A Bit of Honesty...

Hey, sorry for not blogging for a while, I'm in my final term of uni, and I've been quite busy recently, mostly with dissertation, but it's finally submitted!

My finally finished diss!

Alongside this, I've also struggled to find any inspiration to blog if I'm honest... So, this blog is about something I've kinda wanted to blog about for a while, but have been pretty scared to... So, about 5 months or so ago, after a few years of struggling, I finally sought help and got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I have since been treat with Mirtazapine and a course of CBT, but am currently awaiting an appointment with a psychiatrist.

It's a topic I struggle to talk about, I'm not particularly good with feelings (mine or others) -hence why it took me so long to get help, but I know it is something that needs to be talked about... I suppose the reason I think this is because, even though there is no one set 'reason' for being diagnosed with depression, I definitely think my arthritis is one of them.

I've struggled with arthritis for 8 years now, and through that, I have noticed that, naturally, when my pain is bad, my mood is also bad, and lately my pain has been particularly bad, therefore taking my mood with it. Arthritis also gives me a pretty bad outlook on life, I believe that I'll never get a job and that I'll end up living off a disability allowance, I believe that when (if) I have kids I won't be able to play or look after them like I should, I believe that everyone who sees me limping is judging me, and that no one believes that I genuinely have arthritis, and that I'm just an 'attention seeker'. 

On top of these beliefs of what people think of me, it doesn't particularly help that I've always struggled to make/maintain friendships, and I pretty much believe that no one likes me. Which is a pretty petty thing to think, especially at the age of 21, but it's something I've believed all the way through school, college and university.

I don't really know where I'm going with this blog, I suppose I have a lot of stuff that I've wanted to get off my chest for a while. Really, I'd just suggest if you feel down, it's okay to seek help. I wish I'd done it earlier, and I wish my rheumatolagists had maybe even asked me about it, because it's definitely something they should consider, in any kind of chronic illness, that the effect it has on your life, could potentially make you feel this way. 

Basically, it's okay to not be okay, and you should seek help or talk to family/friends if you feel this way. We're all too quick to dismiss our mental health and are often happy to put it at risk for the sake of getting an assignment done on time, or making sure your house is tidy (I don't know, just examples!)

Sorry for the unhappy blog, maybe I'll be a bit cheerier next time.

Until then,
TTFN, ta ta for now x

The Rest Of The Trip!! 28th August - 6th Sept

So, unfortunately for the rest of the trip I failed to keep my diary going... But, on the 28th August we started the day with the porters congratulating us on getting to the top, and singing a few songs for us - which was great! Then we carried on down the bottom of the mountain, Simon and I took quite a long time... But we got to see a few animals on the way down!

Chama-Chama-Chama-Chama-Chama-Chameleoonn

 The picture I took wasn't great, but we saw a very cute little chameleon crossing our path, which our guide gave a lift across the path to. We also saw loads more of the monkeys we'd seen on the first day (the ones that look like tree skunks). And last but not least we saw a baby blind mole rat which was scuttling around the path.

When we were nearing the end of our trek down the mountain, we got picked up by the mountain 'ambulance' (as it was getting quite late) which meant we got a fun, off-road drive down to the bottom of the mountain! When we got to the bottom, we had to sign out (so they knew we'd left the mountain) - which they'd kept open for specially for us! And then had some very delayed lunch of cold chicken and chips before getting a lift back to Mama Moshi's, where we were greeted with a cheer from the rest of the team. We were excited to finally get a hot shower... Until it turned out there'd been power cuts, so there was no hot water... Sad times... But we troopered on and had a celebratory meal and beer with the rest of the team before getting an early night ready to head on Safari the next day.

Elephants in camp!

On the 29th we headed to Tarangire National Park for our lunch and then an evening game drive. When we arrived we were amazed to see how close the animals were to our camp, there were so many elephants just walking around our camp! After being given our tents, we went on our evening game drive, where we saw loads of animals, but to name to most important - we saw elephants (obviously!), giraffes, zebra, ostriches, lions and a leopard. (So now, I'm going to show you a few of my best photos)

When we finished the game drive we came back to camp for a meal, and got ourselves to bed ready for another early morning, as we were doing a morning game drive the next day. 

Leopard just chilling in the tree

So, the next day we woke up bright and early for breakfast before our morning game drive. Today's game drive was incredibly successful, as we, very luckily, got to see some cheetahs! It was very exciting for everyone when our driver heard there were cheetahs around and we headed there!

Cheetahs underneath a tree

(Annoyingly I can't get all these pictures to go in the places I want them to.. grr..) Anyway, after that we headed back to Hostel Hoff (near Mama Moshi's) ready to travel to Zanzibar tomorrow!! 

We shared  a delicious meal, and played some card games (and petted the very sweet dogs that lived at the hostel) - they were genuinely very cute, one of them kept climbing into peoples laps so they would pet them :D 

I've decided I'll continue on a separate blog post, as this one's a lot longer than I thought it would be!! So I'll try post about our time in Zanzibar ASAP!! And then I can get back to blogging normal arthritis-y stuff! (blegh)!!

Hope you're enjoying reading about my time in Tanzania!!

TTFN,

Ta ta for now! :)

                                                       

Day 7 - DAY 5 OF THE CLIMB! SUMMIT NIGHT!!! - 27th August

Jambo!! Today I OFFICIALLY REACHED THE SUMMIT OF KILIMANJARO!!!! Along with everyone else in the team (28/28!) which is pretty epic!

We woke up at 1am and set off at 2am, so everyone was shattered to begin with. All you could see was head torches moving along the path for the first few hours, and then we got to see an incredible sunrise.

Just as the sun started to rise!

Seeing the sun rise was a brief bit of motivation to keep going, as before that it was just cold and dark... But, the motivation was short lived, as carrying on going upwards just became harder and harder. The path we were walking on was a scree path, so every step we took, it seemed like we slipped back another half a step, which was what made the day really hard.

The hardest bit was getting to Stella Point, as it was so steep, on scree path and we just had no energy left, as well as a lingering headache and generally not feeling great from the altitude. We got very close to Stella Point when Simon just seemed to shut down temporarily, I don't really know what happened to him, but he just seemed to stop, and he sat down and we were both scared he wouldn't make it to the peak.

After not long he was helped up to Stella Point, and we were greeted with fellow team mates, guides and a cold ginger tea. After a little rest, we all set off on an hour long walk to the summit - where we came across the rest of the group all on the way back and we all stopped and congratulated each other, which was nice.
The walk to the summit was a steady ascent, so it was nice compared to the walk to Stella Point. Except for the lack of oxygen we all had. But seeing all the glaciers was amazing, - and they'll probably only be around for another 20 years because of climate change, so we were pretty lucky to get to see them.

High above the clouds and a glimpse of the glaciers

I finally arrived at the summit, with Simon, Katie, Will, Ro, Dan, Emma, Gabbie and Josh (and a group of guides), and the views were beautiful!! We took lots of cheesy photos with the signs and most of us had a little cry - it was amazing we'd all got that far after a year of planning and preparing.

All of us at the Summit! (photo courtesy of Gabbie Majer)

We only spent around 15 minutes at the summit before we had to begin our descent. (You're not allowed to spend long there due to lack of oxygen). Initially, 2 guides kind of linked my arms and pulled me down, but then they decided it'd be easier to take turns piggy back'ing me down (as I can't walk downhill very well) to the camp we stayed at last, for some late lunch!

After that we carried on down further (walking and piggy back'ing) until we finally got to our camp for the night! Which I was pretty glad for, to say the least!

It's been an amazing (but pretty hard) day, and it still hasn't quite sunk in that I've climbed Kilimanjaro!!

Lala Salama! 

(P.S. I apologise that I took so long to blog this, I suddenly got quite busy and completely forgot!!! My bad!!!)

Day 6 - DAY 4 OF THE CLIMB!! - 26th August

Baranco Wall!

Jambo! Today has been a pretty rough day if I'm honest. Woke up feeling ill again and with very little appetite (to the extent that Simon forced me to eat some orange slices just so I'd gotten some sugar), but that all went away when we started walking. (Trekking up a beautiful mountain is a pretty valid distraction!)

Selfie at the top of Baranco
Wall!

We began the day with a climb up Baranco Wall (the one bit of the 'climb' that is actually climbing!) and it was great fun!! It was hard though as there was also hundreds of porters trying to get past us, so it kind of makes you feel a bit pressured to get a move on, and sometimes they took different routes, which was pretty scary to see... But I suppose they're used to it... Rather them than me! But nonetheless it was great fun, and really satisfying to complete!! And when we were at the top, we had sooooo many photos! And the girls all had a 'sports bra' photo, which I couldn't really participate in because my layers were a little tight... My bad!

After we had our little break at the top we continued on our walk to the next camp site, which is where we were going to have lunch at. That's when it got hard - we were high up and could see the camp, but little did we know it was going to take 2-3 hours to get there!! We had to walk down into the valley and then back up again - going down was so painful, it really got me down, when we got to the bottom, we had a break and I had a little cry as the frustration of my pain got to me and I started doubting whether I could really climb Kili. But Daudi advised me "stop crying, it'll give you a headache!" and I stopped anyway and then we cracked on, up the hill to camp for lunch!

Once we got up there I felt a little better, just by sitting down for lunch, and we even got a little cheer from the team when we arrived (as we were about half an hour behind everyone else).

Carrying on to camp!

Then we cracked on to camp, which was about another 4 hours away, and it was still rough, with ups and downs along the trek, along with a headache I had coming and going, which was delightful. But we finally got here after a painful slog and got some dinner and our briefing before heading to bed. So I'm currently sat in my sleeping bag, knowing that at 1am I'm going to be woken up, ready to set off up to Uhuru Peak at 2am. I am praying I wake up feeling good, as headache/sickness is last thing I need!

Dinner was great tonight, as even though we were all tired - we were all having a good laugh... Asin we'd laugh at something simple and then couldn't stop laughing until it hurt - probably from the lack of oxygen we have!! But it was fun nonetheless =)

I'm going to try sleep now. Biggest day of my life so far tomorrow, requires energy!!

La la salama!!

Day 5 - DAY 3 OF THE CLIMB!!! - 25th August

Jambo! Today we've done around 10 hours of trekking!! Woke up this morning not feeling too well and with very little appetite, so although breakfast was lovely, I just couldn't manage to eat much. So, therefore I got hungry real quick when we started walking, just to get to lunch 6 hours later, and lose my appetite again!!! (annoying!)

Our photo with Lava Tower!
Photo credit to George Murphy

The first 6 hours of the walk was very steep uphill, and then the 4 hours after that was very steep downhill... We did this to try and acclimatise, so lots of us felt quite ill when we got to Lava Tower for our lunch, but were blessed to have lots of oxygen back in our lungs as we walked back downhill to our current camp - Baranco Camp.

At one point while we were walking we were having a conversation (well I was kind of listening in to Simon & Will having this conversation, kind of joining in :P) about what we couldn't live without doing... And it got me thinking - as I don't have a clue! I don't really have any hobbies that I'm so dedicated to that life would be hard if it was gone... Is that sad? I don't know, maybe I'll get one some day! (Or just discover what it has been all along...)

Pretty picture of the mountain! With the moon there
too (if you can see it!)

Another thing I thought about was how music is awesome! - It can literally connect anyone! Like, the porters and I speak completely different languages (well, most of them knew pretty good English) but anyway, when I played 'Happy' on my phone Daudi and I were both singing and dancing along - it was great fun!

One last thing that occurred to me today is pride. I am proud of myself for getting this far. We are now over half way through our time on the mountain and I'm still going very strong. I think I deserve to feel proud of myself after struggling for the last 7 years, and figuring I was never going to do anything great. Well I've decided that even if I can't conquer Kili - I've still done something great, because I've tried - which is more than can be said for a lot of people. And also, I know a lot of people doubt me (even if they wouldn't actually tell me that!), and also some people believe in me (which is awesome!) and it's both of those that are driving me up the mountain! I want to prove the doubters wrong and the believers right! So, it can be done!

Anyway, end of the deep soppy stuff, after dinner (of pumpkin soup, rice and chicken! -yum, again!) Ami chatted with a few of us about the history of Kilimanjaro, he told us things like how 'Kilimanjaro' translates to 'small mountain with snow' which is hilarious seeing as it's the biggest mountain in Africa! He also told us about the different routes and why the glaciers are named what they are. The best thing he told us about was how Kilimanjaro is 'female', which is why everyone becomes so nice and caring during the trek - because we take on her femininity - but also, if you disobey her main rule of 'pole pole' she will punish you with altitude sickness! Because Kilimanjaro, can be a bitch! (funny!) He also told us some of his own stories of the mountain, like about the time he ran half way up Kili in 2 hours, and also the time he climbed with a guy who was completing the 7 summits, and the guy underestimated Kili because he'd done Everest (silly!)

After that we left for bed and saw, possibly the most beautiful view ever! The summit of Kilimanjaro, lit my the moonlight and surrounded by so many stars! (I've never seen so many at once!) It was truly beautiful, but I couldn't get a picture unfortunately as my camera couldn't see anything except darkness, but it's a view I will never forget! 

Anyway, time for bed, another long day ahead tomorrow!!!

La la salama!! =)

Day 4 - DAY 2 OF THE CLIMB!!! - 24th August

Jambo!! Once again, a 6am wake up call today! (4am UK time!!) Greeted with a lovely hot ginger tea, which I didn't particularly like the taste of, but it was lovely, as it was FREEZING last night/this morning! Also because I didn't really get much sleep last night, probably because I've never properly camped before!

Our guides & porters!
Photo credit to Angela Carrabotta

Once we'd woken up and had a lovely breakfast of porridge (which is so good!), honey on toast, and egg, we had a talk from our head guide - Ami, who introduced us to the fellow 70+ guides and porters who were making our trek possible. It was so nice to hear what they all do and all of their names as they all really are amazing people! I couldn't ever even begin to imagine being able to do what they do!!

Beautiful morning views!

Then they all sang us their national anthem and also the anthem of the people of Tanzania - which they all looked so passionate about, it was touching to watch. Except it was a bit funny during their second song - as a couple people there did what we do as soon as we've passed the first verse of the National Anthem - kind of guess the words/ make noises that go to the tune so it sounds like you know the words - it's great to know it's not just us!

Once we finally set off, the sun had risen and it was getting a bit warmer, and the views were just beautiful!!! (Insight: I'm going to say this a lot!). 

Yeah, a little bit steep (but not that bad!)

Today was quite a steep day, we did a bit of scrambling up rocks and went through another change of terrain, although it's still kind of desert land kind of terrain, it's a lot different to our last camp - as that one was a bit more muddy and this one's a bit dry and dusty.

Had to have a picture with the amazing view!
Photo credit to Gabbie Majer

There was a point today where we'd all just finished walking up this really steep rock bit and we all just stopped to look back at where we've come from, and it was just amazing!! It felt amazing, looked amazing, and was insane to know how far we'd already come! (pictured below!)
One really funny bit of today was a point when Simon stopped to put some sun cream on, and the guides we were with found it really funny and we didn't really have a clue why, until they told us it was because of Simon's arm hair! We forgot that James had previously told us that out in Tanzania they don't grow arm hair, so they find it kind of funny to see! Which is great! and bizarre at the same time!

Couple photo in Shira Cave
Photo credit to George Murphy

After 6 hours of steep trekking we arrived at our new camp for the night and had some late lunch at 4pm - before chilling for an hour ready to do a little acclimatisation trek for about one hour and a half - on our way we saw Shira Cave and everyone took loads of photos in the mouth of it after Ami had told us about it and about how the porters used to camp in there, but they're not allowed to any more.

We then carried on up to Shira Peak, and when we got there the views were so beautiful, we could see Uhuru Peak in one direction and the rest of mountain immersed in clouds in the other direction and it helped a little with the headache and bad mood I'd gotten from the altitude. We hung out there for a little bit and took some more group photos (naturally) before trekking back down to camp! (Which, absurdly Simon & I led...)

When we got back to camp we had 'washy washy' and then our dinner - the food up here really is great! MORE amazing soup before pasta with beef sauce. Yum! 

Now we've just packed ready for tomorrow - expecting to be getting a bit chillier as we go further up - we're doing 6km up and then 4km down tomorrow - so it'll be another long day again! (obviously!)

So it's time to try and get a good nights sleep!!

La la salama!!!

Day 3 - Day 1 OF THE CLIMB!! - 23rd August

The Kilimanjaro National Park sign!

Jambo! Today we began our ascent of Kilimanjaro!!! We arrived at Machame Gate and then checked in and waited a while, and then we got a lovely lunch of sandwiches, soup, chicken and muffins! It was funny because while we waited for our lunch we saw one of the cheeky monkeys steal 2 muffins from our table! Which we thought was cute but I imagine it was probably not too appreciated by the chef!

Us at the 'Starting Point' sign!!
(Photo courtesy of Rory Orrell)

We then had a long wait while the guides organised all the stuff they were carrying - so naturally we took a lot of pictures with the Kilimanjaro National Park sign, so people definitely knew we were here! After lots of pictures we finally set off at about 1.30pm (to then stop again, and take another picture with another sign!) - which was important though, it was the starting point, and everything starts somewhere so it's best to get a picture of it!

George, Paul (one of our guides!)
and Simon

It was such beautiful scenery setting off through the rainforest, we saw some black and white Colobus monkeys jumping through the trees, it was bizarre because they just looked like skunks jumping around - which is kind of crazy! All the trees and vines were amazing - I just had to keep reminding myself to LOOK UP!! I just kept staring at where I was putting my trekking poles - which was really annoying!

We were all excited to see the "toilets" along the route (a.k.a. a hole in the floor in a hut!) Just for some shelter to pee in! Slightly more luxurious than squatting behind a bush!

We walked very 'pole pole' (slowly, slowly) because of my rubbish joints, so had some time to talk to the guides - we met Dennis, Paul, Ronald and Nixon - who are all amazing people. They've climbed the mountain hundreds of times and it's just so interesting to talk to them!! The strength they must all have is insane!

I learnt how to say 'my name is Molly' - Nina Etwa Molly (probably not spelt like that, but kinda pronounced like that!) and also to say 'Boa' when someone says 'Mambo?' - it's kind of the colloquial way to say 'how are you?' and Boa is 'good'.

The views along the walk were so beautiful (which I know I've already said, but THEY WERE!) especially as we looked back at where we'd been, at all the trees and just how far we'd already come! As we approached camp, the scenery gradually changed to desert terrain/scrubland - And it was equally as beautiful and I look forward to seeing more tomorrow!

It was so exciting to finally see camp after about 5 hours trekking and to get our tents! (I get to share with Simon, yey!) Then we went for another delicious meal - the soup was SO GOOD!! And I even ate battered fish!!! (which is saying something, cause I don't like battered fish...)

Now we've settled down in our sleeping bags before another early start again tomorrow! So, La La Salama!!!!