Kilimanjaro - only 3 days to go

It's only a few days till the Appliances Online Kilimanjaro team depart for the greatest adventure of their lives. Yes, even more exciting than a Hotpoint Quadrio! So how are they feeling in these final few days? This guest blog is by Lucy, one of the Appliances Online team members who is going up Kilimanjaro to raise money for Bolton Lads and Girls Club. P.s. there is still time to sponsor the team: http://kilimanjarohike.org/. Over to Lucy...

I turn the temperature up further, until the water is on the verge of scorching my skin; but I don’t care, I relish every drop as it bounces off my shoulders and runs between my toes; soothing every muscle in my body. For today we completed our final training hike in preparation for Kilimanjaro which is now only one week away.

Next time I hike there will be no hot water, there will be no shower at all; for I will be walking for 7 days, enduring temperatures ranging from 30°C to - 40°C, sleeping in a tent every night, using toilet facilities that don’t bare thinking about and not to mention coping with 50% less oxygen and the high chance of altitude sickness; with NO hot shower to help me recover at the end of each day.

I suddenly realise that it is this I will find the most difficult about the whole Kilimanjaro expedition; not the having to raise over £50,000 in two and half months, not the extreme training regime I have been putting myself through, not the financial burden of all the kit we have had to buy and injections and tablets we have had to have or the extreme stress we have been under to organise all of this in such a dramatically short space of time. But not being able to have a shower at the end of each tough day up there, will be by far the hardest thing I will have to go through and is what I will miss the very most.

But just imagine how amazing that first hot shower back will feel, oh to be clean and cosy and then sleep in my own bed again instead of on the ground – this is the thought that WILL GET ME TO THE TOP OF MOUNT KILIMANJARO!!