The stats:

• The grand finale! Final descent all the way to the gate. 19km down.

The midnight madness did not interrupt our sleep significantly; we were back asleep within minutes and woke ourselves up before Juma showed up with tea bottles of fresh cold water and hot bathing water. We even had high hopes for our breakfast this morning. Our appetite, while not perfect, was starting to appear.

Rested, hydrated and fed, we felt like two brand new people on a brand new day. Jason’s legs are feeling, well, better. Not great, not perfect, but…better. The sun is shining and this is our last day on the mountain. We are ready for the 19km of descent ahead of us. We have until 6:00pm, otherwise we have to pay for another day. That is $300 USD of incentive right there.

Our feet hit the trail at 6:15am. The sign says it should take us six hours to reach the bottom. I can tell you right now, if we make it in less than nine, I’ll be extremely impressed. It is 11km to the next camp, supposedly 3 hours away. C’mon legs, do your thing.

As we were walking away, I had to laugh at the irony of the situation; if we turned around, the Kili peak was in full view in all her glory. Now that our backs are turned, she decides to stop being shy. I had to keep turning around and taking pictures – she was so beautiful.

Jason’s legs held on for a good nine kilometres, but eventually, drugs couldn’t keep the pain and muscle fatigue at bay. We reached Mandara Camp at 11:30am. Jason is not going to be able to make it down the next 8km in less than 6 hours, plus he’ll be in pain the whole way down. Time to discuss our options.

It is for situations like this that having two guides is recommended. We were able to split up. I was still feeling great and I really wanted to have that sense of completion by finishing the whole hike under my own steam. Jason, on the other hand, completed his only goal by summitting. I was able to keep going with Ola while Jason and Charles called for some Jeep support.

What we didn’t fully realize was that Jason still had to descend for an hour or so to meet the Jeep at the pickup spot. Poor guy. That just added insult to injury. It was all okay again though once he was comfortably seated in the backseat of that Jeep and riding carefree down to the gate.

I was in my own happy place hiking through the rain forest on a beautiful hot and sunny day. It was invigorating. Ola and I were flying through the trail. I will confess that I am not a strong descender. I am not comfortable going down, I don’t like it and I don’t have any confidence in my ability to not trip, fall, slide, sprain an ankle or worse. Following Ola through this rocky and unpredictable terrain gave me skills I didn’t know existed. Rocky paths, muddy paths, slippery paths, you name it, I did it. We made it down that mountain in 2 hours and 45 minutes, 15 minutes faster than the posted time. Yay us!! To be fair, I was still slowing down Ola’s natural pace. I was flying, he was taking it easy. LOL.

Seeing the finish line was almost as emotional as seeing the peak. After 7 days of hiking and camping, two things we don’t do, we made it. Jason was waiting for us with a cold drink and our boxed lunch. Even though I was ravenous, eating took too much energy. Instead, I enjoyed the ice cold Coke and reveled in our achievement.

My hip flexors are screaming, my toes are on fire (pro tip: tape them up before starting your descent!!), Jason’s legs are barely working, my legs are shaky, we stink, and we’re filthy. Guess it is time to pile into a van with 4 other people to drive into Moshi. Ick. Can we at least keep the windows open?

Our first stop in Moshi is at the Monkey Adventures Office where we can give our official feedback and get our certificates of achievement. Gold for us because we made it all the way. Yes we did!! It is here that we had to say goodbye to Charles, Ola and Simon (our chef). There are hugs, there are smiles, there are tears. We will truly miss these people who have become like family to us over this week. If it wasn’t for them and the rest of our team, who knows what this adventure would have looked like?

As sad as we were to leave, we were very much looking forward to getting to our next stop. We had the foresight to book ourselves into a luxury hotel. We are going to have a bed. A shower. Electricity. Internet. Let’s go.

We checked in and then raced to the shower. Wow. Best. Shower. Ever. EVER. Clean and refreshed, it was time to conquer the social media part of our trip. We curled up in the super comfy bed with oodles of pillows and used as much wifi as we could before falling blissfully asleep. Civilization is king.