We were woken by a knock on our door at 5am.  Due to my tiredness I had not set out my mosquito net properly but had been lucky and had avoided being bitten.  I went for my shower first and covered all my sunburnt bits with Astral to stop the skin from peeling.  As I got dressed I could hear porters outside waiting patiently to carry our bags.

At 5:30 David and I went for breakfast.  A few others had already made it there and told me that there was no bacon available.  The waiter brought me seven pieces of toast but no butter.  Still, it tasted nice and the bread wasn’t stale like it had been on the mountain a few days earlier!  The coffee was nice too.

Just after 6am our bus arrived to take us to Kilimajaro International Airport.  I managed to fight off the porters but this time David was not so lucky.  We loaded our bags onto the bus, said our goodbyes to the hotel staff and left bound for the airport.

We were treated to a wonderful red sky as the sun rose and saw all the Masai boys moving their cattle along the roadside.  We arrived at the airport at about 7:15 and went through the rigmarole of checking in and getting to the departures lounge via immigration.  We still had two hours until our flight was due to leave and so we wandered around the duty free shops, updated our diaries and watched English football highlights that were on the big screen TV in the departures lounge.  The airport was very quiet and only six or seven flights go through there each day.  Birds even flew through the departures lounge. Eventually we were called to board our flight bound for Addis Ababa.  This flight would be our last chance to see Kili if the sky was clear enough.  I had my fingers crossed…

I did see Uhuru Peak again, which was just as spectacular as the first time I saw it.  Durning the flight I got talking to an American who sat beside me making his way to Addis Ababa from Zanzibar.  As we got talking I found out that he works for the WHO section of the UN, which is based in Geneva although he is stationed in Addis Ababa.  A long way from his native Colorado that’s for sure!  We swapped contact details so at least I have somewhere to stay if ever I’m in Addis Ababa again!

After we went our separate ways I went immediately to my next departures lounge.  Unlike the journey out to Kili the connection time was only 30 minutes. Before long I was sat on the plane praying that we didn’t land in Rome on the way home.  After all, we’d avoided Nairobi this time round.

We boarded our flight on time, which was a bonus.  The heat was beginning to take its toll and I just wanted to go to sleep, and my only clean clothes were now filthy too!  I gave El my window seat and sat next to a grumpy Italian man.

The flight seemed to last forever and although I had my Bill Bryson book, classic rock tunes on the radio and even watched the film iRobot, I couldn’t help feeling bored and restless.  I frequently went for walks up and down the aisle and ran back to my seat whenever I saw the food trays being dished out!  The in flight meals on Ethiopian Airlines were good, if a little unusual, and I was very impressed by their overall service.

Eventually, after a stop in Rome, where the grumpy man next to me got off, we landed in London at 8:30pm.  I was so tired!  What didn’t help was that our baggage carousel broke so we had to wait over an hour to get our bags.  Still, when they arrived we all said our goodbyes and went our separate ways (swapping email addresses first!).  I was staying at a hostel in Earl’s Court, and after another delay caused by an incident at Knightsbridge tube station, I made it into bed just after 11pm.  I was dead on my feet but I had done it!  I was asleep within seconds.

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