8 July 2023: Kilimanjaro Day 7

In the spirit of the previous posts, I'm going to quote from the journal first, which was still written after we had returned home...

Today was the final day of hiking. We started a half hour early so we could thank the crew. They sang for us one last time, then we began our last hike down the mountain. The speed was actually really fast. I think our crew was looking forward to the freedom. We did 8.5 miles of hiking in just over 5 hours. The second half was VERY muddy (was just now washing my shoes). We all almost fell at least a few times. The shoes I got for this trip did very well- my feet did stay dry (my first pair of Saloman boots).

When we reached the gate, we did our last photo with all of the group that hiked out together, then there were some guys who would wash our boots for $2 a pair, but no one had any money. Then we got our official Kilimanjaro beer, then had some champagne and a banana-beef stew (you read that right) for lunch. Once everyone arrived, we had our certificate presentations, then started the hour drive back to the hotel. Check in was a little awkward - after climbing Kili, we couldn't just go to our room... we had to verify all of our stuff from the safe, put our tips into the crew envelops, give to the lead guide, then finally could get our key. As a tourism professional, I can appreciate the need to take care of the crew, but I suppose they wanted to be sure everything was checked off before releasing us. Our tips had been set aside in an envelope for over a month, so that wasn't an issue for us. (They totally earned it). We had just enough time to shower before dinner. Our dinner was very exciting after all of the mountain food - one of our folks had worked it out with the local Indian-Italian (yes, you read that right) to deliver 10 margherita pizzas. Comfort food at its finest. It was a nice last meal together. Best part was the local Tanzanian guitar player singing "Hotel California."

When we got to the room, we had to lay EVERYTHING out so it would dry. It was amazing how drenched all of our gear was. And wow, what a journey. Don't tune out just because the climb is over, I'm on a roll, so I'm going to go ahead and type up the journal entries from the final days of the trip.

Here is the entire journey on my Garmin, start to finish. If you look at the distance at the top left, you can appreciate just how big this mountain is. What an amazing experience!