Of all the mistakes I have made in my life, the costliest must be that of buying a TV. Nothing has been more financially draining than watching the travel channel on my TV. Within months of having the first glimpse of an Aussie wrestle with an angry crocodile, I found myself skipping through the pages of an Atlas searching for a nice destination for an adventure trip. After giving the Great Wall and the Pyramids a long thought, I ended up booking a trip to East Africa. Having some faint remembrance of once being fascinated by a programme where a young lad was bragging about his climb up the K2, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to do one myself. Thus I found myself extending my trip to attempt to scale the Kilimanjaro.

Mount Kilimanjaro, if you didn't know already, is the tallest peak in Africa and at a height of 5895m, is also the tallest, free-standing mountain in the world. It is located at the north-east corner of Tanzania, close to the Tanzania-Kenya border. After climbing the mountain, I can say that if you are thinking of climbing the tallest peak in each continent, Africa would not be a bad place to start. There are many paths up the mountain and the Marangu route, the one I took, is the easiest and due to this reason, is also known as the Coca-Cola route. The climb is gentle and only at the very end would you be required to use all four limbs. There are tougher routes -- the whisky route, the rum route etc. available to the professionals.

The climb (via the Coca-Cola route) starts at the Marangu gate which is at an elevation of about 1800m. A good 3-hour walk through thick rain forests will bring you to the lower camp -- Mandara, which is situated at an elevation of 2727m. A 15-minute short hike from the hut would take you to a crater called Maundi, from where you can get very good views of the Horombo village and the surrounding tropical forests.

On the second day, I climbed for 5 to 6 hours to reach the middle hut -- Horombo. The hut is situated at an elevation of 3720m and during the hike to this hut was the first time I encountered altitude sickness. And it wasn't very pleasant, but more about that later. About an hour from the Mandara hut, the thick rain forest gives way to shrubs and the views just get better and better. It is here that Mt. Kilimanjaro presents its first view to the climbers. From Horombo one can get a real good view of both Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Mawenzie, that is, when they are not under a thick cloud cover.

The Kilimanjaro peak as seen from the Horombo hut

The third day, for some, would be spent acclimatising themselves to the altitude. Since this was the first time I had reached these heights, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend an extra day up in the mountain. How helpful the extra day is in reaching the summit, I don't know, but there are many who believe that it is a waste of time and money. During the day, we took a short 3-hour hike up to 4300m. On the return leg of this hike, I realised for the first time, how easy it was to travel downhill. If only we could climb a mountain downhill... The short hike took us up to a vantage point in-between the two mountains and apart from the two wonderful peaks, all that I remember of the hike was spotting a rather peculiar collection of rocks called the Zebra Rock, named mainly due to the alternate black and white stripes found on them.

The peculiar rock formation called the Zebra Rock

The task on the fourth day was a 5 to 6 hour hike from Horombo hut to the topmost hut -- Kibo. Apart from the initial and final stretch, the bulk of the hike is on near flat land. But the altitude makes up for the lack of steep climb. Kibo is situated at the foothills of the Kilimanjaro peak and is at an elevation of 4703m. Kibo also marks the point where visitors start saying the dreaded word: 'enough'. Needless to say, the place was very cold and did not have any heating. As if these weren't enough, we had a snowfall that evening, which in hindsight, wasn't that bad a thing to happen. For one, it warmed up the place a bit, as a snowfall anywhere would. Secondly, it also helped in binding the rocks on the path, making it less slippery. We had an early dinner this evening and slept early -- not that the dinner times on the other days were much later, but having dinner at 5:30 p.m. would count as early in most people's dictionary.

The route to the Kibo hut

The reason we had to sleep early on the fourth evening was because our final ascent on the fifth day started at midnight. There are three reasons why we started so early for our summit climb. The most important of them all was the fact that the peak normally gets completely covered by thick fog by 8 in the morning. So it is imperative that you come back by that time to Kibo hut and as the summit is about 5 hours away, you are forced to start at midnight to beat the fog. The second reason was to make it to the top where the view is the prettiest, namely, the sunrise and the final reason was to avoid traveling during broad daylight when you can get a good view of the steep path lying ahead of you. The importance of the third reason became evident when I looked back at the path after returning to Kibo hut. I certainly wouldn't have agreed to move an inch if I had seen the path before.

I passed the 5000m mark, William's point, at about two in the morning and somehow crawled to the top by quarter to six, in time for the spectacular sunrise. By the top, here, I mean Gillman's Point which is at an elevation of 5685m. The actual highest point, the Uhuru peak is 210m higher and more importantly a good 2-hour walk from Gillman's Point. The effect of altitude combined with the knowledge that I would anyway get a certificate even if I reached only Gillman's Point, prevented me from going any further.

A Kilimanjaro travelogue would normally end with the person scaling the peak. But mine has to carry on till I reached the Marangu gate. This is because, instead of spending the fifth night at Horombo, thanks to my tight schedule, I was forced to descend all the way to Mandara hut. I reached the bottom hut at 4 in the evening of the fifth day, and since my day had started at midnight, I ended up having a 16 hour morning walk with a small breaks at Kibo and Horombo. Breakfast in Kibo, lunch in Horombo and dinner in Mandara and that too after climbing up and down a brute of a mountain -- it wasn't easy. My only solace was the knowledge that I wasn't alone in attempting the madness. My partner in crime was an Essex gentleman, one Mr. Garth Freeman and (I quote him here): "After this, all that I am left with is a story to tell my grandchildren: your grand dad walked up the tallest mountain in Africa one day, and walked straight back home."

I would not have reached the top if not for my guide, Steven Mtui, egging me on in the last 30 minutes of the climb and I am eternally grateful to him for showing me the best sunrise of my life. In helping me climb the mountain, no less part was played by my three wonderful Canadian climb mates -- Leanne, Cheryl and Holly. As if climbing and staying with three lovely young ladies is not a motivation by itself to climb the hill, I was also able to reap the benefit of their profession: they were all nurses. Their wonder drug would always cure the strongest of my headaches.

Without them, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near the peak, especially when I couldn't eat properly after 3500m, think properly after 4300m and breathe properly after 5000m.

Will I ever want to return to Kilimanjaro? Not until they find a water route. Coca-Cola is too strong for me! I am happy that I made it within 200m to the top of highest peak in Africa -- to be 'geologically' correct, I think I should say: highest peak in Africa as of the 2000th year after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.