Black toes, the visitors that stayed six months

The following is the description of today from the tour company's info site:

"DAY 8 DESCENT - MWEKA CAMP TO MWEKA GATE TO MOSHI dec 14

Hiking Time: 4-5 hrs
Total Distance: 12km
Starting Altitude: 3100m
Final Altitude: 1980m
Habitat: Montane Rain Forest
At a much lower altitude than the last few mornings, today you will wake up full of oxygen and ready to descend the short hike to the Mweka Gate. Enjoy the forest on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and upon arrival at the Mweka gate, successful hikers will receive their summit certificates (gold for Uhuru Peale, Green for Stella point).
From the Mweka Gate you will continue down into the Mweka village for lunch, normally a muddy 1 hour hike. Upon arrival to Moshi in the afternoon, relax, or have that much-deserved shower and congratulatory beverage."

My toes are destroyed.

I borrow Andrew's nail clippers to give them a trim hoping that will be enough to stop the pain, but it isn’t. After breakfast, our crew gets together and Isa 1 makes a speech saying we are the best and all that bullshit he has to say. Then they sing us the Kili song to which we join. I don’t miss the oppurtinity of crying. It is an emotional moment. Then we hug each one of them saying thank you.

We set off for the final walk. I have too many layers on. My toes are hurting like crazy. I lag behind as usual, not only because of the pain but to watch the rainforest we are walking through. The youngsters don’t care much about trees and flowers. They just walk on chatting to each other. I enjoy some chatting for a while but get tired after a while. It’s me and Hussein once again. We talk about plants and flowers, stopping from time to time to admire them. Towards the end, I can not walk anymore because of pain. I ask Hussein if I can take my boots off and walk barefoot. He refuses with such determination that I can not fight it. "You are my responsibility. You can not die until we reach park's headquarters" Then I try walking backwards, but my team is already down the road and I don’t want them to wait for me. It gets warmer and more humid. I take my top layers off and tie them around my waist. I have about 4 layers around my waist now. Then I unzip the lower part of my trousers and let them hang down my ankles. I am left with woolen socks and thermal bottoms. Another fashion statement by Aylin Ayar!

We finally see some monkeys in the forest. Wildlife had been quite limited so far: some over-sized crows that hang around our campsites waiting to nibble on our left-overs and some rats whose caves we invade to have lunch in a sheltered position.

We arrive at the park gate! Finally it is over. I take my right boot off never to wear it again. I hate those stinky, filthy, wet, burnt boots. I take off the duct tape around the sides of my socks and put those pieces together under my right sock to make a “shoe”. I can’t get enough of fashion statements.

As we wait for our stuff to be put on top of the bus we watch around 50 half-naked Tanzanian men take half-showers around sinks. Air is full of testosterone. I sign myself off, writing my name, age, where we I am from, my occupation (retired), my passport number (I have to make that up because I don’t have my passport with me), and our guide’s name for one final time, I am officially through with it all.OH!

We get on the bus and go back to Springlands hotel. Life is at its usual pace back in civilization. There are people who have just come back from the mountain, looking dirty and tired but with an air of pride and there are those who have just arrived, people looking fresh, but a bit scared, people who do not know what to expect. They look into our eyes, a bit shy but full of questions. How difficult was it? Is there something you took with you that you did not need? What is the most important thing to take? (an umbrella!) did you make it to summit? All those questions we had echoing in our brains only a week ago.

It is time for shower, one of  the most memorable showers of my life. Feeling clean again, wearing clean clothes.. What a bliss. 
I have a few clean t-shirts in the bag that I left behind, but the rest, everything I took with me to Kili stinks. We all put everything out in the sun to dry. All those clothes, socks, underwear and boots that got wet and stayed wet for a whole week happily dry in the sun in a few hours. They still stink but at least they are dry. I put them all back into my “Kili bag” never to open it until I go back home.

We meet our crew for the certificate ceremony and a few beers. We exchange e-mail addresses and hugs. 
We're off to the beaches of Zanzibar, the whole team.

ANAYAYA and I