Mt Kilimanjaro (5895m)

It's a special feeling to be in the snow in Africa, knowing you're over 1000m above the roof of Europe! Thanks to the rain season we were only 3 small expeditions together on the mountain. Two guys from South Korea with their crew, four from Papa New Guinea (PNG) with their team and the two of us with our team. We had a great time with the PNG guys. Our crew (8 incl us) consisted of a guide, an assistant guide/porter, a cook/porter, a server/porter and two regular porters. They were great! Our program was the following Day 1 (Tuesday 22.4.) Ascend to 2700m Day 2 Ascend to 3700m Day 3 Acclimatisation day at 3700m, short walk but mainly eating, drinking (over 4 liters/person to compensate the dry and thin air) & relaxing (and playing poker with the PNG team) Day 4 Ascend to 4700m, early dinner at 17.00 and bed time at 18.00 till 23.00 Day 5 We get up at 23.00 (still day 4) - so Friday night but we don't dress up to go to a bar but pack our stuff to leave for the summit. At 00:09 we (2 guides and the two of us) depart from 4700m, at 04.00 we reach Gilman's point (5681m) at the crater rim, from there we follow the crater through heavy wind till we reach the Uhuru peak (5895m) at 05.30. The weather is pretty bad, it's freezing cold and the hard wind carries a lot of snow. After 2 minutes on the summit we start the decend. While walking back the sun rises. At 08.00 we're back at 4700m and relax before heading down to 3700m for the night. Day 6 Descend to Moshi, hot shower (ahh) and Pizza for dinner! (We have traveled for more than 2 months through Africa and India and didn't have diarrhoea/stomache problems once, which was great. Unfortunately it hit in a very bad moment - Jonas got a bad drink at day 3 of the Kili trek which left his stomach busy till we were back down. He can "sing a song" about climbing Kili with stomache problems...)

Kilimanjaro