Hubby and I both have a big birthday next year and we'd like to mark the occasion by trekking to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Due to the altitude, the success rate increases the more days you take to do it. I understand that 5 days is about a 50% success rate increasing up to 8 days at an almost 100% success rate. It's bloody expensive to do (as by law you have to go with a guide and porters and anyway we would be happy to be employing them for those days) so we want to give it our best shot at summiting so have opted for a route that takes 7 days which includes getting down again.
I would like to get there a couple of days beforehand as I don't fancy setting off immediately after a long haul flight. We are also wondering if we should take advantage of being in Africa and go on a mini safari or just laze on a Zanzibar beach for a couple of days.
All of that, plus a couple of days of traveling, would be about two weeks. Is that unfair on my kids though as they will be nearly 11 and 8.5? Then there's my parents who will be looking after them outside of school hours for two weeks! Plus I'll miss them. One minute I'm talking myself out of it and the next I'm thinking Sod It, let's do it!