So in early July 2003, I had decided that this was something that I wanted to do, and from there I moved on to the planning phase. I didn’t know much about the Kilimanjaro trekking to start with, but luckily, there are trip reports to be found on the Internet. In addition to reading stuff on the net, I bought a book from Trailblazer (Kilimanjaro - A trekking guide to Africa's highest mountain by Henry Stedman). This book was pretty nice to have, because it dealt with all sorts of topics such as what to bring, how to get there, which tour guides to use, description of the different routes and so on.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Another topic that was up for a debate for a short while was which route we should take. The most popular route is the Marangu route. We went for the Machame route, which is a longer, more scenic, and where you stay in tents.

For breakfast we got fruit/corn flakes and after this I got a plate with egg (prepared in different ways), sausage, bacon, and toast and served with tea/coffee. Dinner was an already prepared menu and we got soup, a starter, main course and then dessert and cheese/crackers. It was a pretty filling and tasty meal. And you don’t find many hotels were someone walks through the garden and rings a bell when dinner is ready to be served :-)

The hotel features a big and wonderful garden. It seems like everything blooms here. Around the garden chairs and tables can be found so it is possible to have a cold drink outside in the shadow of a tree. How about having an ice cold Kilimanjaro lager while you have a great view of both Kibo and Mawenzi on clear days? :-) It is also possible to borrow a croquet set and play on the lawn.

You can find a couple of souvenir shops located next to the reception. And if you want to cool down a bit it possible to jump into a pool. We tried it out and the water was refreshing :-).

But the best thing about the hotel was the hotel owners and staff. They were all so kind and so friendly and kept saying "Good luck" and "Don’t worry" before we set out on our Kilimanjaro climb. They all seemed to play for the same team and they were very serious about their business at tour guides on the mountain.

Conclusion
I have no problem recommending the Marangu Hotel as accommodation or as a tour guide when it comes to trekking on Kilimanjaro. The hotel may have a pretty basic standard compared to western standards but the staff makes you feel like you’re at home with their friendly attitude and their smiles. They seem to care for each and every guest and that makes the stay special.

- Read about altitude sickness (AMS) before you go and know about the symptoms. You don’t want to risk your life doing this.

- Know what to do to prevent altitude sickness (AMS): drink lots of water, walk slowly, stay warm, eat well, and try Diamox to see if you get any side effects.

- Bring walking poles! I don’t use this when I walk here in Norway, but it was really nice to have these "helpers" on the Kilimanjaro. If you haven’t used walking poles before, try them out before you get to the mountain

- Bring a thin pair of gloves. Your hands will be out of your pockets most of the day if you are using poles. The gloves will keep your hands warm and protect them from the sun

- Sun protection is important! We saw quite a few that had been a bit fried. Remember that this is at the equator. The sun is strong and it gets even stronger at higher altitude. Use a good quality sun cream with high SPF and wear a wide brimmed hat. Don’t forget to protect the lips.

- I was hoping to dry some clothing while we were trekking. But I don’t think you should count on this. Bring enough clothes to last you all of the days you are on the mountain.

- Bring some entertainment. It gets dark pretty fast and there is not much to do apart from staying in the sleeping bag. Bring a good book or a deck of cards.

- A headlamp is essential. Using the toilet, brushing your teeth, reading a book, etc. is made so much easier with a headlamp.

- Try to keep your hands clean! I bought some stuff called Antibac. You put it on and after 30 seconds, all the germs are gone.

- I brought gaiters, but I didn’t use them. I guess it could have been useful because it can be muddy to start with and it was very dusty in some places.

- A balaclava is nice to have. You can use it both to keep your head warm during the nights in sleeping bags and on the summit night.

I was using KLM/Kenya Airways this time. At 5pm, I lifted off from Stavanger Airport and after a short stop in Amsterdam, I was on my way to Nairobi at about 8pm. I was lucky enough to fly in business class, so I was in pretty good shape when I landed in Nairobi at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on the morning next day after the eight-hour flight. When we were planning, we had found out that there were two options of getting from Nairobi to Marangu at Kilimanjaro: bus or plane. I didn’t really want to go for the bus option. Instead, I went for the plane option and I used Precision Air to get from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro International Airport. When I came out to enter my Precision airplane, I knew that it would be small, but I was positive surprised when I saw it was a twin engine propel plane. But then all of a sudden, I was told that I was going on another smaller plane. . . so I ended up in a small Cessna Caravan plane with room for only 12 people. The flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro is only like one hour and on the way we got a great view of Kilimanjaro sticking above the clouds.

Kilimanjaro International airport is a pretty tiny airport, but it sure saved me for a lot of time. I’m sure that if I had gone for the bus alternative, it would have taken me hours to get here. When I came to the airport, I had to fill out an entry card and get in line to get a visa. It took a bit of time getting this because the guy behind the counter was working on "African time" and he used his time collecting the US$20 it cost, stamping the passport and handing out receipts. But soon I was done with the immigration and I picked up my duffel bag. At the airport, a guy from the Marangu hotel picked me up and the drive from the airport to the hotel took about one hour and 15 minutes. During the drive, we came across things that you might expect to find in this part of Africa: goats grassing along the road together with a Masai shepard, pick-ups with way too much in the back (either people or transporting other stuff), trucks with more or less no exhaust system which leads to lots of smoke and lots of noise etc. At the hotel I met up with Gayle and Avril. They had arrived a couple of days before me and they were busy relaxing in the beautiful garden at the hotel. Later in the afternoon, we were also joined by Matt.

The Marangu hotel seemed to be quite serious about their business and that evening we got a long briefing from one of the managers. He informed us that that we would have one main guide called Nelson, two assistant guides, and 10 porters!! Yes, it does seem like a lot of people. . . after all, we were only 4fourtrekkers in our group. But there is a lot of food and equipment that needs to be carried. The hotel itself had been keeping track of the success rate and according to Desmond 87% comes to Stella Point at the crater rim and about 70% makes it to Uhuru peak (the very top of the mountain). But the main part of the briefing was spent on talking about the "dangers" of the mountain. We were told that we had to protect ourselves from the sun (both skin and eyes), we would have to stay warm on the summit night and we had to know about altitude sickness (AMS). We were informed that the best ways to prevent AMS is to take it easy (to walk in a pace where you can still breathe through the nose), eat well, drink lots of water (our slogan should be "copious and clear" when peeing), and stay warm. We also discussed the use of Diamox of course. As most of you probably are aware of this is a medicine that can help prevent AMS by helping the body metabolize more oxygen. I had brought with me 100 pills and we decided that we wanted to try it out the next morning to see if it would have any side effects.

We also carried out our little Diamox experiment and we took a 250mg pill each to check out which effect it would have on us. Matt and I didn’t have any side effects apart from the fact that we went to the toilet more (it is a diuretic), but it could also have something to do with the fact that we had already started drinking lots of water. I also noticed that it influenced my taste buds and the Coca Cola just didn’t taste right anymore. The girls experienced a tingling feeling in the fingers and around the mouth and nose. In other words, we didn’t experience any bad side effects. During the briefing the day before, we had been informed a little bit about tipping the guides and porters after the hiking. So we handed in about US$100 each and we tried to work out how much we would give to the different people. We wanted to do this just to get an idea of how much it would be, but we also agreed that we would review this when we came back from the hiking (hence rewarding people if they had done a very good job).

At the hotel, we would see new people heading of to start their climb on the mountain and it was a bit of a torture. So to get our minds off things, we decided to go for a guided walk in the area. For US$5, you can get one of the people associated with the hotel to take you for a walk in the area. We walked to a local bus stop near by and from here we took one of the mini buses. I have been on rides with mini buses like this before and it can be interesting. The car was operated by a driver and one other guy that tried to fill up the car beyond its limits. I think that we were at least 20 people in the little bus but we managed to squeeze in there. All the people we met seemed pretty friendly and happy and everyone greeted us with "Jambo" (Swahili for "Hello"). Some seemed more happy that others and according to our guide they were the ones that had been drinking a bit too much banana beer.

Our destination was a cave that used to house a Chagga family (the local tribe is Chagga) when they were at war with the Masai people. We were expecting a cave in a mountain type of cave but it turned out to be a cave dug out of the soil. My trip to Kilimanjaro could have ended right there by the way because when I climbed down the wooden ladder to get into the cave, one of the steps gave in and I almost fell. But I was lucky and I didn’t get hurt. The cave itself was pretty narrow and dark and at some places we had to crawl on hands and knees to get through passages. And the girls were not happy of course when we came across lots of bats in the cave. I’m not sure that the cave was interesting enough to justify the 5000 shillings (about US$5) we had to pay to enter. But at least we got our minds of the upcoming trek. We had a nice walk back to the hotel and we met lots of children that were smiling and looking at the gang of pale skins that were walking through their territory.

That night, the atmosphere was a bit tense and nervous. We were all excited by the fact that we would be off to trek on Africa’s highest mountain the following day.

After breakfast at the hotel we waited around in the courtyard and looked at all the porters preparing all that needed to be brought along on the mountain. I had packed my stuff in a US military duffel bag. Each bag was also weighed at the hotel to make sure that each porter didn’t have to carry too much. I think that the hotel had an upper limit of about 25kg (55 lbs.). It looked quite chaotic when everything was being organized.

At about 9am, we got a lunch pack handed out and we were ready for departure. It took us about 1.5 hours to drive to the Machame gate. Parts of the road are not all that great so it was a bumpy ride. At the Machame gate, we registered in a big book with name, passport number etc and by noon we were of on the trail. To start, we walked on a 4x4 dirt road -- our group was our guide Nelson, the four trekkers, and one porter named Amani. Amani walked with our group all the time and he would stick to the last person in the group to make sure that we all came to the campsite. It wouldn’t take long before we got a break. . . after about one hour, we reached the end of the 4x4 dirt road and we had our lunch right there. The 4x4 trail changed to a smaller trail after this but not to what has been described in the guidebooks. I asked our guide Nelson about this and it turned out that this was a quite recent change. The trail was a couple of meters wide but the red soil was still very loose. From time to time we would see the old trail. In the end, we did end up walking on the trail that has been described by others: a trail that is slippery, muddy, and has lots of roots everywhere. But even if we had to watch our step all the time, we still had some time to take a look at the cloud forest that were all around us.

After about three hours, we reached a clearing in the woods and we found the first toilet on the trail. . . it was not a pretty sight. The trail continued up and up and even if we didn’t have much of a view due to clouds and fog, we could see that we were walking on a ridge. Soon the big trees in the cloud forest got smaller and smaller and at about 5pm, we reached the Machame camp at about 3000 meters and we saw one of the characteristic green huts that we would see in many of the camps to come. It was kind of weird for me to realize that I had already set a personal record. . . I had never been at a higher altitude. Our porters had, of course, reached the campsite hours ahead of us and our sleeping tents and out mess tent were already erected.

After a quick cup of tea and a quick wash, we headed for the mess tent to get some hot drinks. I thought that we would have to live on tea the entire trip. But it turned out that we would get served both tea and hot water. And from the hot water we could make coffee, Milo, or hot chocolate. For dinner, we got chicken soup, spaghetti with some sort of tomato sauce with vegetables, meat, fried potatoes, bread, etc. We got to the camp quite late and after dinner, it got very dark all of a sudden and it got pretty cold. Even if we had been walking pretty slowly during the day, I still managed to get a bit sweaty and my boots were a bit moist. But as it got dark and cold, there were no room to dry anything and that worried me a bit. It had been a long day, so by 8pm, the girls decided to turn in. I stayed awake a bit more, but I felt a bit bad occupying the big mess tent since this was to be used as a tent for the porters. So at about 9pm, I went into my sleeping bag as well.

At about 8am, we were ready for departure from the Machame camp. The trail went up and up and once again the other groups went past us pretty fast. There was not much of a view by the way. . . we started out with blue skies but soon we were walking in the clouds again. It was warm and comfortable when the sun was shining and a bit cold when the sun was "gone". I guess we were walking on volcanic ashes on the trail because it was very dusty.

Due to the briefing we had back at the hotel, we are trying to drink a lot of water. I got a litre of warm water in a flask the day before and I used this for warming up my feet in the sleeping bag. In the morning, the water was temperate and I drank this litre before breakfast. When we walked, I was carrying three litres of water with me. We continued to walk in a never ending uphill and at some places, the trail was a bit steep. At noon, we came to a place were we had lunch and it looked like it was a popular lunch stop because most of the groups had stopped there and there was a toilet there. Our lunch was more or less the same as yesterday.

After lunch, the weather cleared up a bit and all of a sudden we could see the top of Kibo. But the clouds would come and go so we had to be pretty quick on the trigger to get some good pictures of it. Only two hours after lunch we came to the Shira campsite at 3800m and the sun was shining and it was windy. The Shira campsite is a dusty open space with some rocks here and there and a few small trees. It was really nice to have the mess tent to hide in because it was quite windy. The toilet at this campsite is pretty nice by the way. . . for the ones that are lucky enough to pee standing up, there was a beautiful view of the campsite and Kibo in the background from inside the toilet.

I got pretty attached to my walking poles by the way. Due to my cold, I wasn’t feeling that great and it was nice to have the poles to keep the balance and to help me move forward. I missed the poles when we went out of the Shira campsite to walk over to the hut to register. It turned out that this was a walk that would take us more than the 10 minutes that Nelson told us it would take. And in the end, it turned out that we could have stayed at our camp because as we came to the hut, the people there got out and they were bringing the book over to the campsite.

I’m not very good at keeping my bag in order. I had already managed to misplace my sports tape and I had no idea where my tiny thermometer was. Matt and I have enough space in our tent for our two sleeping bags on each side and our big bags in the middle. Dinner tonight was tomato soup and pancakes as starters. The main course was some sort of stew with rice and, for dessert, bananas and oranges. And we are still focusing on drinking a lot and besides the water, we are drinking lots of tea, Milo, and hot chocolate.

Today’s leg was supposed to be one of the easier legs, but I have to say that I struggled a bit due to my cold. When I came to the Shira campsite, I had a Lemsip (it contains paracet, vitamin C, etc.) and it made me feel a bit better. Gayle was also feeling a bit exhausted when we came to the camp. She seems to be the one that has trouble keeping up the pace, so we let her lead the group so that we can stick together. Already at about 7pm, we were in our tents. . . as the night before, it got pretty cold as the sun went down. But the sunset was beautiful and it made Kibo glow. And later on when it got dark, the skies were clear and thousands of stars were out. It was a beautiful sight.

At 8am, we were ready for departure from the Shira campsite and from my Kilimanjaro book, we knew that we would have about 6km ascent to start with. I was wearing a long sleeved dri-fit Nike shirt covered by a Gore-Tex jacket. It was nice and sunny, but the wind was cold, so it was best to walk with the hood up.

As we walked, we got higher and higher and, in the end, we were at about 4500 meters according to the book. And I was feeling worse and worse. It actually felt like taking a long walk with a really bad hangover. I had a nasty headache and I was feeling nauseous. At lunchtime, Gayle puked and a few minutes later, Matt did the same. I was a bit relieved when it happened because I was not feeling great either, but I didn’t want to be the first to give in. Our guide Nelson seemed calm about the whole thing; he just offered to carry their daypacks and we continued. Only Avril seemed to handle the altitude well. While we were at this altitude, we stopped to have lunch, but with our current condition, it was not a big success. The lunch pack was the same as yesterday, but I didn’t feel like eating anything. I did manage to squeeze a granola bar in me because I needed some energy.

I have no idea how long we stopped for lunch. After lunch, we started going a bit up and down before we started descending to the Barranco campsite. On the way, we passed the Lava Tower, but we were just focused on getting to the camp. The 10km walk today felt much longer. At 4pm, we reached the campsite at 3950 m and we were glad to be able to lie down and relax. It was great to come down to the same level as Shira and my headache and nauseous feeling subsided as we were going down.

We soon gathered in the mess tent and I had some pills to get rid of the rest of the headache. After a day like this with altitude problems, we decided that it was time to bring out the Diamox. Our guide Nelson came into the tent this afternoon to ask us how we were feeling and to give us some information about the next day. It was great to have dinner after a long day of walking. We had some chicken soup to start with and then we moved on with macaroni, vegetables, potatoes, and sauce. And for dessert, we had canned pears.

When we were at the highest point today and I felt miserable; I felt like I was in another world. I did, of course, start to think about why I was doing this in the first place. What drives a man to pay lots of money to get "tortured"? Well, at that point I was thinking that I would go home and make a trip report that would tell the truth, a trip report that would tell what challenge this really is. Maybe it is the cold that makes it harder for me, but I have to say it is more of a challenge than I thought it would be. I also started to wonder if I would reach the top at all. Gayle also seemed to be a bit exhausted and sometimes I was hoping that she would give up so that I would have an "excuse" to give up too. But once we got to the campsite, these thoughts went away and in the evening, I was once again optimistic when it comes to my chances of reaching the top.

At 8pm, I went to the toilet before getting into the sleeping bag. It was a clear night and there were lots of stars and planets to be seen. The moon was about half and it made the glaciers on top of Kibo glow. It was such a pretty sight. At that point, I started thinking about my thoughts earlier that day. All of a sudden the trip didn’t feel bad at all. All of a sudden, I realized that it is pretty amazing to sleep in a tent at 4000m above sea level. . . at the equator. . . in Tanzania. . . next to the highest mountain in Africa. All of a sudden, it felt like quite an adventure.

After breakfast, we got ready to face the Barranco wall and we started walking at about 9am. I was wearing my Fjällräven trousers once again and I had the thin super underwear top under my Gore-Tex jacket. The climb up the wall was not as bad as expected. As we were coming down the campsite the day before, we looked at the path up the wall and thought that it would be a hard day. But once again, we took our time and after about an hour, we reached the top. The wall is steep at places and from time to time, you have to use your hands to haul yourself up. But I walked most of the way up to the top with my walking poles.

At noon, we reached Karanga Valley and our mess tent was erected here. I guess this is used as a campsite from time to time because there were a few toilets here. We were the only group there at that moment and we enjoyed a hot lunch in the mess tent. We got a pretty good meal here consisting of soup, an omelette with fries, etc. According to the Kilimanjaro book, Karanga Valley is the last place on this route where water can be found, so the porters had to carry water from here to our next campsite at Barafu.

The path out of Karanga valley is a bit steep, but we were still in pretty good condition. Once we reached the top, we turned north and headed for the Barafu campsite. It took us quite some time to reach this campsite by the way. And it was a quite miserable because it was getting windy; we had no view due to all the clouds that came in and I was getting a bit cold. But at about 5pm, we reached the campsite and the first thing we saw was a toilet. It was still quite cloudy, so we didn’t have a view to the mountain itself or the route that we would be taking the same night.

The Barafu campsite at about 4600m is a strange place. . . it is situated on a hillside and the campsite is filled with rocks. I’m quite surprised that they were able to find places to erect our tents. At 4600m, we started to feel the effect of the thin air. It became a little mission just to go to the toilet because it was located a few meters higher than the tents. I was sitting in the mess tent and I measured my resting pulse and it was 105. When I’m at sea level, it is about 60!! I felt cold even in the mess tent and it was nice to have a warm meal again and some warm drinks. Our guide Nelson told us that we would get a light meal this evening, but it looked pretty standard to me.

After dinner, we started preparing for the BIG thing!! I got into my wool underwear, long woollen socks, changed the batteries of the headlamp, mixed XL-1 into two litres of water in my Platypus to get some energy on the way to the top, put my sunglasses and sun cream in the pocket of my jacket, and so on. At about 7pm, we were ready to get some rest and sleep because at 11pm, we would get a wake-up call. It was quite windy when we went into our sleeping bags. I don’t think I slept at all during these hours because I was excited.

We started walking at midnight and Nelson and two assistants guided us. We walked slowly and I didn’t focus on much apart from keeping a steady pace. From time to time, we would stop and I would use the chance to rest on my walking poles and sip a bit of my water.

After a while, we started walking in zigzags and Gayle slowed down a little. After a while, we agreed to split up the group so that Avril, Matt, and I would walk with Nelson and Gayle would walk with one of the assistant guides.

It was a blessing for me when the sun rose because it made it easier to stay awake. It was getting steeper and I was hoping that we were getting close to the crater rim. But it turned out that it would get even steeper. The higher we got, the slower we walked due to thinner air. We had to take breaks all the time to get enough air.

During the little breaks, we had to catch our breath I started to think once again why I was doing this. Why pay to "torture" yourself, why pay to have a challenge like this when you can relax on a beach in Thailand instead. I don’t think I came up with a good answer. But my competition instinct kept me going. I’m always a bit afraid to fail and it would have been a bit of a failure to come all this way and not reach the top.

At 7.30am, I stepped up on the crater rim at Stella Point. Matt followed right behind me and after a few minutes came Avril. Towards the end I didn’t pay attention to where the other people in my group were. I was just focused on getting to the top. After 15-20 minutes, Gayle came towards Stella Point.

It was great to finally be at the rim. When I was struggling to get to Stella Point, I thought to myself, "Screw Uhuru Peak". But when I got some tea and got to relax, I knew that I had to continue. Avril and Matt also had the same feelings, but Gayle decided to go back down again. Stella Point is located at 5735m. The weather was great when we reached the crater rim. The sun was shining from a blue sky and it was not very windy.

After the rest, we started on the way up to Uhuru Peak. Matt and Avril started a bit before me and I tried to catch up with them, but in the thin air, I had to take breaks all the time to breathe. On the way up, I had great views to the crater itself and to the surrounding glaciers. The glaciers were bright white in the strong sun. I guess it must have taken about an hour and at 9am, I finally reached the sign that says "Congratulations. You are now at Uhuru Peak, Tanzania, 5895 m" I had forgotten all about drinking and about the chocolate bar that I had in my pocket and I was getting tired. We took a few pictures and signed in the book that was there.

We didn’t stay at the top for long. At Stella Point, we started the decent to the campsite and we could almost slide down in the loose sand. On the way down, I was not able to keep up with Avril and Matt, and I was in the company of one of the assistant guides. He helped me by carrying my daypack and I just concentrated on staying on my feet and drinking water.

I guess that it took us 1.5 hours to get down to the camp. When I got there I took of my boots and my Gore-Tex, and went straight in the sleeping bag and fell asleep. I was woken up by a porter after a while and he asked if I wanted some soup and I said yes but I fell asleep again. Matt also came to ask me if I wanted some soup, so I dragged myself out of the bag. I hadn’t had a decent meal in 18 hours so I was running low on energy. After a bit of soup, we packed up and we started descending down to Mweka camp. To start with, we walked on the trail where we had walked up the day before, but soon we went over to the Mweka route. At 4.30pm, we reached the campsite at 3100m and once again there were trees in the surroundings of the camp. It was great to get into the mess tent to get a decent meal again. On the way down to the camp, I had been drinking lots of water to avoid getting more dehydrated and I also had a chocolate bar that helped.

Once again, I sat at the window and I watched the world pass by. There are so many pictures that never got taken, like a young girl that was looking at our truck pass by. When she saw us, she stretched out her hand with her palm up and I guess she was hoping that we could stop to give her something. Many of the bars/shops in the area seem to be sponsored by Coca Cola. Each shop seems to have the same signs but just with different names. There were many strange names. One bar was called the "White Chair Bar," but in the bar itself there were only red plastic chairs. We also passed a crew on the main road to our hotel. They were painting the road markings on the street manually and I guess that can take quite some time.

Back at the hotel, it was great to have a shower. I had to scrub my entire body to get all the dirt off. I also found out that I’m basically out of clean clothes. In fact, I had to buy one of those Kilimanjaro T-shirts just to have something to travel home in. After we had taken showers, we went into the garden to have a couple of drinks with our crew. The whole thing didn’t cost all that much by the way. . . two rounds of drinks on the four of us and our 13 man strong crew cost us about 38.000 shillings. The crew sang a little song for us in the end before Nelson handed out the certificates so that we can prove that we have been to the top of Kilimanjaro. Matt, Avril, and I got the gold certificate for reaching Uhuru Peak, while Gayle got the green certificate for reaching Stella Point.

This was also the point were we handed out the tips and that is always a delicate matter. I’m not very used to tipping from back home, but according to the guidelines from the hotel, 10% tipping is the standard here. But the manager Desmond pointed out that this was only a guideline. We handed in US$110 each as tip and we tried to distribute this the best way. I think we gave about $22 to each porter ($25 to Amani since he served us food), about $45 to the assistant guides (a bit more to one of them since he basically dragged Gayle to Stella Point), and about $65 to the guide Nelson. The rest of the evening was pretty quiet. We still had sore legs, so it was nice just to enjoy a nice dinner and to have a couple of beers. The most popular beer here is, of course, Kilimanjaro. And the second most popular is Kibo. As you can tell, there is a lot of pride when it comes to the mountain.

Transportation
Stavanger - Nairobi $1010
Nairobi - Kilimanjaro airport $300
Transport (to/from hotel) $62

Trekking and hotel
Cost for the trekking $570
Accommodation (three nights) $90
Park fees $410

Equipment
Clothing $810
Miscellaneous equipment $365
Medicine/Toiletries $185

Total Approx. US$3800