Climbing Kilimanjaro with Justin Caplan – Part 8

I’d like to thank Matthew Kirk for generously sharing his pictures and videos.

As each day progressed, the hiking reached new levels of difficulty.

We began to realize what we thought was going to be a large amount of “downtime” was actually recovery time so we could be ready for the next push.

Even with the massive amounts of preparation, many factors made us question if we were truly prepared “enough.”

Many challenging factors are at play:

• Exhaustion
• Changing temperatures
• Decreasing oxygen levels as you move further away from sea level 

The Swahili words “pole, pole” mean “slowly, slowly.” 

Our guides often reminded us of this mantra. If you tried to go too fast, you would double over and be out of breath very quickly.

In the hurry-up world that most of us live in, I appreciate the encouragement to slow down.

Sometimes when we allow ourselves to go at a slower pace, we realize that we may have been missing some beautiful things along the way.

Do you agree? Has something “forced” you to slow down, but you realized there were some unforeseen benefits when you did?

#AtlanticBayCares  #GivingBack #KilimanjaroSeries #PolePole