"Pole-pole… pole-pole!” It’s the first of thousands of times we will hear the Swahili word for “take it slowly”.
From the 11 o’clock start, Thomas Mella, our chief guide, called me Madala, “the Old One”, and some of the younger members of our group earned the title Kaka, which is not rude in Swahili, but means “Buddy”.
I soon get used to hearing the word “jambo” – it means “hello”, and for the porters it doubles as a warning to move off the path to let them through.
As I stride the forest path from Mount Kilimanjaro National Park’s Machame Gate, my right wrist flashes crimson ahead of me with every other step. My daughter Jean knitted me a bright woollen bracelet 30 years ago, when she was four. In that magic charm, I take her with me to the highest point in Africa. I am also taking in spirit my father, Harry. He died almost a year ago to the day, aged 99. He taught me a love of mountains and how to survive.
Our route takes us through lush rainforest. Towering yellowwoods, stems straight as billiard cues, reach heavenward and huge wild figs, their roots big enough to hide in, almost green out the sky. 
After two hours it’s raining, it’s cold, and the path is getting progressively steeper. I bless my gaiters, which are soon coated with black mud. They keep my socks pristine and my boots dry. 
We stop for a packed lunch: a samoosa, a boiled egg, a sandwich, a cupcake and a banana. The rain falls steadily. John Black, our leader and veteran of seven Kilimanjaro trips, assures us that this is not unusual in the rainforest.
By mid-afternoon, the forest starts to thin, giving way to heathlands – dominated by ericas the size of small trees. When we arrive at Machame Camp two hours later, scores of tents are already dotting the bushy slope.
As the sun sets, the temperature plunges.
After a quick wash – each camper is presented with a small bowl of hot water, morning and evening – and adding a few layers of fleece to keep warm, we meet in the mess tent.
We eat bananas, watermelon and sweet, buttery-textured sliced mangoes, followed by steaming leek soup, spaghetti, meaty Bolognese sauce, bread and jam or peanut butter, chased down with several cups of Milo, tea or coffee.
Thomas briefs us: “Sorry for the rain. It will clear tomorrow,” he says, “or tonight.”
Then John takes oxygen saturation and pulse tests of each of us in the group: I am one of two journalists joining a Cape Union Mart team-building expedition. There are 11 of us, eight men and three women. I realise I’m old enough to be father to every one.
John is relieved at my readings. “Most people take six months to plan for this trip. You had 36 hours. But every journalist I have taken to Kili has summited!”
Phew!

At dawn, steam rises from damp sleeping bags, jackets, socks and boots spread out to dry as the sun stabs through the clouds. There is chatter and an up-beat vibe. But John warns: pack for any weather. 
As we trek out and up the slope, straight towards the peak, clouds duvet down. The path winds up a rocky slope. Icy winds sweep up from the south. Kilimanjaro vanishes in cloud. Sleet pelts; tiny icy stones dance around us; then a light snow starts to sift.
Up and up the path leads. I’m on my own. My hands are freezing: I packed only my fleece gloves; the thick ones are in my kitbag.
An hour later, I see a fat man, staggering, swaddled in down jacket and trousers, with his own private guide. As I pass, his eyes roll backwards, not focused. He mutters “hi” in an American accent. I think: He’s blind!
 A little further, I’m relieved to catch up with Levert, the first of our group I have seen in an hour. Where are the others? The snow thickens, and now we can see only about 50m ahead.
Then I hear the deep voice of Thomas call from the snow on my left. “William! Come here!” from a dark smudge of mountain about 100 m away.
I follow the voice into an overhang, where we shelter. I wolf down my lunch of a hard-boiled egg, samoosa and cookie as the snow whitens the landscape in front of us.
Then a vast bowl opens up, carpeted with scree from glaciers of long ago. A towering, sheer-looking black krantz of lava forms the far side of the bowl.
“The Barranco Wall,” John says. “We climb that tomorrow. It’s not as hard as it looks.”
I hear my podiatrist Karin Brukner’s words: “Listen to that small, inner voice if it tells you to stop. Obey it.”
Again I hear that voice.
“Shut up,” I mutter. We are above 4 500 m; every step is an effort. A stop to tie my laces leaves me panting for five minutes. Wind chill causes the temperature to drop to -14°C. 
On the steep downhill to Barranco Camp (3 985 m), huge snowflakes drift down and swirl around us. It is beautiful.
As I reach the camp, it stops snowing and the sun comes out, lighting Kilimanjaro’s summit above the sombre Barranco Wall with sunset’s gold and pink.
After an hour’s wait, dark descends and guides are sent back to find the stragglers – Carolyn, Dylan and Maria – armed with a flask of Milo.
Later, Maria says: “We have had heat, cold, rain, sleet and snow. All we have not yet had is wind.”
“I’ve had wind,” I say.
There is a roar of laughter in recognition. Flatulence is another side effect of altitude.

From dawn you watch as hundreds of porters, like pins on a map, mark out the zigzag route up the 600 m-high Barranco Wall. In parts it is almost sheer, and a challenge even with a compact, 6 kg daypack.
Some porters climb with 20 kg perched on their heads, long tent-poles sticking out a metre on each side, six plastic deck chairs towering above them, snagging on overhanging rocks.
Every few minutes there is a yell, then thunder as a steel table or an empty 20-litre drum goes down the cliff.
I feel stronger now. I am used to feeling out of breath with every step up, but I find that if I go pole-pole I soon recover. I am also used to drinking at least three litres of water a day, sipping from my hydration bladder in my daypack and from water bottles.
Today’s is a short haul. Three hours later you reach the deep gorge of the Karanga River and the camp on the opposite bank 
After a supper of chips and fried chicken, John takes our oxygen readings. Between jokes and teasing and laughter, we look at him expectantly.
“There is no one I am concerned about,” he says. “We have had the worst weather I have ever known, but hopefully tomorrow night, when we summit, will be clear. No turning back now.”
Seconds of silence. We all avoid one another’s eyes.
“Well, that’s what we came for, guys!” says Nick Bennett, one of two Nicks in our ranks.

Today’s is a short hike, but mostly above 4 000 m, over rough terrain.
This is the one day where, after lunch, we are encouraged to take a nap. We doze in the sun, wedged between rocks at Barafu.
Twenty years ago, when he started guiding, Thomas remembers this camp being always covered in snow and ice. Now, the ice starts more than 1 000 m higher.
A tame, shiny-pelted little four-striped grass mouse scampers around our boots, collecting shreds of toilet paper for its nest. She sees two shifts of hikers every 24 hours, and is high on energy bar crumbs.
As we sit and chat, a woman hiker, her arms slung over two guides’ shoulders, is carried through the camp. Her toes drag on the rocks, not obeying her will; her head lolls like a rag doll’s. She slurs: “Made it to the shummit!” Altitude sickness: a scary warning.
There is dinner of soup, pasta with a chunky meaty sauce, and bread. Thomas and John divide us into a “slow” group (including Carolyn, Dylan and Maria) to start at 11.30pm, and a “fast” group to leave at 1am.
One of our group, Ian, has a tummy bug, but he is put with the “fast” group to give him time to rest. I also elect to go with the fast group.
We quietly dress for the final assault: thermal underwear, fleeces, waterproof trousers and rain-shell, balaclava, thick gloves. Check batteries in headlamps, then turn in. I sleep soundly, fully dressed, under my sleeping bag, and wake hearing the first group leave, chattering.

A PALE HALF-MOON scarcely lights the rocks. Thomas, under a green poncho, daypack slung skew over one shoulder, carries a 10-year-old chrome tin torch, which casts a dull yellow spot of light. 
We follow, in single file, closely behind one another, with hi-tech LEDs. I fear for Thomas’s light, but he knows every step. From time to time he warns: “Big step here. Very slippery here; be careful.”
Every 200 m or so Thomas calls back: “Howzit, guys?” and the line responds: “Good… strong… pole-pole.” The water in our hydration pack tubes freezes.
Soon, climbers from other groups who started a few hours earlier but are driven back by altitude sickness, cold and exhaustion start trickling down towards and past us.

ABOUT AN HOUR up the slope, Ian stops. “I have to go back. I’m too weak,” he pants, slurring. Ian’s been pushing himself hard. Just before this trip, his Dad was gravely ill but he rallied, and Ian was desperately keen to summit.
Another hour of plodding, and we meet the first group. Carolyn has decided to descend; her voice, between her sobs, is reed-like with fatigue. “Well done, Carolyn,” someone tells her as she sets off with James, one of the guides. “The mountain will still be here next year.”
A little further on, Dylan decides to descend. There is no guide to spare, but he says he will be safe, although he’s nauseous and has a crushing headache.
Then Carlos falls behind. I hear the dreaded sound of someone retching, a few zigzags down-slope. I look back: It is Carlos. We rest, and he catches up. He takes an anti-nausea tablet, and we plod on. 
I look at the sky: Orion high in the east, Scorpio above, the Seven Sisters nearby, the Southern Cross behind. What is that brilliant cluster up ahead? Oh, it’s the headlights of people slowly descending from Stella Point, a small saddle at the top of a 400 m scree-covered slope.
Again we divide into “faster” and “slower”. Again I choose “faster”, but after an hour I fall back. I look up: There is Stella Point. Three steps up, slide back two. 
That dreaded small voice again. Many drop out here, within sight of Stella Point, at 5 752 m just 2 km (a 143 m rise) from the summit.
I launch myself at the slope, stop, gasp, head on my hands on my trekking poles. The sun rises scarlet behind me. Maybe I should listen to that little inner voice.
“No, no, wrong; follow in my footsteps,” says guide Robinson, come down to fetch me. “Step with me. At the top in 10 minutes.”
He takes a tiny step, pauses, then another, pauses, like a dance. Step, breathe, step, breathe. I dance, slowly, up, up.

WE ARE AT Stella Point. I hug Robinson. John and I punch fists. “I’m going to make it!” I shout.
“Damn sure!” he says. 
We now have to tackle the last 2 km. It’s -12°C in the wind hacking at us, chilled by the ice fields. On the way I greet that “blind” American. I see he is not blind, after all. He was just near collapse when I saw him in the snow two days ago. He will make it.
We see the summit signboard from 300 m. 200. 100. Easy now. My chest aches. I cough. I can no longer feel my legs. 50 m.We’ve made it! I feel a surge of energy. 
John holds up a poster given to him by Ian, for his dad. It reads: “Dedicated to Henry Norman. Your name is on top of Africa.”
The Cape Union Mart team crouches for pictures. I pull back my sleeve to show my daughter’s bracelet. I salute my family, my loved ones.
I put my head on my hiking poles, recite a short prayer written by my father. Then I doze off, standing. 
There’s a tap on my shoulder. It’s Thomas: “Come on, Madala. We must go now.”
 “I am just looking around,” I reply. “I don’t think I’ll come back here again in my life.”
Thomas corrects me: “You mean you will not be here again in this lifetime.”