The Beginning

So there I was in the summer of 2010 having listlessly done all the usual holiday pursuits – the beach, the ice cream, the frustrating attempts to get a suntan (people need to put on sunglasses to avoid the glaring whiteness of my legs)  I thought to myself, let’s find a new challenge. This proved trickier than expected – all the usual options sprang to mind – bungee jumping, a marathon, jumping out of a plane – but none seemed appropriate. I don’t trust what is essentially a piece of elastic, collapse in a wheezing heap if I run ten yards to the bus and spend my time on aeroplanes praying for them not to fall out of the sky, jumping from one just seemed ridiculous.  Quite by chance I noticed a picture of an old work colleague on Facebook and remembered that she had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. A spark was ignited and so began an obsessive research process where I read everything Google had to offer and purchased two books in as many days.  Somehow whilst making careful observations about the importance of eating and the lack of toilets I skirted around the issue of altitude sickness (more on that later) and potential death. Kilimanjaro madness had caught my imagination and that was that - the decision was made and the planning began in earnest.