 Hi everybody! Welcome or welcome back to the channel! I'm very excited today because I have a guest, Laura! Laura, do you want to introduce yourself? Absolutely! Hello everyone! I also have a hiking channel. I have an Instagram adventures after U75 and my hiking channel is LauraLyanne and there it is! Laura creates a lot of content about hiking and adventure traveling here in the U.S. and beyond. She's gone on so many wonderful hikes really all around the world and the reason we are here today is to talk and share our experience climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. So as you guys know I climbed Kilimanjaro last year 2021 in August via the Machame route and then Laura climbed the mountain via a different route. I did. I actually did it in late December sorry some of it December 31st so only a couple months after and I did the Murangu route. Today we want to kind of compare both of these routes the Murangu route and the Machame route and understand what the differences are what Laura's experience was like and then what my experience was. Before we get there I did share a lot of videos about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro via the Machame route including a documentary about the whole experience that you can check up here. I will also leave links to Laura's channel she has a lot of valuable information about climbing the mountain from the Murangu route. So for me Laura the Machame route we spent seven days on the mountain. How many days did you spend on the mountain from the Murangu route? Yeah so the total you would spend is five or six days for the Murangu route. I did it in five but you also can take kind of more of a just one day kind of quick hike to rest your body and that would be a sixth day. So really the main thing or the main difference between the Machame route and the Murangu route is the the land or the duration of time you're going to be spending on the mountain. The Machame route you will need more days on an average the Murangu route is shorter. Now I know when it comes to the distance the the Machame route we are covering about 36 miles and then the Murangu route is a little bit longer right? It's actually a little bit longer even though it's shorter days fewer days but fairly similar around 45 miles. The Machame route is known for being one of the routes with a high success rate and then I know that with the Murangu route you really have to be a competent hiker you have to be fit in order to to make it. Yeah absolutely since it's in fewer days and longer you definitely need to kind of make sure that you've done some training beforehand. With that said it still it still does have a very high success rate. All Kilimanjaro does have a very higher success rate but because you're kind of going in more altitude every single day altitude sickness might be more of a issue. That's a good point because at high altitude or at high elevation you want to give your body enough time to adjust to change in elevation and it feels as if with the Murangu route you don't have that much time so unless you have experienced hiking at elevation it will be a little bit more challenging. Exactly yes and like I do have experience with the elevation with that said since I was just you know only in Tanzania I wasn't coming from much of another mountain beforehand I was not acclimatized so I am used to those higher elevation hikes from previous hikes but at the same time I wasn't really ready so definitely that night before I was feeling it but when I was kind of looking around in different huts I know a lot of people were feeling it. Awesome so you mentioned huts and that's one of the major differences between both routes. On the Machame route we are sleeping in tents so there are campgrounds that are established throughout the mountain so every day we would go to a certain camp and then basically the porters will pitch your tent that's where you spend the night but I know that's different on the Murangu route so what does that look like? Yeah you actually are singing huts the entire time so they can be a little bit smaller so the very first night I believe there were only there were three little beds and it was like a bunk bed and then one just regular bed and then the other two nights it would be three different bunk beds so six beds so every single place that you stayed you definitely were in more of a bunker feel to it and then you're sharing it with a bunch of other climbers of course. You were if you definitely had people in your group you'd be sharing it with them I actually was by myself with guides the guides were not in my group but I would share them with different hikers. So we also had different circumstances of when we climbed the mountain because it was right during the pandemic and I think the time we climbed that's when a lot of companies started taking people on the mountain so on the Machame route it's usually known for being a very busy route so you will come across a lot of people but when we climbed the mountain it wasn't the case because you know people were a little bit hesitant about you know climbing during the pandemic. Yes exactly that was the same for me and I think normally more people would be in huts than when I was actually there I think the average would be most the huts would be filled up I also was there in December I think you've probably got better weather than I did every day at like 11 a.m. it was just pouring so I don't think that's super common but yeah I think it is a lot more common to see a lot more people on the mountain. I was gonna ask with the huts did you feel like you had good comfortable nights of sleep they were warm enough? Yes I brought my own sleeping bag and I do have like a high up elevation good sleeping bag that you know cost me a pretty penny so I definitely brought that but also like they were they were mattresses there for you so that's kind of what made it a little bit cheaper and less weight for the porters to be carrying because you didn't need those sleeping bag or sorry you didn't need the mattresses and you also didn't need an actual tent. I'm curious about the number of porters because for our group for example on the Machame routes because they still have to carry tents bedrolls and sleeping bags we probably had more porters. Did you have a small amount of porters for your team? Yeah so it honestly it still was it was a cook it was your guide there actually was like another guide and he was learning how to be a guide so I didn't really talk too much honestly but he just kind of like followed us around and then there was like a driver I think he like came up to camp one with us or something like that but that was that oh sorry and then porters sorry and that would that would be it though so like I'm saying I think if you're doing any of the other routes you need more porters especially if you had more people. And I think with more porters that mean probably more money to pay for the climb so with the company that I climbed the mountain with it was a little bit pricey now when it comes to all of these tour operators there are some that are local to Tanzania there are some western companies usually they have their admin teams in the US UK so it's usually a little bit more expensive but you agree that the price is probably more approachable and affordable on the Merangu routes? Yes I believe it's the it's the cheapest option and of course the shortest I paid I believe those 1200 dollars and then that doesn't include like tipping reporters and everyone but for the most part the longer you're up there the more you know fees for Kilimanjaro sleeping up there and every all the porters all the cooks they also have to be paying those fees as well so the longer you're up there the more fees they're having to pay so the more you're probably you're you're just gonna be. Yeah that's 100% true more days on the mountain more money to pay. I wanted to ask you about the situation with the toilets. Obviously. What does that look like? So for that route I believe every every day there was some sort of either long drop or some sort of like porta potty situation um I was trying to think I believe and then like a lot of times halfway through a hike in the day if you're on the mountain for like six or seven hours hiking that day there's gonna be some sort of nice little rest area and there'll actually be some sort of long drop there as well um there was never one like in your little bunker but it would be fairly close by and then the actual summit day there definitely was not one which was fine but like unfortunate like you saw a lot of toilet paper and stuff on the trail which broke my heart but wow. For the Machame route I saw some restrooms on the way as we're hiking throughout the day but I think the deal with the company we climb with is that when we get to camp they would pitch a tent and then it's literally a whole toilet right there that you can use. I've never actually even experienced that I'd love to like see one. It's crazy I put a video out there on my channel just to show the whole thing but it's really impressive I didn't even expect it you literally go in the tent and then you know take the seat up you go about doing your business and then you just flush as if it's a full on toilet. Do you like still bring your own toilet paper in? So you I brought my own toilet paper but I think I think they provide it as toilet paper as well so you don't really have to pack yours. Right interesting that was those pretty impressive like wow this is this is luxury camping. Clamping at the finest. So on the Machame route it's known for being one of the most scenic routes it's really beautiful because you are hiking through different climate zones. Yeah. I liked when we got to see the Cinesio Kilimanjaro the trees that are unique to Mount Kilimanjaro that was pretty and then I remember early on when we were hiking through the rainforest we were able to see some monkeys and some unique birds. Were there any special wildlife encounters on the morango route? So no special encounters. I honestly I did safari right after so I had like just such a wonderful time but I would have loved to see like a giraffe as I was hiking um but every day was totally different than uh then the day before I guess kind of thing but at the same time since you're going to the summit coming right down guess what I've seen these trees before and I'm ready to go have a shower so that would be like a huge not a huge negative but definitely one of the negatives of it is your whole way down you've seen that before you're ready to be off the mountain tired where's a lot of routes you know you're going just from A to B or like a circle around it those kind of things so on the morango out you go up and down the same exactly so you would have come down the route that I went up as well um so you're actually seeing a ton of people on your way down that are like like you'll be like two days out from a summit and someone will look like sunburnt and terrible and you're like you must have just summoned and you're on your way down that was very common to see and you looked better earlier awesome guys thank you so much for watching if you have any other questions about climbing Kilimanjaro in general about the morango route or the machame routes please leave them in the comments and be sure to check Laura's youtube channel it's really fun she always have great tips about hiking and then her instagram I'm gonna leave it down below and if you're not subscribed to my channel be sure to subscribe this is Habiba from the trek in pals Laura was a wonderful guest in this episode today I will see you soon on a new adventure bye