Kikelelwa Campsite (Day 3)

The following pictures and videos depicts our trek up to Kikelelwa, our next camp site at elevation 3600 metres or 11811 feet.

A quick report as we start our day’s hike to Kikelelwa. You can see the sun is up and the day is starting out nicely. No altitude sickness experienced by anyone to speak of. As you can hear, the wind is picking up as we continue to climb to higher elevations.

You can see the terrain changing as we continue to trek up Kilimanjaro.

Ours was not the only expedition attempting to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro. As you can see, others are on the trail with their own guides and porters. The Rongai trail is one of the less popular trails. Unlike the Coca Cola trail where hundreds of climbers can be trailing each other throughout the entire trek during the months of July and August.

The Rongai trail is a very reasonably flat trail but, for sure, there are steep rocky inclines where I needed to slow down even more so than normal and needing help to navigate the terrain to prevent any sudden falls or rolling of the ankle. That would not be good. In this video the guides help me to get past a short crossing bridged by two makeshift planks.

A most popular flower on the mountain called White Everlasting Straw Flower and we can attest that it does look and feel like very strong straw that will last forever to survive the tough climate on the mountain.

The hike to the camp wasn’t too long, about 4 hrs and the terrain, although rough in some spots was still manageable. Salim and I did a short update at Kikelelwa campsite. 

The view en route to and from Kikelelwa Camp was fantastic. See Salim, Safiya and Spencer checking out the view.

Follow us as we head to Mawenzi Tarn, our Day 4 campsite.