tanzania & rwanda: kilimanjaro and the gorillas

Hard in the way a week of long days is hard, rather than technical.

We call Kilimanjaro a high walk rather than a climb, and a few months of regular hill walking is the right preparation.

Height, not strength, decides the summit, and this route is built around that: you climb above Moir and sleep lower again, drop into the Barranco valley, then take a short day to Karanga before Barafu, six nights on the mountain before the dark start.

The UK travel health service calls under seven days a concern, and the research agrees. One study of a four or five day ascent found 61 per cent summited, another of a six-day ascent 88 per cent; separate studies on other routes, so a direction rather than a forecast.

We are travel planners, not medical professionals: ask your own doctor about altitude.

The recovery is longer than one night suggests.

You summit and drop to Mweka on day eight, walk off the mountain the next morning to the lakeside farmhouse on Meru's slopes, then have two unhurried nights in Kigali and a travelling day before the forest, so the legs get four or five days.

Climbing first is also the sensible order: summit night is the hardest thing on this trip and wants fresh legs, while a gorilla trek can be matched to how you feel that morning, since families are allocated at the briefing by fitness.

The one thing the trek asks for is a return to height: the gorillas live anywhere from about 2,500 metres up to 4,000, so at the top of that band you are back at Barranco's altitude. If you want more room, the simplest change is a second night at the farmhouse.

Different in every way except the altitude.

Kilimanjaro is a long graded walk on a made path; the Volcanoes trek is short, steep and wet, through bamboo and stinging nettles on ground that slides, and it takes anything from 30 minutes to four hours or more depending on where the family fed.

It is also far likelier to deliver what you came for. Rwanda publishes no success rate, but we put the figure at better than 95 per cent. Trackers are with each family from first light, and that is what the number rests on.

Everyone meets at the Kinigi headquarters at 7am and families are allocated by fitness, so anyone still stiff from the mountain should say so. You get one hour once the gorillas are reached, eight visitors to a family, and nobody under 15 may trek.

On one regional flight, and with a second visa.

Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda share a joint tourist visa and Tanzania is outside it, so you hold one for each country; the Foreign Office points British passport holders to the online Tanzanian e-visa ahead of travel, and a single entry can also be granted on arrival.

The flight is the only link between the two countries on this route. The Rwandan carrier serves both Kigali and Kilimanjaro, though parts of its published schedule connect through Dar es Salaam, so we pin the routing down for your dates rather than take a direct hop for granted.

Kigali to the volcanoes is a drive of two and a half to three hours, or roughly thirty minutes by helicopter, typically an Agusta, which is worth a thought with mountain legs.

June to September suits both halves, and it is the one long stretch that does.

Those months carry our recommended rating for Arusha, for the volcanoes and for Tanzania and Rwanda as a whole, and the Kilimanjaro dry stretch runs from late June to September, with cool nights and clear days. August is usually the busiest month on the mountain.

January and February are the honest second choice: they are dry as well, our gorilla pages rate them highly, and the slopes are quieter, although cloud and showers are likelier low down.

April and May are the months we would rule out, when the long rains soak the forest section and snow piles on the summit. November carries the short rains.

The wetter months do bring easier permits and quieter trails.

Two wardrobes, and the mountain one decides what the bag weighs.

Temperatures fall by roughly six degrees for every thousand metres climbed and the summit can reach minus twenty at night, so a properly rated sleeping bag and real layers matter more than anything else you carry. Park rules cap each porter at 25 kilograms including their own kit, which is why the main bag is kept light and soft-sided.

For the gorillas the problem is wet rather than cold, so we suggest:

• Solid walking shoes with gaiters
• Sturdy clothing against the stinging nettles
• Gardening or leather gloves
• A lightweight waterproof jacket

Our own Rwanda pages note that the volcanoes take rain in any month. In between, Kigali and the farmhouse need nothing but ordinary clothes. We send a full list when you book.