Kilimanjaro, Day Seven: "Knot" Your Average Day

After a glorious, 14-hour, Rip-Van-Winkle-like sleep, we were prepared to return to Marangu gate, and ultimately, to our hotel for a hot shower! We enjoyed our last, egg-less breakfast and gathered our crew outside for team photos and gifts. Phil gave away his Canada hat, fleece, snowpants and winter jacket, as I handed out Canadian key chains and contact information. Our team was happy with their new gear and we packed up our bags and headed out for the final lag of the climb.



Walking down familiar terrain was a good reflection for us, and we marvelled at the distance we had covered in the last five days. We stopped at the Mandara huts for a brief lunch, but had no appetite for the tuna-fish dish our chef had prepared for us. It is funny how things had changed...on previous days, we would have downed the food anyways...but on THIS day, we stopped caring about nourishment and hydration and placed all our focus on "the finish line". Screw pole-pole, Phil wanted a beer and I wanted a coca-cola!




Reaching the gate was almost superior to reaching Uhuru peak. WE WERE DONE. HALAS. FINITO. HUMDALLAH! As planned, Phil had a beer with the boys (his first in THREE months!) and I had a Coca-cola in honour of the "Coca-cola Route" we had just completed. We received our certificates for a successful summit and headed back to the Parkview Inn.





Back at the hotel, a shower was priority number one. Unfortunately, without soap and a hairbrush, there wasn't much that could be done with the bird's nest on my head. (I still can't believe that I forgot a hairbrush...it is an important tool in my daily routine). There were tats throughout and my fingers were simply unable to detangle the mess that was left in my blonde locks. "I can't stand looking at you do that," Phil exclaimed. And so, my very own superhero marched into Moshi Town in search of a brush and shampoo. Better yet, he returned to the hotel with a comb in my favourite colour (green!), a shampoo for "oily hair" (haha!), and a Snickers bar! We spent the next two hours holding hair pieces and brushing out knots. We really were a team....from climbing mountains to haircare. I AM SO LUCKY!

For the remainder of the evening, we did our best to ignore our body rashes, chapped lips and sunburnt faces. Phil enjoyed watching sports highlights (even though they weren't "highlights" to him) and I enjoyed planning our intimate wedding-for-two. After our final dinner in Tanzania, we laid down for a restless, horrible, "my legs won't stop aching" sleep.