Moshi, September 2nd, 2019: I woke up at around 07:00 and had breakfast around 07:30. Toast with jam. At 09:00 we hit the road and headed towards Rongai Gate. We drove 2 hours because we had to go around half the mountain as our route (Rongai route) starts from north near the Kenyan border and Moshi is located south of Mount Kilimanjaro. By driving away from the masses I was able to see real Africa as my guide called it. One time we had to stop because my companions needed to buy something. And there I stood: in the middle of Africa, the only tourist far and wide, fully equipped with hiking gear next to a Toyota Van. Shortly after they all came back and we continued our drive.
On our way we saw a lot of villages which seemed to be very similar to each other: the highway as the main road and left/right from it there were a dozen huts. Sometimes a small shop, a church and a school. Very often we stumbled upon police man.
After our drive we arrived at Rongai Gate on 2.300m. And after some formalities we started our trek. Walking pole pole and after just one hour we had lunch break. I absolutely did not expect what I was going to witness: The porters set up a table and chairs and our cook had prepared a whole menu. Burger with a plate full of fruit. Some of them I didn’t even know. One fruit looked like a lemon but tasted like a smooth grapefruit. Everything tasted absolutely fantastic. But neither the guide nor the porters or the cook sat with me. As I turned out to be the only tourist on my tour this had to be a pretty odd picture: one tourist accompanied by one guide, one cook and four porters. But it is obligatory that you are accompanied by a local crew while trekking Mount Kilimanjaro. First of all they know the mountain inside out and second of all tourism (especially everything related to Mount Kilimanjaro) is one of the most important industries in Tanzania. And they can secure jobs for the local people by having the tourists committing themselves to use a local crew.After our drive we arrived at Rongai Gate on 2.300m. After some formalities we started our trek. Walking pole pole and after just one hour we had lunch break. I absolutely did not expect what I was going to witness: The porters set up a table and chairs and our cook had prepared a whole menu. Burger with a plate full of fruit. Some of them I didn’t even know. One fruit looked like a lemon but tasted like a smooth grapefruit. Everything tasted absolutely fantastic. But neither the guide nor the porters or the cook sat with me. As I turned out to be the only tourist on my tour this had to be a pretty odd picture: one tourist accompanied by one guide, one cook and four porters. But it is obligatory that you are accompanied by a local crew while trekking Mount Kilimanjaro. First of all they know the mountain inside out and second of all tourism (especially everything related to Mount Kilimanjaro) is one of the most important industries in Tanzania. And they can secure jobs for the local people by having the tourists committing themselves to use a local crew.
After lunch break was over we walked like another 45 minutes and arrived at Simba Camp on 2.671m. Again the porters did all the essential work: they build up the tent in no time and my guide registered us at the National Park authorities. I ate salty popcorn, drank 1 coffee and very delicious Kilimanjaro-tea and washed up.
My guide came into my tent and we talked about today. He said, we had a good speed. According to his anecdote other climbers often need twice as much time. This motivated me a lot and made me look positively forward to the remaining tour! The speed was doable and it seemed my preparation worked. Of course I had to take into account that today was only a 300m climb and the rest of the trek is going to be much more challenging. But this was a good start. Weather was nice as well. Neither too cold nor too warm. But the sky is cloudy and my guide is expecting it to rain tomorrow. Hopefully he is wrong because we are going to ascent something around 1.000m and we will need every tiny bit of motivation we can find.
In the meantime the camp is filling. First the porters who – even if they carry all the luggage – are always much more faster than the tourists who arrive a lot later. Although we are still at the beginning I am happy that up to now I had no problems regarding the altitude at all. But I am sure, it will change sometime during the remaining ascent. Just to be sure and to preserve energy I am lying down in my sleeping bag and empty my water bladder. At around 18:00h it was dinner time: fish, vegetables and potatoes, tomatoes, etc. Again I did neither expect such a large dinner nor to eat at a table. On top of that they put a candle on the table. What felt like a candle light dinner at first made sense just half an hour later: it went really, really dark really, really fast! Within minutes every light was gone and night started. Thank God for the candle on the table.
While talking to my guide and the porters I learned that one group is still waiting for their tourists. They started at 15:30 and now it is something around 19:00. This feels kind of weird. But I am going to sleep at around eight and gather as much energy as possible for tomorrow.
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