20/05/2018:
I am still almost lost for words! Only a couple of hours ago I stood on the roof of Africa. Together with two friends from California, three new friends from Chicago and a whole incredible team from Tanzania.
I made it up to the summit of Kilimanjaro at 5895 m. It’s been an out of the world experience – seeing the sun rise from the highest point of Africa is way out of the ordinary and will have an impact for my ongoing life for sure.
But where is happiness and joy there also is tragic: Even though about 30 000 people start to conquer the highest mountain of Africa every year, not all get to the top. It is high altitude hiking/climbing and especially the summit day is a tough one as you climb up almost 1200 m on steep icy slopes. Some suffer from high altitude sickness and have to be carried back down.
The Kilimanjaro might be one of the high summits that can relatively easy get on top to, but it still is a dangerous and demanding thing to do and it’s a rough environment that may take lives. Despite all the happiness we are incredibly sad that we have to mourn one life of our new Tanzanian family. The mountain showed it’s ugly face.
However, we had an amazing team of guides and porters with us who taught us love and respect for the mountain, who shared their passion for the mountain and over all made this incredible experience possible not just for us but shared it with us.
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