A British prime minister in Queen Victoria's England once dismissed Kilimanjaro as "that mountain behind Zanzibar with the un-rememberable name." Today, there can be few who don't recognize it's most beautiful and evocative name. From the literature of Ernest Hemingway, from movies, and from a multitude of images, the world is familiar with the Elysian view of elephants and giraffes grazing against the shimmering backdrop of Kilimanjaro. Floating over the plains of East Africa, more mirage than mountain, Kilimanjaro exudes mystery and romance. At the same time, it is an accessible mountain, drawing more than 20,000 visitors each year to its slopes and snowy dome. The climb up Kilimanjaro has been likened to a journey from the equator to the poles, passing as it does through zone after zone of climatic change, from tropical forest to frozen desert. And Kilimanjaro human history is no less rich than its natural history. Close to the cradle of mankind, the mountain has watched history unfold at its foot, from the earliest hunter-gatherers and the scramble of colonization to World War I battles and the wave of independence that swept Africa in the mid-20th century.
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