes before we finally reached Gilman's Point.

My first steps up on Gilman's Point

By the time we reached Gilman's the fast group had already gone on to Uhuru Peak, the true Summit of Kilimanjaro.  Our group decided to finish at Gilman's. Gilman's is actually the top of the mountain. Kibo is a giant crater and Gilman's is on one side and Uhuru is around on the opposite side standing only a couple hundred meters higher, making it the true summit.  It is a 3 hour round trip journey to Uhuru and I was so weak I couldn't stand, literally...you saw the picture of me falling and it wasn't the only one!  Plus, it is considered a successful summit attempt to reach Gilman's Point and you get a certificate and everything...so count me DONE!

Me, looking across the crater at Uhuru, thinking "No thank you"

The "Slow Group"

The worst part was that we still had to go down!  It took us about 2 hours to go down what had just taken us 7 hours to go up!  It was exhausting, but at least I got to "ski" down the scree! The gravel was now loose since the sun was up, so you literally just run straight down letting the gravel carry you down.  It was actually really scary at points and I had a few tumbles, but none of them hurt, it was actually kind of fun to roll down!

This is from the bottom of the scree hill looking back up, you can see my tracks down.

I know this post has been so long, so I'll spare you the details of the next two days descending the mountain.  The highlights are that the journey down was much more difficult than I anticipated. I forgot to put on my sock liners and got some wicked blisters on the last day to show for it.  My knees were killing me. I was so ready to be off of the mountain. No shower for 6 days. Yeah that about sums up the descent!

Here is a picture of us with our 39 porters and guides on our last morning on the mountain.  They sang us some songs and were on there way!

This last picture is me with my new luggage for the rest of the trip. I left my backpack with the porters on the mountain and all we could find for me to put my stuff in was this awesome mail sack.  It got dubbed the "white ball" and I even shrink wrapped that sucker at the airport and sent it home with me to London!

That's all for now....up next, Zanzibar!