Recommendation and Tips
- I would recommend to go for 7 days Machame route instead of 6 days if you have not done high altitude hiking before. If you go for 6 days, then on Day 4 you would be walking a good 8-10 hours (ie cover two days of trekking in one day) followed by 5-6 hours break and then trek again for 6-8 hours summit climb in the night. Not to forget you have to climb down as well. It becomes just too much to handle if you are not trained.
- Make sure you have your toe nails trimmed. Mine was not and it hurts while climbing down as trekking shoes are hard from inside.
- Generally people do safaris after climbing Kili. Serengeti has so much to offer compared to Lake Manyara/Tarangire.
- You could rent most of the trekking stuff from your tour agent. I was booked with Zara Tours and their collections were good quality.
- I ended up paying a tip of US$250 (in a group of four climbers) plus some additional for an assistant guide.
- Dinner will be served by 6:30-7pm everyday. Suggest to come out of your tent by 9 or 10pm to view the beautiful sky.
- Yellow fever certificate is usually required for African and South American countries. It was not required for India or Singapore residents.
What did I train on?
You will find many itineraries, experiences online so I will try to cover something else in this post. This is the first time I did a trip on my own, and mountains and hiking were never close to me. So it would be wrong to say that I was not nervous. I was but I read a lot and made sure that I have a good exercise regime to train up. I was going gym three times a week and spending most of my time on walking treadmill 15 degrees incline at 3.5 km/hour for 45 minutes. Followed by climbing steps up to 30 floors (gradually increasing it to 90 floors). Followed by squats. Now after climbing, I realize that spending time on following will help in your climb - on your shoulders (as you carry nearly 5 kgs everyday), on climbing down and on your back. I would have been better off if I had worked on these.
