Kilimanjaro....and now Zanzibar!!!!

Ok so I've been down from Kili for a few days and just now have the desire to write about it. It was awesome in a challenging "glad I did it" way, but it was long and uncomfortable and just a huge bitch honestly.

Nathalie and I did the 6 day Machame option, because it was cheapest, and it turned out to be a very difficult choice. It's a faster option and you do more trekking up and down to get used to the altitude. We camped the whole time which was fine, but got increasingly colder as we got increasingly dirtier and more exhausted. I felt up to it physically but suffered a brutal altitude headache the third day that had me wanting to quit. The landscape went from tropical to arid, with a certain nuclear blast look going on the fourth and fifth day. The summit itself came midnight the fifth day - 6 hrs up to the top, and 2.5 hrs down (which was way more brutal than the ascent). Nathalie did an amazing job considering she had a few non-helpful factors - broken toe, diarrhea, asthma.

Just a quick note - before I headed off from the summit - a fellow South African climber made the following remark. "No offense, but if you can do it (a female) it shouldn't be too hard." It was certainly delightful to pass his old ass while heading up the mountain and summit a good 30 minutes ahead of him. Ego is a great motivating factor :)

Alright, so after we got down we spent a very fun night back at the hotel and met some wonderful South Africans (the aforementioned was part of the group and wasn't such an ass later). After that we set off by bus to Dar es Salaam where we met Meg Nelson from JGI, had a fun night with her, then ferried off to Zanzibar this morning. We met Di here and had a lovely lunch overlooking the water and have since been laying out, swimming, enjoying cocktails, and wandering the beach in search of dinner. On that not I will bid farewell and get back to this hard life :) Love to you all!!!