As Jan is walking down the mountain, some of his messages from early on came through. Here they are…

We arrived to our first camp after a really nice climb through some jungle forest first and then giant heather terrain higher up. There were moments it seemed the rain forest resembled a forest at home until I looked closer. I did not recognise any of the trees or plants. We arrived at our first camp cheering! Just in time because it started to rain. Our tents were already set up for us, which was wonderful – love it.

It rained most of the time last night with some distant lightning. I had a headache for the first time on Kili and hardly any sleep. But I had my rest, so I’m ok.

After lunch we had some time to rest. The weather improved a bit and we all used this afternoon to acclimatise higher up. We ended up at this big rock amidst the alpine desert, above 4000m. It was higher than I ever hiked before. We only brought our gore-tex or a very light backpack, so we walked very smooth. Everybody seemed in a great mood, I loved it.

It’s amazing how our cooks can make such great meals for us. We get sausages, eggs and toast for breakfast. Warm lunch and dinner can be spaghetti, fries, chicken, pizza, rice, stuffed peppers, hamburgers. We really get spoiled. The Brits get horrified when I try to put milk in my ginger tea but they drink tea with their fries. Fries are with mayonaise, not with tea 😖