Meals and Medicine on Kilimanjaro


MEALS

We ate like kings for 3 meals a day.  Kumba and Mudi cooked some delicious meals. Adam was particularly excited when French fries were served for lunch at Lava Tower.  Below is a sampling of some of the different kinds of food we ate.

  • Soup (carrot, spinach, onion)
  • Garlic bread
  • French toast/ naan bread “exotic”
  • Pineapple jam
  • Ginger tea & hot cocoa
  • Mango/avocado salad
  • Papaya/passion fruit/mini bananas/apples
  • Yummy porridge for breakfast
  • Banana stew
  • Pasta/spaghetti with cheese
  • Chicken
  • French fries for lunch
  • Mango fruit juice boxes
  • Kit Kat bars
  • Hot water in Nalgene for tent/sleeping bag
  • Grilled cheese & tomato sandwich
  • Rice with meat and stew on top



DIAMOX, OUR TINGLY ALTITUDE MEDICINE

To treat altitude sickness, we were prescribed Diamox, which is meant to mitigate the effects of altitude sickness by helping to balance the amount of carbon dioxide in your blood (or something like that).  On the plane from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro, Adam’s feet started to tingle.  It was just like the feeling of waking up after sleeping on your hand for 5 hours.  It wasn’t intensely painful, but it didn’t feel good.  Initially, Adam thought he was having a stroke.  We later learned that tingles in your extremities are the most common side effect of Diamox.  We had these tingles all the way up and down Kilimanjaro.  Adam’s dosage prescribed by his doctor in NYC was much higher than anything Freddy or our guides had ever seen. So he got a new set of pills to use for the remainder of the climb.  We didn’t like Diamox and were relieved when we stopped taking it.