"Learn as though you're going to live forever, but live as though you're going to die tomorrow" - quote from 'The Shadow of Kilimanjaro' by Rick Ridgeway - the book I took on the trip to read, but never got round to it, hey...I was just too tired ok and it was more fun at the time looking at the fab views and playing cards with Heather!?

I've discovered it is a great book since I got back. Rick and his companions actually climbed the same route as we did, the "Umbwe" route, described in 'Kilimanjaro' by Henry Steadman (and all the other books I've read) as "the hardest trek up Kili, a thoroughly tough uphill struggle". We were going to discover the truth behind these words over the coming days and weeks...
 

"Two people have died on Kilimanjaro in the last two weeks. Don't get sick and don't fall off. That's my only two rules" was what Mungo Ross, our Jagged Globe tour leader and guide greeted us with for our pre-expedition talk in the Keys Hotel, Moshi. Our base for the expedition.

Mungo had got hold of a gadget from the Keys Hotel which took readings of our pulse rate and level of oxygen in the blood. It was fun each morning and evening on the trip before meals (and at the summit) as we noted the results down on a spreadsheet. I was pleasantly surprised how low my pulse rate always was (approx 57/min -looks like all the pain of training was worthwhile). Generally everyone's pulse rate went up and the oxygen rate got lower, the higher the altitude, which you'd have expected.   

There were twelve of us who'd decided to take up the challenge of climbing Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain and the highest free standing mountain in the World at 5895m. Graham Coombes, Gillian Lewis, Bob Meier, Sarah Orris, Jenny Moulder, David and Miriam Rosen, Linda Gillespie, Owen Jones, Nic Simper, Heather White and myself. Graham, who I know from swimming every Monday night to keep fit, had invited me on the expedition which he had been planning for some 20yrs to celebrate his 60th B'Day! After Mungo's initial chat which made as "gulp!", we knew we'd get to know each other much better over the next couple of weeks and we certainly did...what a fantastic experience it was J

"Hukuna Matata" - no worries in Swahili (remember Disney's The Lion King?), that was the name of the game...
 

Click on photo for Mt Meru report:

For more info about Acute Mountain Sickness, click on link: AMS

Click on photo for Kilimanjaro report: