 A lesson in listening to that voice in your head. Early one morning in November 2021 I woke up to a voice that said 'climb Kilimanjaro'. As someone who has never once thought about climbing that mountain this was a rather surprising thing to hear. As I stayed cocooned in my cozy bed, 'Climb Kilimanjaro' kept echoing in my brain. Like so many people, I was experiencing cabin fever from being house bound during the pandemic - I desperately wanted to brush the dust off my passport and travel but this seemed a bit, uh, extreme. Couldn't the voice have suggested something a little closer or perhaps something without so much altitude? I mean the Amalfi Coast sounds lovely. After a beat of being slightly dumbfounded, I picked up my phone and started googling Kilimanjaro, beginning with 'where is Mount Kilimanjaro?' But, have you ever had a moment where your brain sees you doing something you never thought you would do and then it becomes all you can think about? That's what started to happen.  I could see myself standing at Uhuru Peak, which is the highest point on Kilimanjaro, an altitude I have never hiked. This is extraordinarily odd because I didn't even know what or where Uhuru Peak was until I started googling. Once I started researching it more, my gut caught up to what the voice in my head was saying, and the planning began. First step: find someone to go with me. Somehow I convinced/persuaded/begged my extremely reluctant sister that this was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and that we're not getting any younger so it's a sooner-than-later hike. It took a few weeks, but she agreed to go on this crazy adventure with me. In those weeks, the trip expanded to include a 5-day safari and a 9-day tour of Uganda (mostly so we could also go gorilla trekking) - hey, if you're going to go all that way, you might as well make it epic. Once the decision was made, we dove into step two of the planning phase.  Next step: find a solid tour company. We explored several different tour companies and settled on one that fit our four criteria:
In the end we chose Follow Alice. From the get-go they answered all of our questions (and we had a lot!), and they provided thorough prep materials, including guides for preparation, packing, tipping and more. While Follow Alice is a UK company they also have a company registered in Tanzania, which is licensed to facilitate and run tours on Kilimanjaro. There is a very hardworking team of experts on the ground in Moshi handling the logistics of Kili climbs and safaris. We booked an 8-day Lemosho route as it seemed to fit our fitness level and be the best for acclimatizing to the altitude, not to mention it has a high success rate of roughly 85-90% of hikers reaching the summit. You can check out Follow Alice's 8-day trek here. It's easy to see why Follow Alice has great reviews after spending 8 days with their crew. Five stars from me! Now that the trip was officially booked and the deposit paid, we had about 7 months to get in the best physically fit shape we've ever been. From my research I learned that the percentage of women in their late 40s who hike & summit Kili was very small. This was enough encouragement for me to push myself to be ready to tackle the mountain. As it turned out, I was not only the oldest woman in our group of 12, but also the oldest person in our group to reach Uhuru Peak (there was one person older by a year and he made it to Stella Point before needing to turn back - still, a massive achievement!). I was already exercising quite regularly but I took it up a notch. I focused on more intensive cardio, core and strength training. Every week I ran between 8-12 kms on the treadmill (until late Spring when I could run outside), did loads of crunches, planks and other equally evil core exercises, and lifted weights for upper body strength. About two months before the hike I added incline walking by cranking the treadmill up to 15% incline. It may not sound like a lot but I was in the best shape I'd ever been. In May, I hit the Dufferin HiLands section of The Bruce Trail to get in some long distance hiking. But the weather was so oppressive that I couldn't finish the whole hike. I wasn't keen on injuring myself or losing (too many) toe nails six weeks before Kili so I accepted that I wouldn't finish the whole section that weekend. Although I still managed 31 of the 57 KMS. I will finish the section one day soon but for now, you can read about that hike here.  So there we were - obsessed with everything Kilimanjaro, tour booked, and daily workouts happening, next up was streamlining what to pack.
My sister and I have hiked several long distance trails including the Tour du Mont Blanc and the West Highland Way so we had much of what we already needed but we are more sleep-in-huts not sleep-in-tents kind of hikers so this would be a totally new experience for us. Next step: The packing list. My complete packing list is coming soon. For now, see my 10 Tips for Hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, here. Seven months after that voice said 'Climb Kilimanjaro', I summited the 5,895 meters/19,341 foot Tanzanian mountain peak on July 17, 2022 at 6:42am. What if I had dismissed that voice? I would have missed out on an incredible experience, one that challenged me physically, one that catapulted me out of my comfort zone (hello, tents!) and one that I will never forget and hold in my heart forever. Now that I think about it, maybe that voice was Alice all along, whispering to me to go on an incredible, unforgettable adventure, which I did. Wondering, where she'll tell me to go next? I'm listening. Read more about my days on Kilimanjaro, starting with Part I: Days 1-3, click here
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