Our Kilimanjaro staff

Who are our Kilimanjaro staff?

Nobody is permitted to climb Kilimanjaro without a registered guide. So, if you have to have a guide, you want the best one available and at Easy Travel we employ the very best guides, assistant guides, porters, Chef and other staff to give you every chance of reaching the summit. So, what makes a good Kilimanjaro team, a team that will get you to the ‘Roof of Africa’?

Safety: Front, left and centre

While up on the mountain, there can be no compromise on safety. But our commitment to your safety starts long before you start your climb of a lifetime. We start with recruitment which involves us carefully choosing the staff who will accompany you on your climb. For example, our prospective guides need experience before we will even interview them, and that experience must be good experience. We hear of the reputation of prospective guides through word of mouth, and particularly from our own, existing, trusted, longstanding guides who witness how other guides operate on the mountain.

Our mountain guides

Any guide who wishes to work for Easy Travel must show that his priority is safety and must also show that he has the knowledge, experience and skillset to operate with the safety of our visitors as their top priority. Without those qualities, we will not consider employing him.

Training and experience

With low-budget outfitters, you might find yourself on Kilimanjaro with an inexperienced or badly trained team of Kilimanjaro guides and porters. But not when you climb with Easy Travel. Our guides are veterans of many, many successful Kilimanjaro climbs, highly trained and with the knowledge and adaptability to cope with any situation which might arise. All are fully trained in first aid, something which may not seem essential if everything goes well, but which you cannot do without if there is an unexpected problem at 19,000 feet. Equally important, our mountain teams will monitor your health constantly, using all their experience. Specifically, they use oximeters to check your oxygen, and your pulse rate is also carefully monitored. Read what our visitors say about our guides.

Commitment, passion and fun

However many times our teams have been on Kilimanjaro, they remain passionate about this magnificent mountain that provides them with their living. And you’ll notice that passion from the first time you meet them, as well as being impressed with their 100% dedication in getting you to the top. And despite all the tough climbing, despite all the hard work the team put in to look after you, they still find time to make sure you have some fun! Enjoy the team’s songs, stories, anecdotes… they are sure to raise your spirits and make your climb more enjoyable.

Mountain knowledge

And as well as entertaining you, our guides and staff are full of knowledge about Kilimanjaro and Tanzania. The mountain has many varied ecological zones ECOLOGICAL ZONES with fascinating flora, fauna and geological features. Our expert team will happily answer the many questions that ask as the terrain changes with the altitude.

Teamwork

Our mountain groups are small, a tight-knit team who work together to the greatest effect. And don’t forget, you will be part of that team. Guides, assistants, porters, waiters and our guests, all interact to achieve the objective of reaching the summit.

Our mountain porters

As you stand on the top of Kilimanjaro, take some time to think of your porters. Imagine climbing this huge mountain while carrying all that equipment – what a thought! Being a porter is a tough, tough job and we at Easy Travel ensure that we look after these valuable team members properly.

Apart from your daypacks, everything that gets taken up the mountain is carried by these mountain strongmen. Easy Travel is a committed partner of KPAP (the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project) which is the recognised independent organisation which looks after porter welfare, pay and working conditions.

We ask that, when choosing a company to take you up Kilimanjaro, you give proper consideration to porter welfare, as there are many low-budget operators who abuse porters, underpaying them and failing to provide proper working conditions. Among the things we at Easy Travel insist on are:

That porters are paid an agreed wage, ensuring that they do not have to rely completely on tips to earn them a decent living.
That our porters are paid more than the average wage on Kilimanjaro.
That our staff are paid immediately, once each Kilimanjaro trip is complete.
That our porters are properly experienced, skilled and trained to carry out the climb (this impacts on their own safety, as well as the safety of our guests.
That our porters and other staff are given the correct, high-quality equipment that is necessary to allow a safe and comfortable climb.
That our porters are given proper, nutritious food and drink every day.
That our porters each carry a maximum load of 20 kg.
That our porter-to-guest ratio is sufficient and appropriate, to ensure that our porters are not overburdened or overworked.
That we have a KPAP representative porter on every climb, meaning that our own high standards of working are being independently scrutinised on every climb we arrange.

Our mountain chefs

With the amount of energy you will be expending on your climb, eating properly is vitally important. Easy Travel take the subject of food and drink very seriously indeed, aiming to provide a diet that is both nutritious and tasty, perfectly balanced and tailored specifically for those climbing Kilimanjaro. The mountain chef is a very important member of the team that will take you up Kilimanjaro, preparing your food every day with his team of assistants.

Perhaps you are surprised that we call them ‘chefs,’ but these guys have been especially trained to prepare meals for adventure trips and they typically have at least 15 years of experience. Just like our mountain guides, they are true professionals and totally committed to maintaining the very highest of standards at every meal. We at Easy Travel genuinely believe that you will be very pleasantly surprised by the food you enjoy on the mountain: for many hikers, this is a real highlight of their Kilimanjaro adventure.