Map of our location: Machame Gate is just north of the town of Machame in Tanzania. Ready to say good bye to civilization for seven days and hello to our amazing wilderness adventure ahead ~ there was no shortage of photo opps on this trip! Into the forest we went! Trees hundreds of feet tall lined the trail as we climbed up into the forest of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We had plenty of strong bug spray (100% Deet was recommended!) but I never used any. Some of our group did. We were told that this time of year was called "The Little Rainy Season" and that it could sometimes start raining at 10am or so and stop around 4pm. Luckily it did not rain that long every day of our hike. Some days it almost didn't rain at all! This first day we definitely needed our ponchos, which covered our packs and all. They were waterproof but not sweatproof. We heated up with them on and sweat began pouring on the inside while the rain was pouring on the outside. Two words all around: hot and wet. This first day the trail was lined with tall, green mossy trees that created a treetop canopy. There was so much green and so much life! As the sun started to lower in the sky, it created magical opportunities of light everywhere. We felt like we were in a fairy forest! We also reminded ourselves that we wanted to get to camp at or before dark so we took as many pictures as we could along the way without stopping for too long. As we continued to hike to camp, the light began to change in magical ways. The dewy forest was sparkling by the way the sun hit as it started to set. We were lucky to see the top of Kili peek out from between the trees as we approached camp just after sunset. It was a memorable first night! Below is a picture of our feet in our tent before we set up our sleeping pads and sleeping bags and went to bed. Maybe 10:30 or 11pm? We had to be up bright and early at 7am the next day to do it all over again (and for six more days!) Summary of the Day (as recorded by my Garmin Venu Sq):
More on Day 4After a delightfully peaceful night’s sleep at our lodge, we were woken up by heavy pouring rains that smelled unlike anything in the U.S. You could hear birds chirping as the rain lifted and I was lightly spooked by a man that passed close by our bedroom window, realizing he was turning off each room’s front porch light. A thoughtful touch to staying here!
At 9 a.m. we waited eagerly outside of the entrance gate to our lodge (Ngare Sero) for our bus to the Kilimanjaro gate (trailhead) to arrive. We weren’t really sure what to expect for our crew or our transportation so when a large, cream-colored bus pulled up with canvas tarps strapped over piles of bags on the roof, we assumed it was not just for us. A few men stepped off to greet us and others threw our bags on top with the rest, and we climbed in, welcomed by our entire crew, a group of 21 people! We were introduced to each person and their role on our trek when we arrived at our camp later that night. It took us about three hours to get from our lodge to the trailhead/starting point at Machame Gate. We drove through towns and gave us another tour of the local culture and people from the road. All of our sense were alive as our bus zipped down the road, past people walking, riding bikes and motorcycles, many with multiple people and animals on board! After we turned off the main road onto a dirt road leading to the trailhead, saw men butchering an animal (best likely guess would be a goat, lamb, or a cow). Soon after we pulled over on the side of the road and several guys on our bus hopped out and then a few minutes later they hopped back in with meat in those large bags you see rice in at some grocery stores. They stored it below our feet on the bus and off we went to the trailhead. We arrived sometime around 11:30am or 12pm and were motioned to an open shelter area with picnic tables where lunch would be served. While we waited for lunch, we registered our group and passports with the Tanzanian government office, located at the trailhead. They take hiking Kili seriously (for safety and for revenue) and are very proud of this wonder of the world. No one is allowed to hike it without a permit and a guide. We weren’t going to try and be the first without either. Our guide company, Nale Moru, recently joined KPAP (The Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project, which is out of Boulder, Colorado, just 30 minutes northwest of where we live! Being a member of this group means many things but importantly it means that they commit to giving the porters a fair wage, a place to sleep during the trek (a tent), three meals a day and weight limits on what they’re allowed to carry. If this wasn’t the case, some porters of other companies sleep outside, and only eat one meal a day. I can’t fathom the thought of that being that we traveled on average 6-8 miles a day for up to eight hours a day. Our porters took all of the gear (ours and theirs) from the top of the bus and started to weight it and redistribute some of the bags into larger waterproof duffels that they said made it easier to carry up the mountain. Let’s be clear, from what we saw, the porters had strength beyond means as they carried every item needed for the hike up and down the mountain. We were amazed on a daily basis the mental and physical strength and fortitude of these people! Kili Fun Fact: There are seven routes to trek Kilimanjaro, each named after the trail you take up to the summit and the trail you take down to the base. We took the Machame Shira route, named aptly for hiking up to the summit via the Machame Route (aka “the Whiskey Route” or the most popular route compared to the Marangu Route which is considered the ‘tourist route’ or popularly referred to as “the Coca Cola Route” as it’s considered easier than the Machame Route) and we hiked back down the Shira route. We learned that it is also rare for someone to hike it up and down the exact same route and that made sense once we started hiking, we rarely, if ever, saw anyone hiking down the trail we were hiking up (except for porters.) Check out our route here! We started hiking at 1:45pm and it took us about 6 hours to get to our campsite with 5 ½ of that actual hiking time. For several miles, the trail was lined with brilliant, lush green brush and trees with canopied trees that connected for what seemed like miles. This time of year is known as the ‘short rainy season’, a time between winter and summer, so perhaps what we would consider spring? Above our heads was a network of thick, gnarled vines made of the branches of all the trees, looking something like what Tarzan would hang from! It was warm and wet as we continued to make our way up to our first camp. On and off it would start to mist and then gradually rain harder and we were prompted by our lead guide, Saidi, to put our rain ponchos on. No one wants wet (and potentially COLD!) clothes for the next six days of hiking. As we neared camp, the trees and greenery started to thin and the top of the mountain revealed itself in the moonlight. It looked so regal, so majestic…so far away! And that’s where we were headed for the next five days. Up to summit Uhuru Point on Kibo Peak. We reached our first campsite, Machame Camp, named after the gate (trailhead) that we started at around 8:30pm. The sun had almost set, and the moon was lighting the way as we arrived. It was beautiful and majestically peaceful, even though camp was bustling with people. Our porters were quickly setting up camp including our dining tent. We were all excited to sit down and enjoy our first dinner together and to get a restful night sleep. I feel like the first night of any overnight hike can set the tone for the whole trip. Once we were given a tour of our campsite area and where our private toilet tent was set up for the night, we all turned in to sleep around 10pm. There were many other groups at camp with us but each group’s porters tried to spread out as best they could with the space we all had there. Alarms set for 6:30am with breakfast at 7am and targeting to hit the trail at 8am sharp! Data for the Day: 7 miles of hiking took us almost 5 ½ hours almost 4,000' elevation gain. Needless to say, we were tired when we laid down to sleep.
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