It all started with a Tweet...
“Any other cabbies out there fancy losing weight with me and then climb Mount Kilimanjaro?”
That one Tweet took a team of 3 "Fat Cabbies", all London Taxi Drivers, from behind the wheels of their cabs, on a dream journey to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro with Action Challenge. That dream became reality, when they stood at Uhuru Peak, the summit of Africa's highest mountain.
This was the end result of a long journey, that saw the Cabbies commit to a training plan to get them in shape to take on the challenge. They visited the Action Challenge office to hear all about the trek and what they would need to prepare for, then the training began! From an Action Challenge training weekend climbing Mount Snowdon at night with our mountain leaders, to taking on the Yorkshire Three Peaks - they pushed themselves to lose weight and get fit!
If that wasn't enough, they have also raised (at time of writing) over £15,000 for the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans!
All those months of training and preparation culminated in the tough climb from Kosovo Camp to Uhuru Peak, in the dead of night. The summit climb starts at midnight, and follows a steep slope to the rim of the crater. This is the toughest part of the challenge, with our mountain leaders and local crew taking care of the team every step of the way.
After 6 hours, the team of Cabbies reached Stella Point, in time to watch the sunrise!
From Stella Point, they needed to make one final push to reach the summit. It was cold, they were tired, but nothing was going to stop them. In the words of Daren, one of the Cabbies:
"That last 45 min climb is the hardest thing I have ever done, but my mind and determination just took over. Then we saw the famous Uhuru Sign we had been dreaming about and we touched the sign. I broke down in tears and blubbed like a baby. All the emotions flooding out of me, the thought of my grandkids and the picture they had drawn me, my wife and all the good wishes, encouragement and faith that people had put in me. WE HAD DONE IT! A year ago I would have struggled up Shooters Hill and now I was standing on TOP OF WORLD. Looking down I could see the curvature of the Earth, clouds, glaciers... the sun was shining and it was a surreal moment I will never forget."