Kilimanjaro: pole, pole

(c) Rebecca Franks

Over the next few days I'm going to be blogging about my trip-of-a-lifetime climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and going on safari in Tanzania. I'm raising money for Water Aid so if you would like to sponsor me, please click here:

Terminal 4, Heathrow Airport on a Sunday evening. It's a busy place to be. I'm trying to spot my fellow travellers, but there are too many likely-looking people in the Kenya Airways queue: there are enough daypacks and big kit bags to set up shop. Climbing Kilimanjaro is clearly a popular activity. I've also made my first rookie error: taking my malaria tablet without food. Nausea isn't the best start to the trip.

After eight hours in the skies, I arrive in Nairobi, Kenya, a short plane skip away from Kilimanjaro, and by chance meet up with someone else in my Exodus group. Even in the early morning, Nairobi airport is heaving with travellers from all over the world: two Indian men tell us they are heading to East Africa where they have mining interests. There seems to be a constant flow of Japanese soldiers wandering past our gate. And there's a large group of American teenagers who, it's clear from their loud T-shirts and chatter, are on their first trip to Africa for missionary work.

The sun is bright as we fly into Tanzania, high above the clouds. And then suddenly there it is: Mount Kilimanjaro. The 5,895m peak rises proud out of the whiteness, both beautiful and daunting. The Kenyan businessman I'm sitting next to is baffled. 'So you just woke up one day and decided, right, I'll go and climb Africa's highest mountain?'

Yup. It's strange, but that's pretty much what happened in January this year. With three months off work on sabbatical, I wanted to do something out of my comfort zone and unforgettable.

I'll fast forward through meeting the other 11 members of my group, the bus ride to the hotel, drinking a Kilimanjaro beer, organising the bags ready for the next day and the briefing which I'm ashamed to say in my sleep-deprived state I kept nodding off during, and cut now to the first day of trekking.

Day 1 Tuesday 18 June 2013

The bag weigh-in is first up. We each carry our daypack with water, extra clothes, snacks and so on, but it's a group of porters who carry the bulk of our belongings, all of the camping equipment and food up the mountain. It's hard to believe that to get our group of 12 travellers to the top we'll need a chief guide, five assistant guides, a cook and near on 40 porters. Our bags must weigh in under 15kg and the limit is strictly enforced.  After a bit of rearrangement, we're all ready to go. Another, all-female team that's trekking for charity is proving more troublesome. There are guffaws when a woman pulls a large bottle of perfume and a ridiculously huge bag of tampons out of her 20kg bag. She's dubbed tampon lady for the rest of the trip. (In her defence, perhaps she was carrying them for the whole group, and we have been warned altitude can wreak havoc with periods.)

It's a twoish-hour drive to the bottom of the Rongai Route, one of the six possible ways up the mountain. The Marangu or 'coca-cola' route is the shortest, with huts to stay in the whole way up. The Rongai - or Nalemuru as it's labelled though never called –  is the only route to approach the summit crater from the north. On the Lemosho Route, one of the group gleefully tells us, you travel with an armed guard through the rainforest to ward off the wildlife.

After meeting our guides from the African Walking Company – more of which later – and signing in to the National Park, we start our walk at a glacial pace: 'pole, pole', meaning 'slowly, slowly', is one of the golden rules of the mountain. (Confusingly, pole, pole means slowly, a single pole means sorry.) Along with drinking at least four litres of water a day, ascending slowly is meant to help avoid altitude sickness. The first day is a short four-hour walk through forest, passing a bright array of stalls selling drinks, and with the porters rushing by us, bags often balanced on their heads. At lunchtime we're impatient to get going, eager to take on the mountain. We still haven't seen the summit yet. Frustratingly, it even stays behind the mist and clouds on our short acclimatisation walk – this is when you go above the the height at which you will sleep to stimulate your body to produce more red blood cells so you can carry more oxygen.

Our first camp is small, muddy, surrounded by shrubs and bushes. The blue toilet tent is tucked away. One member of our group decides to give it a go. Unbeknown to him, the porter with the unenviable task of looking after the loo – a portable plastic one – gathers the rest of the group round for a demo of how to flush it. When our unsuspecting toilet-goer emerges, he's taken aback to be greeted by 12 expectant faces.

We're also introduced to the concept of 'washy washy'. Every day, morning and late afternoon, we're given a bowl of hot water to wash in. For me it becomes something to look forward to, washing away the dust and dirt, scrubbing grimy fingernails and bathing weary feet. And our first cooked meal that evening is a revelation: a three-course affair with soup, a main course and fruit for desert, and lots of hot water and tea. The cook, or stomach engineer as he's known, clearly knows what he's doing. We all head to bed at an early hour in good spirits.