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Machame route | History | Swahili | More facts | Links | |
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Tour operator The services of a tour operator are compulsory for entering Kilimanjaro National Park. We were very satisfied with Nature Discovery. Guides and porters were friendly and helpful. Nature Discovery provides very warm sleeping bags with fleece liners for rental. Food was surprisingly good and varied. (Post Script 2008: Luigi Meloncelli, our contact at Nature Discovery, has in the meanwhile opened his own company Auram Safaris.) We paid USD 1081 for the 7-day trip including fees, guides, porters, food, tents, etc. A substantial tip (more than 10%) is expected by guides and porters. Salary of porters is 6 dollars per day. Route and Dates Machame Route, 7 days and 6 nights 30 July to 5 August 2004 Perfect weather conditions: no rain, no wind, moonlight for final ascent Participants Hanspeter Stucki, Stephan Husy, Roland Salvisberg, Renzo Hättenschwiler Wilfred Moshi, Guide - high sense of responsability, very good communication skills and a lot of good humour Godlove, Assistant Guide 18 porters Pharmaceutical help On recommendation of our guide we all took 250mg Diamox before summit ascent. We didn't have the impression that this had a decisive effect. Two of us took standardized Gingko, but didn't feel better or worse than those two who didn't. White peak on Kilimanjaro to disappear The beautiful ice fields on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa could completely melt away in the next 20 years if the Earth continues to warm at the rate many scientists now claim. The calculation comes from Professor Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, who has made an aerial survey of Kilimanjaro. He said comparisons with previous mapping showed 33% of Mt Kilimanjaro's ice had disappeared in the last two decades - 82% had gone since 1912. Studies on other tropical peaks had revealed a similar picture. He warned this melting could have serious repercussions for drinking water supply, crop irrigation, hydroelectric production and tourism. "Kilimanjaro is the number one foreign-currency earner for the Tanzanian Government. Twenty thousand tourists go there every year because one of the attractions is to see ice at three degrees south of the equator. But I think there is a real possibility that that ice will be gone by 2015." The name 'Kilimanjaro' There are various interpretations regarding the meaning of the name 'Kilimanjaro': 'White mountain';'The mountain that cannot be conquered' (Chagga); 'Shining Mountain'; 'Hill of Water' (Maasai); 'Mountain of Greatness'; 'Mountain of Caravans'. Climate zones A climb of Kilimanjaro will take you through an amazing variety of landscapes. Temperature falls 1° for every 200m increase in altitude. Rainfall decreases steadily with altitude, especially above 2800m.
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