Kilimanjaro Day 6: The Cringiest Ceremony in Africa.
The final descent back down to Marangu Gate brings a triumphant end to the mountain journey, complete with breathtaking river water, stunning rainforest trails, and the famously awkward tip-giving ceremony. From breaking mountain hierarchies to discovering forgotten summit snacks and sinking into a much-needed hotel bath.
Kilimanjaro Day 6: Horombo Huts to Marangu Gate
Starting Altitude: 3,720m (Horombo Huts)
Ending Altitude: 1,870m (Marangu Gate)
The Final Stretch: A long, knee-shattering, celebratory hike back down to earth.
I woke up in a state of utter, groggy confusion, staring at the wooden ceiling of our cabin and trying to piece together where on earth I was. I rolled my head over and saw Ben snoozing peacefully on the other side of the room.
"What’s the time?" I croaked. He checked his watch.
"4:00 AM," he mumbled. Even his voice sounded a million times better, he sounded completely normal, almost like he hadn't nearly passed out at 5800m a few hours before.
As my brain slowly came around to reality, I noticed I felt completely rejuvenated, like a whole new person. The dizziness, the crushing exhaustion, the heavy sickness from the day before had all completely vanished. I was bursting with energy. My stomach was still a biohazard zone, and my behind was unpredictable as best, but everything else felt amazing.
“We have done it,” I thought with a wave of relief. It’s all plain sailing from here!
We lay in our little bunks for a couple of hours, reliving the summit day to each other as it felt like a fever dream now. Eventually, Martin knocked on the door and walked into our chaotic hut. The room looked like a bomb had hit it, everything we owned from the gruelling days before was strewn across the floor in a massive, messy pile. Martin, ever the absolute professional, politely navigated the debris, trying to lay out our morning tea on the floor over our mess, determined to have his spread laid out perfectly as he always did.
“Water for wash” he smiled pointing to the bowls of water outside the hut.
We thanked him and I suddenly felt sad that this was our last water for wash and reality hit me that this was our last day on the stunning Kilimanjaro. We laid for a bit longer chatting, avoiding anything liquid based and spending every single waking minute lapping up this incredible feeling of no longer being walking corpses.
The Water Epiphany & The Drama Update
At 7:00 AM, it was time for breakfast. We wandered over to the canteen hut, via the toilets, of course.
We ran into Hannah in the canteen, and she immediately provided us with an update on Corey’s mountain drama. Apparently, he had struggled massively on the way to the top. His guide had tried to turn him around and take him back down without summiting, but Corey blackmailed the guide into making sure he reached the peak, using his tip money as leverage. He somehow made it to the top got back down to Horombo Huts yesterday, and immediately caught the emergency vehicle straight down to the entrance gate. That is certainly one way to hike Kilimanjaro in three days, just have a car drive you up and down most of it!
We sat down and munched on some breakfast. We were incredibly grateful to have our appetites returning, but after just a few mouthfuls, we had to slow down. The reality of the ongoing diarrhoea and the danger of overeating was still an issue.
"How are you feeling?" I asked Ben, eyeing his plate. "How's the tummy?"
"Not great still," he admitted, "but at least we have our appetites back and have slept. And there's fresh river water flowing down to the bottom now. I guess we don't need to drink the container water anymore?"
I nodded aggressively in agreement. I remembered there were a few pristine, flowing rivers on the trail back down, not many, but a couple of keep us ticking over.
We had completely boycotted our hydration bladders at this stage. We had opened them up and the smell was utterly rotten, stagnant, foul water that had been sitting in the heat over the previous days. No amount of chlorine or iodine tablets could ever mask that vile stench. We were now certain it was the camp water supply higher up causing our violent illness. Our water bladders were strictly relegated to emergency backup water to prevent dehydration to try and settle our stomachs, or at least stop making them worse!
Walking or It Doesn't Count
As we nibbled on our toast at the breakfast canteen, Fred and Juma strolled in to greet us.
"Okay, so we have a car to take you down today," Fred announced casually.
"What? Why?!" I protested immediately. "I am completely fine now. I just needed sleep. We are walking down, or it does not count!"
I wasn't about to cheat the final miles after surviving the worst of it. After a bit of back and forth, Fred smiled and relented, agreeing that we could walk the full distance. We agreed to meet outside in a few minutes to set off.
"They were really worried about you yesterday afternoon, Em," Ben mentioned quietly. "They were seriously talking about calling the evacuation vehicle yesterday to carry you down."
"Well, I am incredibly glad they didn't," I laughed, "otherwise we would have had to come back and do this entire thing all over again!"
I made one final trip to the camp toilets, pooed out the handful of popcorn I had just eaten, and we went to meet Juma and Fred for our final day on the trail. Spirits were high, we felt fantastic, and the promise of a soft mattress and a massive burger at the hotel was within reach.
"Friends, we have eight hours today to the finish," Juma announced as we adjusted our daypacks. "Then we have the finish ceremony and the tip presentation."
"We need your list," Fred added.
Fred had given Ben a typed list of every single porter, chef, and assistant in our crew, and we were expected to write next to each name exactly how much money they would receive. Now, everything we had read online prior to the trip explained that you simply give a lump sum to the head guide, and they split it out fairly among the crew. We were a bit shocked to find out we had to personally pick our favourites like it was a 2000s Facebook Friends Challenge.
Ben and I had spoken about the tips earlier that morning. After witnessing the sheer, superhuman work the porters did every day, and getting to know the crew personally, we had agreed that we wanted to give a bit more to the porters in particular. There were also people we really liked who had really gone above and beyond, and we wanted to reward them properly, especially Martin. However, we did not want to tip the chef as much as the others as we had been so sick and no other hikers had been. We were going to end up mixing the hierarchy up and that would likely not go down well.
"It's okay, we have sorted it all out and we have the cash," Ben told Fred confidently. "We will give it to you at the bottom." Fred smiled, waved his arm, and off we went.
The Heaven of Real Water
The hike down was pure bliss. We walked along the rocky paths beneath a brilliant sky, looking down at the endless sea of white clouds below us. We chatted, we laughed, we took emergency pit stops in the bushes, and we had a lovely time admiring the vast African landscape laid out in front of us.
When we arrived at the first rushing mountain river, Ben and I unscrewed our bottles to refill them, our water bladders were a lost cause with opening them making us feel sick from the smell, so we stuck to our bottles to get us down to the finish gate.
"The bladders can be a future us problem at the hotel" I mused.
Fred and Juma watched us for a second, exchanged a look, and then unscrewed their own bottles to follow suit, pouring out the water they already had out and refilling from the stream.
"The camp water must be seriously bad if even the guides have decided to empty their bottles and fill up at the river," Ben muttered to me.
"Fred did mention he had massive tummy issues the other night," I recalled. "So maybe it really is just the water, and our British stomachs just couldn't cope as well as theirs."
"Still, it says a lot when the local guides are boycotting the camp water," Ben noted.
When we poured out the remaining camp water from our bottles, the smell that drifted out was genuinely vile, like rotting eggs and rotting steak. We rinsed them out thoroughly with the icy river water and filled them to the brim with the cool, fresh, crystalline mountain water straight from the glaciers. No treatment needed. It was the absolute best thing I had tasted in days.
"This is like heaven," I gasped, glugging the entire bottle down in one go. "It actually tastes like water and not sewage!"
Drama in the Rainforest
Once everyone was fully stocked up, we carried on our journey through the beautiful moorlands, spotting more chameleons hiding in the branches. We also learned about the native medicinal herbs from the guides, and eventually ran into the two girls from the drama crew. They immediately confirmed Hannah's morning gossip.
"He got to the bottom of the hike this morning and didn't leave a single cent of tip money," one of the girls told us, rolling her eyes. "So now us two have to pay the tips for the entire crew. And the guide didn't even get his blackmail money for splitting the group up and carrying that man to the summit."
Let’s just say bad people really do ruin it for everyone.
"I am so glad I wasn't in that group," Ben chuckled as the girls wandered off down the trail ahead of us. "So much drama."
“It is the man causing the drama, that is all I am saying” I replied
We eventually crossed the tree line into the dense rainforest, holding a mini-celebration as we descended beneath the thick canopy of clouds. The air was rich, thick, and easy to breathe now and we felt absolutely fantastic, bar the minor detail of needing to sprint into the jungle every twenty minutes for a toilet break, but at least we could laugh about it now without all the other issues running in parallel.
We wandered down the muddy rainforest paths, stopping to watch wild monkeys swinging through the trees, and fist bumping and thanking the porters as they passed us. It was a thoroughly lovely afternoon and one I will remember all my life.
"How are the legs?" I asked Ben as the path levelled out.
"Surprisingly okay!" he said. "Knees are a bit sore, but we've been walking downhill for a long time, so that's to be expected."
I was so incredibly happy that our physical training back home had worked absolute wonders, we were definitely fit enough to conquer this mountain. The near death lack of sleep and the water poisoning had caught us off guard, but physically, we had passed the test.
Eventually, we emerged into the clearing of the first night’s camp. It felt like ten years had passed since we were last here, so much had happened in such a short space of time. While the other hiking groups stopped to sit down and eat snacks, Ben and I ploughed right on through. We were way too excited to reach the gate and finally relax in our hotel.
"I cannot wait for a hot bath on that balcony," I squeaked happily.
"I am most excited for a massive burger," Ben replied.
We spent the next hour locked in an enthusiastic conversation about all the things we could not wait to do and eat. It reiterated how incredibly lucky we were, and how amazing our crew had been for getting us through the past few days.
"Fred, Juma," Ben called out to the guides. "Can we please make a detour to an ATM in town on the way back to the hotel?”
They nodded.
“If we give all the cash we have on us right now to the porters, the chef, and Martin, we can draw out some extra money to give to the Fred and Juma, that way everyone gets a little bit more?” Ben suggested to me.
We were in agreement.
The Tip Crisis
After a few more hours of winding through the jungle paths, the trail finally widened into a wide track with the blood wagons lined up to the side ready to rescue any one who had issues. I looked up through the trees and spotted the wooden roofs of the park huts above us.
“We are so nearly there,” I thought, my heart racing with excitement.
"Friends!" Juma shouted from behind us, a massive smile on his face. "Welcome back!"
Sure enough, poking through the dense green foliage was the exact wooden archway we had walked through to start the trek a week ago, complete with a little sign reading “Well Done”. Ben had the biggest, most radiant grin on his face. We were done and he was safe, that was all that I cared about!
However, the most awkward part of the entire trip was still yet to come.
We officially signed out of the national park ledger so the government knew we hadn't perished on the volcano, ran to the gift shop to buy a cold Coke and a Fanta, and downed them at a rate of knots. We basked in the warm sunshine while the park rangers finalised our official summit certificates.
"That was tough! But gosh, what an experience," Ben announced, absorbing the full weight of what we had just accomplished. He looked exhausted but radiantly happy, and I felt an overwhelming wave of pride for him.
I opened my phone to check the front facing camera for a damage report. Sure enough, I looked completely wrecked too, pale, hollow eyed, chapped lips from gasping for air on summit day and wild haired.
"Friends!" Fred shouted across the lawn. "We now have the ceremony, and then lunch!"
We wandered over to the grassy area where we had eaten lunch on Day 1 before starting the trek. We sat down at a wooden table opposite Fred and Juma.
"Well done King and Queen of mountain, you have made it," Fred said formally. "And now we do the ceremony. I need your tip money and the list of names."
Ben smiled and handed Fred the envelope of cash. "Here you are, this is the total tip pot."
"No, no, friend," Fred shook his head, pushing the envelope back. "You need to divide it up with what you wish to give each person. I gave you the list."
Now, if there is one thing English people universally despise, it is confrontation and social awkwardness. This was already an incredibly uncomfortable situation, having to physically count out cash for people who were sitting directly in front of you. But to have to break it down per person based on who you liked? It felt awful.
Ben and I uncomfortably shuffled the dollar bills around on the table, writing down specific cash amounts next to names out of the tip pot we had allocated (which was 20% of the total trip value, as advised by the internet).
Fred leaned over, looked at our numbers, and instantly shook his head in dismay. "My friends, this is not enough."
"We did ask if we could stop at the ATM on the way back," Ben suggested gently, trying to smooth things over. "We can get extra cash out specifically for you two."
"No, my friends," Fred pressured, "this is not enough at all."
He then proceeded to lay out the strict, mandatory prices that each person was "supposed" to get per day, explaining that the mountain hierarchy meant you had to pay each person a fixed baseline based on their specific job role.
This put us in a tough spot. We had intentionally not tipped the chef very high because he had been responsible for our food and water all week, and we had spent the last six days literally pooing our guts out. Conversely, we had heavily tipped Martin, because we felt he was the absolute light of the crew, he went above and beyond every single day to look after us. Where we come from, a tip is meant to be a voluntary reward for excellent service, not a mandatory, obligatory extra corporate charge. We had accepted these people might not get paid very much and were happy to tip but being told it was not enough and that we had to tip people set amounts (by the people receiving it not the tour operator) left a bit of a sour taste.
"Okay, so how much total are we short by?" Ben asked, trying to keep the peace.
"250 dollars," Fred replied flatly.
I could see the shock flash across Ben's face. We had already allocated the upper end of what the people recommended online. After a bit of back and forth with Fred and Juma, we stood our ground on the breakdown: the chef would get the same baseline as the porters because we had been violently ill (usually he would be the heaviest tipped after the guides and above Martin). Martin was keeping his big bonus because we loved him, he greeted us with orange squash when we needed it on summit day and he had been a real welcome sight each morning and evening. We agreed we would draw out the extra money to cover the extra portions for Fred and Juma, bringing the final totals to where they "should" be according to their system.
Being told exactly how much tip money you are required to pay by the very people receiving the tips was a thoroughly bizarre, uncomfortable concept. It definitely put a bit of a sad, sour spin on the achievement, but we swallowed our pride and got on with it. After all, we couldn't have made it to the top without these men and what they do is amazing.
An Awkward Dance
With the numbers finalised and agreed, Fred took the cash and the list, ushering us to follow him over to the lawn.
The entire crew was gathered there, looking happy, relaxing in the sun, and packing up the gear. Juma marched over carrying two printed pieces of paper, and the official awards ceremony began. Also known as the most awkward ten minutes of our lives.
Fred dragged every single porter up from the grass and arranged us all into a large circle. He delivered a short, proud speech about our success over the last few days, and then the crew immediately burst into a loud, rhythmic rendition of the famous Jambo Bwana song that everyone sings to celebrate Kilimanjaro.
We were all clapping and singing along merrily. I was fully leaning into it, dancing along with the porters, while Ben did an incredibly awkward, stiff British shuffle beside me. The music was loud, the feelings were happy, and then Fred suddenly raised his hands to halt the singing.
Evertone stopped.
"Guides!" Fred yelled out at the top of his lungs. He then proceeded to loudly announce to the entire circle exactly how much cash we had tipped him and Juma. It was incredibly cringeworthy, but everyone clapped and cheered because we had paid them a decent amount.
The singing started right back up.
Clapping, clapping, I'm still dancing away, silently praying that what I suspected was about to happen wouldn't actually happen.
“Please don't let him announce individual amounts”, I thought.
"We tipped the chef a lot less than Martin," I whispered to Ben in a panic as we clapped. "This is going to be really awkward if everyone's individual price gets announced to the crowd."
But it was too late. We were knee deep in Jambo Bwana. The singing halted abruptly again.
"Waiter!!!" Fred shouted. He loudly announced Martin’s highly generous tip, which was more than a waiter would normally receive.
The circle erupted. Everyone cheered, laughed, and clapped merrily, obviously thinking that if the waiter's tip was that high, their own tips were about to be pretty big too.
Shit, shit, shit, I thought. I looked over at Ben. As the crew started singing and dancing again, Ben stopped shuffling. He had also clocked exactly what was going to happen.
"Chef!" Fred yelled, cutting the music. He read out the number.
Absolute, dead silence.
No clapping. No cheering. Just a heavy, freezing drop in atmosphere. Juma made a frantic, highly awkward attempt to instantly start the singing back up to cover the tension. Eventually, the singing restarted, but the atmosphere was thoroughly slaughtered. The chef was visibly fuming and scowling at us across the circle.
"Porters!" Fred finally announced. The polite clapping resumed, and the porters smiled, happy with their fair share.
The chef, however, did not smile. He stood there scowling daggers at us.
After that tense finale, we all awkwardly huddled together for a quick group selfie holding our official summit certificates, and within ten seconds, the entire crew vanished into thin air. Apart from our boy Martin who gave us a hug and then ushered us to follow him for lunch.
The Chef's Daggers
Martin, still glowing from his tip, walked us down the road to a nearby tourist restaurant for lunch. Ben and I huddled closely behind him, whispering furiously as we walked.
"The thing is, I wouldn't tip a chef at all if I got food and water poisoning from them anywhere else in the world," Ben Justified. "He still got a tip, and it wasn't a bad baseline number. We just liked Martin more because he was genuinely lovely, encouraging, and made sure we were okay every single day. The chef carried on giving us the same water based food and bad water even after we told them about our stomach problems and asked for solid food not water based. None of the other walkers got sick so it must have been our food and water as that’s the only difference. He also did not have to prepare 3 meals for us as we told them we were not hungry to try and avoid the stomach issues a few hours before”
"It's done now," I sighed, trying to let it go. "Let's just go have lunch. He still got a decent baseline tip, so let's not worry too much. I think the only real issue was that we broke the mountain hierarchy by tipping Martin so much more than the kitchen staff. But he thoroughly deserved it!"
"I agree," Ben smiled, his eyes crinkling from the sun exposure we had endured over the past few days.
We walked down the tarmac road into a small, touristy complex for lunch. As always on these trips, a massive local gift shop formed the backdrop of the restaurant. There was some beautiful local art on display, but we couldn't even relax to look at it, the chef was standing in the open kitchen, actively glaring daggers at us while he prepped the food. Martin was happily whistling, the porters were relaxed, but the chef kept muttering to them while cooking.
Eventually, lunch was served, hot, crispy fried chicken and a mountain of chips, washed down with ice-cold Coca-Cola. PERFECT! We sat and chatted happily with Fred and Juma, thoroughly debriefing from the madness of the week before. Before we knew it, we were saying our final goodbyes to the crew, and Fred was ushering us into the transport van to take us back to our hotel.
We made our planned detour into town to hit the ATM, drew out the extra tip money for Fred and Juma, and popped in to see the tour operator owner at his office. We thanked him profusely and told him how wonderful his team had been, and then, finally, we were dropped off at the hotel gates.
Pandora's Box and the Balcony View
The second we cleared the door of our hotel room, we immediately christened the flushing porcelain toilet in quick succession, running frantic relays back and forth.
"Will this ever actually stop?!" I laughed, half entertained and half terrified, clutching my stomach.
"Emmelia, it's genuinely not getting any better," Ben said with a worried expression. "It started getting slightly more solid earlier, but now it's gone completely back to pure liquid water again."
"Let's give it a few days before we panic," I suggested, though secretly I was a little concerned. I had absolutely no idea how many consecutive days a human could poo literal water before their organs failed and they needed a hospital. "Let's just keep eating solid food and drinking the leftover electrolytes. No medical drips needed just yet."
Ben started unpacking with emptying his water bladder.
“Em! Come and see this!” he shouted from the bathroom. I scurried in.
“Look at the colour of this!” He poured the contents of his water bladder out in the white sink and I nearly vomited. It smelt vile and it was a dark brown colour..
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, “we’ve been drinking that!”
“Right! No wonder we are sick!” he laughed “No amount of purification and treatment is going to clean that!”
We stood in awe of the brown liquid we had just witnessed slip down the white sink and shook our heads in disbelief.
We then unzipped our massive duffel bags to start unpacking, and the stench that exploded into the clean hotel room was pungent, to say the least. A beautiful concoction of body odour, dampness, sweaty feet and general 6 day old must.
"God, you really notice how bad that smell is the second you're back somewhere clean!" Ben laughed, gagging slightly. “Is this what I have smelt like?”
Our clothes were utterly rancid and we had to drag all of our gear out onto the room's balcony just to keep the indoor air breathable.
"Let's just lock all of those clothes into one single bag for the rest of the holiday," I suggested. "No one needs to open Pandora's Box again until we are safely back home in England!"
Then I felt something in the front of my day pack whilst unpacking, in a pocket I forgot existed. Maoam… lots and lots of them.
“Ben… guess what I have found?” I muttered under my breathe “The Maoam we were looking for on summit day for you to eat, whoops!”
“Emmelia Potts!” he laughed “I was nearly passing out and you told me you had left the sweets at the huts!”
After the disbelief that summit day could have been sponsored for longer by Maoam. Ben ran a massive hot shower and spent ages washing the mountain off his skin, emerging looking like a completely functional human being. While he got dressed, I ran a bath in the tub on our outdoor balcony.
I sank deep into the hot water, looking out across the landscape. There, towering over the plains in all her magnificent, snow-capped splendour, was the summit of Kilimanjaro. The clouds had parted perfectly, offering us a beautiful, clear view of the peaks as a parting gift.
"Wow... it's quite far really, isn't it?" Ben exclaimed, walking out onto the balcony staring up at the mountain. He looked clean, exhausted, and incredibly happy. "I honestly cannot believe we were standing up there just a day and a half ago."
I nodded in agreement.
“Emmelia?”
“Yes Ben?”
“I do not think I want to go to Nepal”
“That is okay, I am not sure I want to either” I smiled, flicking warm water over my tired legs.
The rest of our first evening back was spent trying to stuff room service burgers into our faces, completely overestimating our stomach capacity, and promptly sprinting back to the toilet in turn laughing at how ridiculous it all was.
Nothing says a romantic, unforgettable trip away like severe dysentery!
Top Tips;
If your insides have been thoroughly vaporized by the camp water supply over the last few days, boycott the kitchen flasks on the final stretch. Empty your bottles and fill them to the brim with the river water.
You will hear stories of hikers who blackmailed their guides with tip money, got carried to the top, and took an evacuation vehicle down just to brag. Do not be that person. Walking every single step up and every single step down is where the true achievement lies.
The guides might try to offer you a park vehicle rescue from Horombo Huts if you looked like death the afternoon before. If you slept well and feel rejuvenated, reject the car.
Tipping on Kilimanjaro is not an optional bonus for good service, it is a highly structured, rigid system that operates on a strict mountain hierarchy. Get your calculator out before you leave for the hike, do your math carefully, and prep your cash breakdown before you reach the gate to avoid total chaos later.
If you decide to heavily reward the lovely waiter (Martin) because he went above and beyond, while penalising the chef because water gave you dysentery, the ceremony will get incredibly tense. Stand your ground, reward excellent service, but be ready for the frosty atmosphere! Just make sure you do tip and ask your tour company how much is expected so you are not surprised.
The absolute moment you sign out of the national park register, sprint straight to the gate gift shop. Buy a cold can of Coke and a Fanta, that carbonated sugar rush after a week of mountain water is pure ecstasy.
The second you step into your clean hotel room and unzip your trekking duffels and pack them away until you get home to a washing machine.
Celebrate! You have just done a really cool thing!
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