We hiked up the 8 days Lemosho Route, Peter Sangawe & Cyprian Aloyce was our guides and I highly recommend requesting for them on your hikes.

They are knowledgeable on every aspect of the hike - flora, fauna, altitude acclimatisation, history of the mountain, symptoms of altitude sickness etc. He is also very positive all the way through the hike - when you are up there feeling tired and fatigue, its encouraging to see some energy and positive vibe.

Prior to this, I always question how much training do I need. This post may perhaps assist. I trained very hard for this hike, at the time I ran trail marathon on a weekly basis, I completed a 75km ultra marathon 2 weeks prior to the trip. As a contrast, my wife didn't do a single day of training.

I requested to complete 2 summit attempts, the first was to challenge myself and the second with me and my wife. We both made it up, the difference is in the time and how good you feel. I felt pretty strong all the way up to 5500mAHD and struggled at the last section of the hike. I made it up in 7 hours skipping a camp (summiting from karanga camp). My wife summit in 14 hours from the base camp (Barafu camp). The bottom line is that it is possible to do the hike without any training as long as you have it in your head to summit (and with encouragement).

In all honesty, from the onset, I was not expecting my wife to summit given no training. What really impressed me was Peter & Cyprian's determination to get my wife up the summit. They kept encouraging her and the both of us ended up making it up to Stella point on the second day. This is perhaps the best experience both my wife and I had. I was extremely surprised that my wife who had not done a single day of training managed to hike up one of the world's seven summits challenge.

We also requested to have local cuisine, Peter was cautious about upsetting out digestive system during the hike and offered to allow us to try the food on the last day. When we finished the climb we had Ugali (Maize Flour Porrdige), Mbege (banana beer) and Banana Wine.

The climb was absolutely epic.

Recommend your own personal toilet, don't skimp on this.

Climbing Kilimanjaro is an incredible once in a lifetime experience that most people have written on their bucket list for years, therefore you want to make sure to set yourself up with the correct tour group to ensure you get the best experience. I can say without a shred of doubt that Monkey Adventures is the best option currently out there!

They are locally run and treat their employees with respect and integrity, have extensive knowledge of the mountain and its various routes, and my team seemed to enjoy every moment shared on the mountain - giving the tour a greater feeling of friends and adventure as you bond with those around you. Not to mention the price for the tour is ideal

I was one of those people that was actually convinced to climb Kili because of a friend, so I actually did not have any gear and had to rent most of it. I was skeptical about this at first, but monkey provided me with high-quality gear and I can guarantee you I was the warmest on summit night! There were nine of us on the tour and all of us summited thanks to the guides pace and knowladge

The food was impressive, I would have never imagined eating three-course meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for 7 nights. And I am not talking about canned food, it felt like you were in a restaurant at Moshi that's how fresh it felt!

Finally, the reason I actually took the time to write this review to begin with, they kept showing their support even after my tour was done and I had paid. I had accidentally left my boots at Lindrin Lodge (fantastic place to stay) and Kennedy (many thanks my man!) kindly shipped them all the way to the United States for me through DHL. After they supported me like that I knew I needed to write a review to give the kudos this company deserves.

If you have read this far into my review thanks, I don't really do many of these but these guys really did deserve it