Day by day diary

Day 7 - 4th July 2000 - Mweka Hut (3100m) to Mweka Gate (1800m)

Our final morning on Kilimanjaro begins in the normal fashion. Tea in the tent at 0700 followed by breakfast at 0730. We had a good nights sleep although we wake early and so are ready to leave by 0815. The cloud has cleared a little at the campsite and we get our final views of Kibo's crater clear of cloud and shining in the morning sunlight. It already seems hard to believe only hours before we were stood on the very top. It seems so far away.

We start to descend from the camp and soon drop into the cloud and a persistent drizzle. The mud gets worse and worse, a wet gloopy mess that hides a tangle of tree routes. We descend through the rain forest on a similar trail to the one we climbed on the first day. The walking poles come into there own saving us from slipping on countless occasions. That is until one pole decides to collapse under Paul at a crucial moment and a mud covered arm and jacket result. We both get our first blisters of the trek today but they are not on our feet, but on our hands, a result of leaning heavily on the poles throughout the descent.

The first couple of hours of descent pass quickly but then tiredness begins to return and the last hour seems to take a lot longer. The constant bracing for slips becomes hard work and the slacker gradients near the bottom are very welcome when they arrive. As the path widens into a vehicular track we realise we have nearly reached the gate at 1800m. Then, after rounding the last corner we are there. There are people every where and it all seems very strange after a long time on the mountain. Our porters are waiting for us at the gate and Ben then leads us to the Park Office to sign out and receive our summit certificates. We qualify for a Gold Uhuru Peak certificate that we try not to cover with any of the mud that covers us.

We then have a final 15 minutes or so walk from the gate down to Mweka village to meet our waiting pickup vehicle. Once back at the vehicle we hand out the tips to our team (see the costs section for details). We then get given lunch before departing on the 45 minute drive back to Zara's office.

Back at the office Zainab congratulates us on our success and we thank her profusely for all her help. We really feel very glad to have used Zara and could not believe we could have got better service from anywhere else.

We finally thank Ben for all his help and leave to be driven back to Springlands Hotel. Because of our tight schedule we are due to catch the 2000 flight back to London tonight. We are given a room to clean up and pack in. The beards take a while to get off, Paul blunting two razors in the process, and the shower feels 'oh so good' after 7 days on the mountain. We quickly sort ourselves out for the flight to give maximum time for a celebratory drink or five in the hotel bar.

The first beer slips down easily as does the second. We start on Kilimanjaro Lager (of course!), and then have a Tusker or two. But after being told that these beers are for 'lightweight's' (only 4.5%!!), we move onto the 'real stuff', Kibo Gold (an affective 5.2%!!). Several bottles later we are fully relaxed as we recount our fantastic experiences on the highest peak in Africa.