In December, Harriet and I are going to attempt to climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in order to raise money for Seeing is Believing, a charity committed eliminating avoidable blindness and visual impairment in the developing world. In order to raise the most amount of money for an important cause, I am going to try to climb as much as possible blindfolded guided by Harriet and the excellent team from Adventure Alternative. Standard Chartered will match every penny, cent, dirham or shilling pledged (I am paying all my own costs so every penny raise will go to charity).

The Story of our Climb

Day 1 - The Emotional Rollercoaster

Day 2 - The Downpour

Day 3 - The Lava Summit

Day 4 - Rocks for Breakfast

Day 5 - Mourinho's Fall

Day 6 - Summit Night

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Day 1 - The Emotional Roller Coaster 

6 hours blindfolded
0 hours seeing
Start 1800 meters
Finish 2800 meters

After an hour drive from our hotel in Moshi through winding roads fringed by jacaranda and flame trees and small stalls selling Coca Cola, airtime and basic groceries we reached the Machame Gate surrounded by thick rainforest in golden sunshine. This was the official start of our 7 day hike on Mt Kilimanjaro; 5 days to (hopefully) reach the peak and 2 days down.

As we watched our guides, Lipman, Commander and Faustin, and the team from Adventure Alternative professionally pack up tents and food, the worry set in. Apart from 10 minutes in the car park of the hotel the day before, we hadn't practiced walking blindfolded. We were unprepared. Forget 5 days, would I be able to manage 5 minutes?

It was too late for doubt. Not sure what to expect, I put on my 'blindfold', the plastic opaque glasses from sightsavers that mimics blindness, gripped a walking pole in one hand and held on tight to Harriet's right hand with the other and we started up a gentle incline with the sounds of rustling trees, birds and animal noises around us.

Our chief guide, Lipman, set a strong pace and we found a rhythmic stride with Harriet guiding me with a left, right, long stride, short stride, and I briefly thought that this would be easy. I could feel the warmth of the sun and listening to Harriet describe our beautiful surroundings, we were covering ground quickly.

Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last long. Blindness is incredibly stressful. The concentration needed to keep balanced and moving forward over unknown and uneven ground is exhausting. It is hard to describe how disorientating and difficult it is to have no sense of place and to rely solely on someone else's commands and the feel of the ground under your feet.

The gentle upward track became steeper, and then steeper, and changed into a winding rocky path that was narrow and slippery as the trees cleared and the ground became exposed to the elements.

Within a couple of hours, I was mentally exhausted and we had to stop for a break. I was engulfed with concern that I wouldn't be able to get to camp at the end of the first day.

We started again and I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, taking each additional stride as a small victory. The only thing that kept me going was Harriet's patient instructions and encouragement, the warmth of her hand in mine and pride that I could not let everyone down who had sponsored me.

We pushed on. The steeper and more uneven the path, the harder it became to stay on my feet. I fell off the path completely once and walked into trees 6 times, counting each bump as a strange achievement to our obstinance in keeping going, but bar a few scratches we avoided injury.

Slowly, somewhat unsteadily, we kept hiking upwards, turning steps into meters, and eventually we heard the clatter of distant voices as we approached our first camp for and the night. Relief washed over us as I took off my blindfold and looked out at the sun setting on a beautiful view.

***

Low point: Feeling exhausted after only 3 hours in a five day hike
High point: Getting to camp and finishing the first day completely blindfolded

Swahili of the day: Twende! Let's go!

***

Day 2 - The Downpour
4 hours blindfolded
1 hour seeing
Start 2800m
Finish 3840m (last 100m ascent seeing)

We woke full of confidence and after a breakfast of porridge, fried egg and strong Tanzanian tea, we set off on our second day

As we climbed, warm rainforest quickly gave way to scrubland and a cold wind. Day 1's easy mud path became a mixture of mud and rocks and several stretches of scrambling over rock walls up and down. We took these slowly. I crawled on my bottom feeling the rocks with my hands and feet with Harriet, Lipman and Commander telling me where to move.

What might have taken a few seconds to overcome with vision took a long time without, particularly going downwards where my innate fear of heights did not combine well with ignorance of where the ground was.

Then the rain started. A few light drops of water turned into a heavy downpour. Rocks became slick with water and it became very difficult to find firm and stable ground to put my feet. I slipped and fell to the ground several times and began to worry about what would happen if I trapped one foot and slipped.

With my blindfold on, and nothing to distract me, thoughts of what would happen if I twisted or broke my leg half way up the mountain plagued my mind and with every step becoming more difficult, I wondered how did people who can't see avoid being paralyzed by such fear?

Perhaps sensing our nervousness, Commander took over guiding, holding my hand while Harriet gave instructions behind me; turn to 10 o'clock, 1 o'clock, big step up, small step down and so on.

This made it easier to continue but with the hard rain continuing, another concern began to creep over me. The cold. After the first day's sunshine, Harriet and I were wearing light clothes and shorts. But several hours of rain had left us drenched. The higher altitude was colder and each slip and fall was coating me further in cold mud. I was feeling pretty miserable. I couldn't see and I was shivering and it was getting harder to keep walking.

We stopped for a sandwich lunch around 1pm in some shallow caves. We were soaked. Our clothes were soaked. Our bags were soaked. Outside the cave the rain was hurtling to the ground and the steep rocks on the route ahead of us had water tumbling down them.

We took the decision it was too dangerous to continue blindfolded. With some relief, I took the blindfold off and we scrambled over the remaining rocks. Moving more quickly than we had done for the last two days we quickly covered the remaining ground to camp, mainly to keep warm. An hour later we reached camp and dived under shelter, our teeth chattering and bodies shivering.

Low point: Seeing Harriet's blue lips when we arrived at camp and realizing how unprepared we were for rain
High point: dry clothes and hot tea inside our tent

Swahili of the day: mambo vipi? How are you?

***

Day 3 - The Lava Summit

5 hours blindfolded
Start 3840m
Lava tower 4600m
Descended back to 3950m (1.5 hours seeing)

With great relief, we woke to a beautiful sunrise and clear skies. It was a sharp cold morning like a clear midwinter day in England. We could see Kilimanjaro's snow capped peaks behind us and the tumbling green hills to Moshi and Arusha below.

We started like the day before. Commander holding my hand and Harriet issuing instructions behind us. Our feet squelching in our sodden shoes, waterproofs in our day bags, we set off with a strong pace, Commander seemed in a hurry, at times almost lifting me off my feet as he pulled my up over rocks.

Mist descended reducing Harriet's visibility to a few meters and muffling the sounds around me. We hardly paused in our ascent. Our pace benefiting from the lessons learnt from the first two days.

Then I received a sharp reminder of the risks of hiking blindfolded. My walking pole became wedged between two rocks and snapped in two as I moved forward; exactly what I had feared would happen to my leg in the rain the day before.

We stopped for some quick DIY on the pole using some grass to hold it together and to load up on crystallised ginger and almonds to keep us going. At this height, the air was getting thinner and our breathing more laboured. We started upward again, maintaining a strong tempo.

After 5 hours of continuous hiking we reached Lava Tower. A 100m high jagged black monolith shooting upwards from a desolate false summit on Kilimanjaro 4600 meters above see level; formed from lava 150,000 years ago when Kili was still an active volcano.

We felt pretty pleased with ourselves. The rain the day before had dented our confidence but in 3 days, blindfolded, we had almost reached the same height as Mont Blanc (4800m), the highest mountain in Europe and 3.4 times the height of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain. This was also the same height as our last camp before the midnight hike to the highest point in the mountain, the Uruhu peak.

We stopped for lunch in the shadow of the lava towers. The landscape was enveloped in a grey mist. It was biting cold and the rain had started again, incessantly hammering on our clothes. The good news was that neither of us were suffering from altitude sickness, a positive sign for the summit attempt in a couple of days.

To help acclimatise our bodies to the high altitude, instead of continuing upwards to the summit, the plan was to descend 700m to our night time camp. The first section of our route down was through a rocky waterfall and with water tumbling through the rocks it would be impossible to do blindfolded. We rationalized our decision further, taking comfort that having already reached 4600m, the the rest of the day was not climbing towards our goal but heading the 'wrong way' only to acclimatise.

It took 1.5 hours to reach our camp through an undulating set of peaks and troughs that became more lush and verdant as the altitude reduced. The rain paused briefly for snow and then began again, accompanying us all the way to camp.

We reached camp in a mixed mood. The adrenalin of reaching lava towers blindfolded had faded in the face of a nagging concern that we had no dry shoes or clothes to protect us against the expected biting cold of the overnight summit ascent. Nonetheless, completing day 3 felt like a big achievement.

Low point: getting to camp with no dry clothes
High point: reaching lava towers blindfolded

Swahili of the day: Nguvu Kama Simba! Strong like a lion!

***

Day 4 - Rocks for Breakfast

0 hours blindfolded
3 hours seeing
Start 3950m
Finish 3980m

No rain! Instead, a white carpet of cloud in the valley below us and blue skies and the snow capped peak of Kilimanjaro ahead of us. Despite the cold, we scurried to get as many bags and clothes on surfaces to dry out in the sunshine, while enjoying the spectacular settings.

During our usual breakfast of porridge and fried egg, our guide Lipman delivered the bad news, while our hike that day would be short, it was too dangerous to do blindfolded, particularly given the recent heavy rain.

We would be climbing the Barranco Wall, a 250 meters high escarpment that requires steep scrambling on a narrow and ill defined path. It is nicknamed the 'breakfast wall' as its climbed straight after camp.

Given the risk involved in climbing Barranco Wall and that the day's climb wouldn't reach the height of lava tower, we took the decision that it would be a day off from being blindfolded and set off.

The wall took an hour an half to scramble up. Although, the terrain wasn't too difficult there were a couple of points when my fear of heights almost got the better of me, especially 'the kissing rock' where you have to precariously step with your cheek to the wall and not look down!

Breakfast climb completed, the path meandered downwards and then fell sharply into a valley with a small river before rising sharply again for a final ascent to Karanga Hut camp.

High point: waking up that night at 2am and seeing the Milky Way among the glistening frost coating the mountain side and tents (and getting to camp without getting rained on...)
Low point: the toilets at Karanga Hut camp

Swahili of the day: Sawa Sawa - all good

***

Day 5 - Mourinho's Fall

2 hours 50 minutes blindfolded
0 hours seeing
Start 3980m
Finish 4680m

We woke to crystal blue skies and the shrill cries of large curious white naped ravens heckling around our tent. The snow capped Uhuru peak loomed ahead of us and we could see the tumbling green hills of Moshi and Arusha below us.

Blindfold on, walking stick in my right hand, Harriet holding my left, we started hiking straight up the mountain from where our tent had been anchored for the night.

The morning was cold, the air thin and the path was open but rocky. It was a desolate high desert landscape, exposed to the weather and, as Harriet would recount to me later, peppered with intricate rock formations; hollowed out curved stone walls and boulders left adrift by ancient lava flows.

The way ahead was marked by hundreds of cairns, small pyramids of stones left in the memory of the unnamed.

Our Machame route had merged with two longer ones, Shira and Lemosho, and the path became busier with other climbing groups. Some stopped and politely probed what we were doing with a what seemed like a blind person on the mountain. Just before we reached next camp, one local tour guide, when he found out we were from London, gleefully blurted out unprompted that the Chelsea football manager, Mourinho, had been sacked.

Harriet and I had been without access to phone signal for five days, possibly our longest stint without a phone, email or news update since we were first given blackberries many years ago, but even half way up Africa's tallest peak, we couldn't escape the English Premiership.

David, the tour guide in question, had not missed a goal (or the daily news) thanks to the BBC World Service and a short wave radio. A nice reminder of the positive power of the BBC's global coverage and British sport.

After three brisk hours of hiking, stopping only for occasional chitchat, water and a jolt of ginger to keep us going, we reached Barafu camp, our last stop before the final ascent to the peak. Thanks to the practice of the days before, we had managed to keep pace blindfolded with the other fully sighted groups. Feeling cheerful so close to our goal. We prepared for our final climb.

Barafu camp, Swahili for ice, was to be our home for a few hours, a quick meal and nap, before we attempted the summit at midnight. The camp is a bleak cold flatish patch of land sitting on a narrow ridge between rock walls and below Kili's glaciers.

It was starkly beautiful but my thoughts were on what lay ahead and my head had started to hurt and the slope that we had pitched camp on left me feeling unbalanced. This might have been a consequence of five days of walking and 17 hours under a blindfold or the first warning signs of altitude sickness.

Altitude sickness is a condition that some people get from ascending quickly to altitudes above 2400 meters. The decrease in atmospheric pressure makes breathing difficult and the lack of oxygen can create symptoms like a hangover or flu. While innocuous sounding it can be painful and occasionally lead to high altitude pulmonary or cerebral edema, which is potentially fatal, and why so much time and effort is made to acclimatise climbers slowly.

Thankfully, Harriet and I had felt fine at the similar height of Lava Tower on Day 3, which was typically a sign that we had successfully acclimatised and would be OK for the last day.

Troubled thoughts put to the back our minds, we had an early dinner and attempted a few hours sleep in our tent before an 11pm wake up call to start the final climb to the summit, rucksacks filled with every spare dry layer of clothing and handfuls of ginger, almonds and as much water as we could carry.

Swahili of the day - Tangawizi.
Ginger.

***

Day 6 - Summit Night

Swahili of the night - Pole, pole! Slowly, slowly!

It was pitch black outside when we emerged from our tent; the night sky hidden behind a thick veil of mist. Despite our multiple layers, damp cold quickly seeped to our skins, the windchill felt several degrees below zero.

Lipman and Faustin welcomed us with warm smiles and an almost warm cup of tea (at this height water boils around 80 degrees C). Our third guide, Commander, who had been a great support to me blindfolded, had hurt his knees from the hike to Barafu and we would be leaving him and the rest of the Adventure Alternative team tucked up in their sleeping bags.

To reach Uhuru peak, we would need to climb a precarious scree slope for over a kilometre. It was the equivalent of starting at the top of Mont Blanc and then climbing Ben Nevis. It would take at least 7 hours of constant climbing.

Just before midnight, head torches on, the four of us set off. After a quick scramble over a slippery rock face, we put my blindfold on and started climbing, as our guides kept reminding us, slowly, slowly.

Hiking blindfolded at lower altitudes and in daylight had been tricky but it had not prepared us for the night climb. There was only space for single file on what path we could see leaving me gently holding on to the back of Harriet's rucksack for guidance with my feet helping me feel the ground below me. In the darkness, Harriet struggled to see enough to be able to accurately describe the way ahead and with each meter climbed it became harder to speak in detail as the atmosphere and cold tightened around our chests.

It was becoming unsafe to continue blindfolded even at our slow and steady snails pace. Then suddenly my headache from earlier in the day returned and I began to feel nauseous. Altitude sickness had struck. My feet felt leaden and each step forward became more and more tiring. My energy draining away, I took off the blindfold and focused everything on keeping moving.

In the space of a few moments, my strength and confidence had disappeared. I vomited. And then vomited again. We paused only briefly to let me catch my breath, and resumed our slow ascent.

Our guides tried to keep us positive but even without altitude sickness Harriet was finding it equally tough. There was nothing to distract us from how hard it felt. We had no sense of progress towards the peak to cheer us. We were enveloped in darkness, apart from a sickly yellow light from a faint moon and a snake of lights from other climbers above and below us. The mountain and climb seemed to go on forever.

Somehow we kept climbing and impossibly long minutes were eventually turned into hours. The sky started to lighten in anticipation of the dawn.

After one of our longest and darkest nights, we were welcomed to Stella Point (5765m), the second highest point on Kilimanjaro, by a spectacular sun rise, light shining off the surrounding glaciers of the peak and blue skies framing the beautiful vista of Tanzania and Kenya.

It was stunning but I felt too tired to join Harriet, Lipman and Faustin in celebrating. I was almost too tired to stand to a take a photo. But with some gentle encouragement and a few restorative bites of ginger and biscuits, we continued towards the Uhuru peak.

It took an hour on a gentle slop to reach the top and after the bleakness of the night, we welcomed the sunshine illuminating the glaciers on the top of the mountain and the beautiful view below of us.

After 6 days of hiking with over 17.5 hours blindfolded, we had climbed 60km, rising 4000 meters to a height of 5895m and reached the peak of the world's tallest free standing mountain, we had made it to the top of Kilimanjaro.

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