Planning for Tanzania

Andrew and I booked a trip to Tanzania! We’re going for the first two weeks of September to hike Mount Kilimanjaro and do a roving safari, which involves driving around every day to see the most animals possible and setting up camp at night. Seeing an elephant in the wild is one of my ultimate life goals, so fingers crossed.

As you probably know, the logistics of hiking a 20,000-foot mountain on another continent are a teensy bit complicated. It’s an eight-day trek and, like my Inca Trail experience in 2014, we’ll have porters who carry most of our stuff and set up camp for us (my first-world guilt will come back). Therefore, it’s not going to be a super-taxing endeavor for me (other than climbing 20,000 feet and not succumbing to altitude sickness), but there’s nevertheless a lot of planning involved. And we’ll be hiking in snow but safariing in equatorial heat, which means lots of clothes to pack (and buy).

If you’ve read other parts of this blog, you might remember when my hiking boot disintegrated on the Inca Trail and I received a hasty replacement pair. Well, I still haven’t bought new, good boots, so that’s at the top of my to-do list. But the company we booked the trek through (International Mountain Guides) sent Andrew and me a detailed list of gear to buy, and I need to buy more than just boots. Luckily I have a lot of stuff on the list, but I’m going to have to get at least the following:

• Padlocks for bags
• Trekking poles
• Sleeping pad
• Expedition-weight set of synthetic long john tops and bottoms
• Parka (A mid-weight down or synthetic insulated parka with a hood is what you are looking for.)
• Warm pants (Fleece is good, soft shell type pants are even better.)
• Shell Pants: Waterproof/breathable pants (full side zips are best and Gore-Tex is perfect).
• Heavy gloves or mittens: down or synthetic insulated for summit day
• Hiking boots
• Gaiters
• Naglene bottles (2)
• Chemical hand and toe warmers (6)

This is only the stuff I don’t own from the three-page list of gear. I’m concerned for the porters…

I had to get my doctor to sign a form saying I’m fit to hike the mountain (did that today!) and I need to visit a travel doctor to discuss vaccines and malaria pills (doing that Wednesday!). I know the trip isn’t until September, but I want to give myself excessive planning time. I’m maybe a little type A, I guess.