You leave Moshi with the town still rubbing sleep from its eyes and the silhouette of Kilimanjaro growing larger by the kilometer. The drive east to Marangu Gate curls through banana plantations and small villages, then folds into the dark green throat of the rainforest. The trail smells of wet earth and moss; streams chatter underfoot and birds—turacos, sunbirds—announce your climb. By midday the forest opens at Mandara Hut, a squat stone refuge perched at roughly 9,000 feet, where views stretch to the jagged profiles of Mawenzi and the distant plains toward Kenya.