Or how many porters does it take to hold down a toilet tent in a storm?

Trekking to the mountain

Friends, Charlotte and Amy took on an incredible challenge this summer-to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in support of the Hospice. To date they have raised an amazing £1570, which everyone at the Hospice is very grateful for and the girls have very kindly written a short blog about their adventure;

Charlotte & Amy in the Landrover

Clouds around the mountain.

 

Our last day on the mountain was a 2000m descent.  We saw monkeys and our last glimpse of Kilimanjaro before we disappeared below the clouds.

Our porters greeted us with garlands and wine (the non-alcoholic variety).  I’m pretty sure they could smell us before they saw us coming!  Bursting into song they congratulated us and danced.

The group climbing the mountain.

High camp on the mountain.

 

On our summit night we reached 5000m where high camp is based; the highest you can camp on Kilimanjaro, but little did we know a storm was coming….

Inside the mess tent we gathered whilst the wind howled outside.  Two porters held the tent, but soon realised unless they rallied more troops it would blow off of the mountain.  Ten porters later, all singing, held the tent down whilst we ate VERY quickly then retreated to our own tents.  In the meantime the cooking tent vanished along with porters tents!  Charlotte who attempted to visit the facilities had to have three porters hold the toilet tent, Amy who visited later that night discovered there was now no toilet tent and just the toilet remained which some people carried on using throughout the night!

With this in mind the summit attempt was cancelled and unfortunately we only made it to 5000m – still a massive achievement having firstly not showered for 7 days, having had to pee behind rocks and having endless nose bleeds and headaches.  The nausea caused us to not want to eat a thing, but we had to, oh and Charlotte’s face became twice the size it was before!  I’ve never seen anything so puffy!

We have however, despite all the toileting behind bushes and being bitten by ants at the start, made it up and down!

The snow capped peak.

The view of the mountain peak in the clouds from the plane.

 

If this has inspired you to do something amazing in support of the Hospice, you can visit our Challenge Events pages for more information and maybe some inspiration!

https://www.communityhospice.org.uk/support-us/our-events/challenge-events/

 

Newsletter Sign up