Gladys Adventure & Safaris

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Trip Advisor Review

Trip Date: February 2024
Organization / Planning:
Tasneem organized and planned the entire trip for us. She was extremely easy to communicate with over email and sent us various itineraries with different levels of accommodations, safari routes, upgrades we could make to our climb, etc. Payment was also organized through her and was very easy to do, safe, and secure. Regarding our airport / hotel pickups and drop offs she was very accommodating to our last minute changes.

Venance: Safari Guide
Venance picked us up early for the safari and stopped to get us beer and wine for our day out. We had an amazing chicken curry lunch with fresh fruit on one of the days - other groups had boxed lunches. He was extremely knowledgeable of all of the animals and made sure to all be on the lookout for anything cool. We even got to see 2 black rhinos which was on our bucket list for this trip. Venance arranged with the hotel we were staying at for breakfast to be open and ready for us even though they technically didn’t open until later in the morning. He truly went out of his way to make this an unforgettable experience for us.

Baraka: Driver / Market Tour Guide
Baraka was always on time and waiting with a big smile and wave! He was also very accommodating to our last minute changes. He gave a great market tour showing us the local market where many people buy their food, clothing, etc. He also brought us to the local railway station and the sugar cane farm. On two occasions we wanted to try different restaurants in town and Baraka took the time out of his day to take us there and join us! He also helped organize a custom souvenir being made (banana leaf pot holders that were not for sale) / transported them to us.

Noelle: Coffee / Waterfall Tour
Noelle gave a very thorough history on the coffee in Tanzania and showed us how to make it the traditional way over a fire. This coffee was absolutely amazing! We had lunch in the village which was equally as amazing and full of fresh ingredients. We then did the beautiful waterfall hike to help with acclimatization for our hike up Kilimanjaro the next day.

Kilimanjaro Hike: 7 day Lemosho
The day before our hike - Baraka our assistant guide (different from Baraka the driver / market tour) came to our hotel room and inspected all of our equipment to determine if it was suitable / if we needed any additional equipment to rent from their store. Coming from Florida and never having hiked before we needed A LOT of equipment still. We were taken to the Gladys head office where we met our head guide, Diclan. He picked out all of our rental equipment. He took his time looking at all of the rental options and picked out what he thought was the best for us! Since we booked our climb through Gladys we got 20% off of our gear rentals from their store which was a bonus. Diclan and Baraka gave a very thorough briefing on what to expect over the course of our climb. We discussed every part of our route, where we would be camping, what to expect in the health checks, and all of the altitude sickness related symptoms.

Day one: before even starting the hike I had developed terrible allergies so after being picked up to start Diclan had us driven to a pharmacy where he got me allergy medication! We were then driven to the entrance where we had our first meal. It was a hot meal consisting of fruit, a mild curry, and rice. Other groups around us had boxed lunchs containing sandwiches.

I started to make note of what food we ate everyday to add to the review I knew I would write at the end but by the end of day 2 I came to realize that wouldn’t be possible as we had an INSANE amount of food with every meal! So just a quick note of some of the foods we had: we started every meal with a delicious soup (cucumber and leek soup were my favorites), fresh fruit, a fresh vegetable medley, meat (steak bites, roasted chicken, chicken curry, etc.), and a starch (noodles, rice, potatoes). Breakfast consisted of chipati (reminded me of a cross between a pancake and crepe), sausage, eggs, fruit, oatmeal, etc. The food was delicious so shoutout to Hassan the chef for always keeping us full! On longer hike days he would pack us a snack for the trail as well.

Anyways we had an easy forest hike and then we were welcomed to camp by the porters who had camp set up and were singing! All of the porters introduced themselves at this time.

I’ll speed through the rest of the days before summit as they all ran together. We ran into a few issues with being sick / our day packs being too heavy at some points. Diclan and Baraka from day 3 and on went out of their way to help me and carried the contents of my day pack in theirs so I only had to carry water. At one point my partner was really struggling with a steep part of the hike and Diclan carried his day pack completely and allowed him to go slow and make his own pace away from the group so that he was comfortable. They were both very encouraging and helped in anyway possible. We got to have each meal with either Baraka or Diclan which was a great time to really get to know them both.

The porters all put in an insane amount of work with the amount of weight that they carried, how they set up camp so efficiently, and how helpful they were to us. On the last 20-30 minutes of each hike the porters would walk down from camp and carry our day packs for us. Once getting to camp they would take our shoes off of us, clean them, and return them to our tent. They would refill our waters, bring water for us to wash our face / body, and help with any requests that we may have had.

Amosi was the waiter for our group of 4. He is the most amazing, nice, and genuine person ever. He woke us up every morning with coffee / tea in our tents, brought us the water to wash up every morning and evening, and served us all of our food. He was constantly serving us food to make sure we had enough energy for our hikes. We got to know Amosi and all about his family and just want to say we were blown away with what a great guy he is. He made all of our meals enjoyable!

On summit night we were woken up at 11 pm and had a light meal consisting of popcorn, crackers, cookies, and hot tea. We were each “assigned” a summit porter who would carry our daypack so we could just focus on ourselves / walking. We started our trek at midnight and the first 3 hours were relatively easy especially with the pace that was set by Diclan. We took very few breaks compared to other groups which was expected. We stopped for few breaks because we instead opted for a very very slow pace so we weren’t as exhausted. They wanted us to go slow and steady so we wouldn’t stop often and get cold. From 3 to 6 am was the worst as I was so tired. Diclan became concerned and checked to make sure I was okay and was not presenting any altitude related symptoms. After realizing I was just tired he gave me a pep talk saying that he was proud of me considering I had never hiked before and knew I could make it to the top. On our few breaks the summit porters (Baraka, Alfonce, Maliseri, and Jeremia) were helping us with ANYTHING - eating, drinking, changing jackets and gloves, etc. At one point they surprised us with a Coca Cola and candies so we could get a little bit of sugar in our system. At another break they had hot ginger tea ready for us which really helped us get to the top! They all helped pull us up during some tough sections of the hike and made sure we were okay non stop. They played music, sang, and danced which woke us right up. After getting to Uhuru Peak they all congratulated us with hugs and celebrated with us.

On our last night on the mountain after dinner we were surprised with a cake that the chef baked, a bottle of sparkling juice, bracelets made by them, and songs and dance to celebrate! Our group got together that night and wrote our tipping amount out on the paper they provided with each guide / porters name and role. The next morning we did the tipping ceremony where we stood in a circle dancing, singing, and saying our thanks to the crew. We were transported back to Gladys to collect our luggage, return our rentals, and actually give the money to the crew. Here we received the certificate of completion of our hike.

A huge thank you to everyone at Gladys Adventure and Safari who made sure we had a safe, enjoyable, and comfortable trip both up and down the mountain.