So it has been decided that in two years a few of us will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Yes, you heard me correctly, we will be climbing Africa’s tallest mountain (which in actual fact is a dormant volcano).
Now I’ve never really wanted to climb mountains and all, and it was never on my bucket list, but my sister is determined to do it, and to be honest, after doing a bungee jump nothing seems to be impossible anymore, well, most things at least.
I am going to make you my Bitch!
Am I scared? Hell yes. Long distance stuff has never really interested me before, hell you will never catch me doing a triathlon, marathon, or any other thon for that matter(well at least not yet) but Mount Kilimanjaro is described as a “Hike” so it can’t be that bad after all, can it?Well, you’d be surprised how very few of the websites advertise the con’s of such an expedition.
The highest up there in the con’s list is Altitude sickness. What sucks about this is that there really is no way of preparing, defending or knowing whether you will fall ill to it. It is a lucky draw at best, regardless of your health. The only sort of advantage one may have is being a smoker….yeah well I am sure as hell not starting smoking again.
Altitude sickness is caused by reduced air pressure and lack of oxygen and symptoms can be mild(headaches, insomnia and loss of appetite) or symptoms can be life threatening (chest tightness, confusion, coughing up blood, etc). In which case you will be taken down the mountain as soon as possible.
Then there are the othe con’s to hiking in general but to find them on the internet is like trying to find a needle in a haystack:
You may lose your toenails…gross…but due to friction apparently it’s a common side affect of long distance hiking and due to the fact that you are exposed to the elements and the wild, you could possibly lose an appendage(ie nose from frostbite) or get attacked by animals, fall and break a limb,suffer exhaustion….blah blah blah..believe it or not I just thumbsucked all of those as you can’t get this information on the internet(thanks a freaking load world wide web!)
But like I said before I jumped off the Orlando Towers Bridge:
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
The answer was that I could die…but you know what…that didn’t stop me, because after all…is dying that bad? We are all going to die someday and hell, if we were that afraid of dying we would all be in little padded rooms anyway. So my thoughts are go ahead and do it…if you live…it is the tale of a lifetime, and if you die, people will know that you at least tried or you went out in a memorable way(if not in a totally nuts way!).
Hell, I really can’t wait to tick this one off the Bucket List!
