EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW Before Climbing Kilimanjaro

Who are we to give you this and tricks to climb Kilimanjaro? Well we are on top of it right now. This morning was the hardest day that we've ever done. So let's go down a few hundreds or thousands of meters so we can talk again because up here not a lot of oxygen. So what about equipment? First of all we're not going to go through the entire list of everything we brought. Instead in the description of this video I'm gonna put a list right there so you can have a look at it. But if you're missing stuff like just like us if you're not like super outdoorsy like you might not have like rain pants you might not have like sleeping bags. Yeah and you don't want to have to like spend the money on it just for like one week. Exactly. So companies like Climb Kili they can rent you like basically anything you're missing so make sure to do that. Here's two things that we wish we would have had but we didn't. Okay so they do provide a foam mattress and it's perfectly fine like it's we slept on it all week but our hips really hurt so I would either suggest bringing your own like small inflatable one or renting an extra one. Yeah so that would have been nice. The second thing is a second pair of boots and it's a little tricky because boots are very heavy and you're only yeah but you're only allowed to bring 15 kg of everything you have basically unless you carry it in your day pack but that's too much effort to be honest. It makes no sense. You don't want to take a few things out of the the packing list and replace it by a second pair of boots. I think that would be a great thing because right now it's a poor drain almost all day. Our boots are drenched. With the moisture that's not always able to dry out so there comes and play your second pair of boots. Okay so a typical day for us and this is going to depend on your pace and everything but the structure is still the same. We end up getting up we get woken up at six you can have hot chocolate or whatever in your tent however I don't trust myself not to spill it so I wait for breakfast and there are a quarter to seven seven ish is when breakfast is ready so in that meantime you pack up all of your gear your sleeping bag and everything and they lay a tarp out and you put it all there that way the tents are ready to come down and then we come down to the breakfast tent and we have breakfast till about 7 30 ish and then we get ready for the day of hiking. We normally leave around eight o'clock hike for depending what the itinerary is that day and then yeah you do that every single morning. After hiking for a few hours sometimes many hours you arrive at your new camp for the night where you're gonna have lunch rest for the afternoon have supper get your plan ready for the following day and it starts again as soon as you wake up the next morning. So you might be wondering what is the water situation well the water situation is pretty straightforward the first day you need three to four liters for your personal use to bring in your backpack but as soon as you arrive at your first camp there's going to be water there for you to drink. Where is it from? Good question it's coming from Achilles glacier that's melting and coming down the mountain so porters will go get the water and to be honest between you and I the water is probably fine to drink straight from the source but they always take the extra precaution and filter that said water. So water situation 10 out of 10. Okay so the next thing that people always ask is about Dymax. Care purposes this is not medical advice nothing like that but we did end up taking it and I don't know was it attributed to that was it not we had really good results with it but with the Dymax you really do have to drink a lot of water because it does dehydrate you that being said makes you have to come pee a lot so just talk with your guides and stuff because you can kind of space it out in different timings to minimize that so you can still sleep as well. For those of you who don't know the Dymax is actually the high altitude medication. It's staring at my heart when I'm with you and when we are apart I feel it too. Bringing a portable speaker especially for the last day is actually a very good tip. At first I wasn't good at bringing it because we didn't use it but the last day we definitely needed it. Okay so the next thing that we heard like kind of mixed reviews on are do you bring your snacks? In the itinerary it says like make sure you do bring your own snacks but a lot of people are like oh they feed you a lot you don't need them. That is true they do feed you a lot. However when you're doing your hikes and sometimes your hikes are like I think our longest one was like six seven hours it is encouraged to keep eating. We ended up eating all of them. Did we have an appetite for them? Were we hungry? Not necessarily but it gives you that energy on the trail. So this is pretty much all I have left now but I had like an easy carb sugar and then I had like a cereal bar. I had some cliff bars and I also had like nature valley grain bars as well and to be honest I'm thankful that I did because when I felt like I was getting tired ate some snacks drank some water and felt fantastic again. Okay so one of the most important questions is like what route should you do? Well that depends on a lot of different things but there's two principal ones. What is your experience with high altitude and hiking in general and also what time of the year do you want to do it because rainy season some most companies are closing and there's like January and February are very very popular. So of course if it's more popular of a month you'll see more people on the trail so less private and alone with nature. So we chose the Mashame route and basically we did that based off of not having much experience with high altitude training. Zero. So we wanted to give our bodies like the best chance to acclimatize and then on top of that we still wanted to enjoy it. So a perk with this route is like it's literally a different climate every day that you're climbing which was beautiful. And a company like Climb Kili have like many many options of different route different length. So yeah check it out. But just keep in mind that Mount Kilimanjaro is a UNESCO site. There's over 30,000 people climbing to the summit every single year. So chances are you're never gonna really be alone on the trail unless you do I guess the hardest route in the middle of rainy season which I do not suggest. Where am I now? Well now I'm in a market. Let me tell you how the last day actually goes and we'll talk about summit day right after. So you wake up in the morning after a very nice night of sleep. You have breakfast. You have about three hours depending on your beat of course three hours to walk down. And then after that you go on well you sign out of the park go on a bus and come to this beautiful market where you're gonna have lunch. After lunch and a little bit of shopping you get your certificate a little dance then you drive back to the hotel and it's time to say goodbye. So the big question what is summit day? Well first let me show you something. Ah yeah that's that's that's good hair right there. Oh we're just supposed to jump in the shower. So let's start it from that morning. So you basically wake up you do your walk that little bit in the morning. Like a normal hiking so normal hike day. It was like a four or five hour a little shorter though. You get to camp for an early-ish lunch and then you're basically napping from like 1 to 4 30 because then you have an early supper. Yeah and then you nap again. Yeah so that's a key you have to nap again from let's say about 6 to 11 p.m. to wake up and start your push at 12 a.m. So basically midnight of the following day. Here goes nothing. Very key component here. Clankily is one of the only company that has a special permit to sleep at Kosovo camp which brings you like almost what like a kilometer closer to the summit. Anyway there's a couple companies but like this really stands out and it makes a huge difference because right before that you do like a massive rock. It cuts like an hour from your final summit. You start walking it is pitch black and basically you're going uphill for about six hours and yes it's only five kilometers but there's so much like actually no there's a lack of oxygen making this like extremely hard. It was hard hard. Yeah. That was the hardest which to be expected but that was the hardest point of the entire trip. The rest was yeah okay a little hard here and there but that was a game changer. Don't get me wrong like it gets colder and colder and colder. Oh yeah you stop for breaks and like you just freeze. And at the top there's basically nothing left to shield you and because of that well well it's freezing. So after that you finally make it to Uhuru Peak. When we were there there was a lot of people so like people were like kind of pushing a little bit to like take photos but I mean that's the reality of it. Everyone worked so hard to get up there and we were very lucky because we were there for sunrise. I highly suggest that you do everything you can to be there for sunrise because it is simply outstanding. It's so crazy. Yeah and you stay there for about like 20 something minutes. You can't really stay there long because it's at 5,895 meters. Like it is not healthy not good to stay there for long. You just increase your risk of getting more altitude sickness. And after that you go down and I wish I could tell you that that is the end of the day but it is not. So you go back down that 5k which only took us about an hour and a half. We were kind of booking it and then depending on what time you get down you can either have like an hour's rest or whatever and then you have lunch. But right after lunch you have to do another three to four hours. Definitely four and a half hours but Tracy and I decided to go like sport mode and like we booked it. We arrived and like the camp wasn't even finished. They all kind of looked at us like wow. They looked at us like why are you already here? Anyway but yeah. That part is hard because it's extremely the second part is still rocky. Yeah and like just a weird rocky so it is really hard. But yeah once you get there you can have a little rest and then you have supper and then you can finally go to bed. And that was the best night ever. Yes we slept so good. Yeah so that is the reality of Semete. It's almost 21 hours from your full day. Then the following day you go throw us away now. Yeah. But I need to take these socks off and we need to get in the shower. It's shower time. Let's go to the shower. So first of all let me tell you that that was a glorious shower and it feels so good to be back at the hotel. It feels great although we just went up a set of stairs and it felt like we went up 15. Yeah now we're gonna give you two extra tips. Yeah. Just because we're nice people. Layers. So I know they talk about layers and even us going into it we're like that sounds like too many layers. I think the right word is to have the proper layers. Because we're talking about clothing by the way. Oh yeah that's true. Besides Semete that's a whole other situation. But you start off cold normally and like you're peeling everything off by midday then a cloud rolls in and you're putting some stuff back on. So my three main ones were like a wind jacket slash rain jacket, a small puffer jacket and a long sleeve. Yeah. Those were my three for every day except Semete. Yeah and the secret for layers is they don't they can't be tight. If they're tight then you can't have like air to get warm in between your layers. So like that's that's the main thing. Yeah. But otherwise yeah thermals are gonna be your best friend. Your base layer should always be a thermal. I agree. I lived and hiked most of the days with just a thermal but like when it was getting well when it was getting windy and stuff I was just putting my Your puffer. Or my wind jacket. Yeah. So there's that. Second tip, peeing. What? Yeah. I'm gonna talk about peeing. Don't hold your pee. Do not hold your pee especially when you're sleeping. In the tent. Because your body is working so hard to keep that pee warm so your body doesn't shut down that you're wasting a lot of your heat because of that. So if you're very cold you wake up shivering in the middle of the night go to the bathroom come back you'll be much better. Yes definitely didn't do that properly like the first few nights. I told her. But then we leveled out. It's precious information trust me. So a massive thank you to Climb Cali for this once in a lifetime adventure. It was a blast so see you guys. Cheers. In the next one.