Life is good!

As I write it’s the end of a great day! I was woken ten minutes before my alarm this morning by a phone call. Normally this is a bad thing. A very bad thing. In this case however it was a great thing – the call was from my co-climber Adam in Australia, telling me he had booked his flight to Kilimanjaro. So now we’re definitely going! He also needed some calming down, as he’s nervous as hell of a long haul flight to somewhere he’s never been before.
Groggy with sleep compared to his early evening/nervous energy, I coached him through exactly why a long haul flight was no big deal and globe hopping the most fun thing ever.
Getting out of bed was no problem after that – we were going to climb Kilimanjaro! Yeah!
On my walk into work I had an attack of nerves myself though – what if I couldn’t do it? What if I wasn’t able to climb the mountain? One quick conversation with Australia later all was ok – Adam’s going to make sure I make it up the mountain, and I’m going to make him fall in love with random travel. Sorted.com!
Arriving in work with a new sense of purpose, I decided at lunch time to sort out my visa and jabs. As far as I know you can get your visa at the airport in Tanzania, but it’s slightly cheaper and it involves no queues to do it by post now so post it is. Fingers crossed I haven’t forgotten a flight I’m due to take over the next fortnight or so. If I have I won’t be going; my passport is currently on its way to the Tanzania High Commission in London.
Jab-wise I’ve fished out my little yellow book that shows exactly what I’ve been vaccinated against in the past. My Kilimanjaro guide mentioned only a yellow fever vaccination – which I have – but I’m going to err on the side of caution I think and go with whatever the good people in the Tropical Medical Bureau tell me to when I go to see them in a couple of days.
I spent the last half hour in work looking at Kilimanjaro blogs. The old hips have been playing up and I haven’t done as much as I should to find an alternative path to fitness. I hate the gym, and when I made paltry attempts to join the trainer I spoke to recommended a hyper fitness course he’s doing outdoors instead. Which sounds nice, but I’ll believe it when it begins – it’s been in the planning stages for quite a while now it seems! I’m comforted by blogs though – yes, climbing Kilimanjaro is tough, but it seems I have as much chance as making it up as someone who has run a bunch of marathons. More chance actually, because super fit people tend to go faster than is recommended and wear themselves out. “Pole pole” (“Slow but steady”) is the phrase of choice on the mountain apparently, and I know already I can do that!
In fact, I’ve decided from now on to chill out, do what I can and stop worrying. And that goes for everything from fitness to fundraising. I’m going to do what I can, but make sure I continue to enjoy life all the while and not get wound up about preparations.
And so I ended the day off in as nice as way as I can think – a two hour walk on the beach in Dun Laoghaire culminating in 99s from Teddy’s. Life is good!