Summiting the Roof of Africa: Menstrual cups of blood, sweat and tears

In the midst of the November 2022 lockdown, during my endless scrolling through Facebook as a pastime, I stumbled across a post promoting a Kilimanjaro trek, raising money for charity. Rather uncharacteristically of me, I was grasped by the prospect of ticking off two bucket list goals (1) climbing a mountain and (2) going to Africa; before I had even processed it, I had signed up and paid the fee. Kilimanjaro, I am coming for you! 

As with most things, Covid delayed my trek for a year but in June 2022, I finally made it to Tanzania and reached the Roof of Africa. Without doubt it was the best and worst experience of my life, pushing me to limits I didn’t even know existed but also teaching me I had strength beyond what I thought. While the sunrise at Stella Point will forever be the most beautiful sight I have witnessed, the trek threw everything against me, making the challenge harder than anticipated. The climate of Kili vastly contrasts itself between night and day, hence the sweat; the exhaustion of 8-hours trekking and sleep deprivation unforgivingly leads to tears; the menstrual cycle does not stop for life changing experiences and undoubtedly leads to a lot of blood. 

Amongst my preparations, I read every blog out there sharing advice for women to successfully summit Kili. But the more I read, the greater it became apparent that on top of altitude sickness, insomnia, freezing nights, lack of hygiene and long trekking days, women commonly have the added challenge of altitude induced periods. While the science behind this is limited and remarkably unresearched, (the last study into this issue was conducted back in 1996, before I was even born) most women report heavier and inconsistent periods.

Since getting my first period at 14, I have been a bit of a slave to my cycle and in hindsight, allowed it to dictate my life, experiences, and social calendar. This once in a lifetime experience was no exception and the thought of trying to summit Kili was enough of a challenge, let alone managing bleeding with only a hole in the ground, (which taught me the art of aiming) or no fluffy socks or hot water bottles, fully made me rethink whether I was cut out for it. 

In preparation for the likelihood of starting my period during the trek, I began to look into my options, which quickly became very limited. I was not able to go on the pill due to health reasons, thus also eliminating the chance of being prescribed the period delaying pill. The nature of the trek, (one where everything you take up must come down with you) means the most recommended option is the menstrual cup. My success in using the cup was limited in my practice months but that’s a whole other story; for now, I was ready with a mild level of confidence that if my period did decide to join me on my trek, I would be prepared to a certain degree to manage it. 

As predicted, on the morning of day two on my climb I was greeted by the red wave, in full force. By this point, we hadn’t yet broken the altitude boundary for symptoms to start showing, meaning the nausea and headaches were both attributable to my period. It has to be said, I didn’t have much time to prepare that morning before we started an 8-hour trek to the next camp, and it definitely showed when I discovered I had leaked by the first toilet break…! I am sure I am not alone in feeling pretty deflated on my period, but when you add the tiredness of trekking, the tropical Tanzanian heat and the constant panic that I was bleeding everywhere, the thought of doing four more trekking days was somehow not appealing. 

All that said, I eventually found my flow and managed successfully to not leak again, changing my cup at every opportunity I had. But by the fourth day, the lack of running water to clean it with was beginning to make things a little uncomfortable. However, by this point, the altitude sickness had become too much to handle that I decided to ignore everything my body was in pain about. With just the summit trek to go, we began walking at 11pm, under the most breathtaking stars I have ever witnessed; I knew that I could make it to the top, and the quicker I reached the summit, the sooner I could be in Moshi, under a hot shower. We summited at 7am to observe a stunning sunrise, and it has to be said, coupled with the headache, slight hallucinations, and extreme tiredness, I forgot all about my period and the troubles it had caused. For once, I just focused on the views in front of me, living fully in the present moment, knowing that I had made it to 5,895m high. 

While it is easy to complain about the added stress my period caused during my trek, I have to highlight the insane and weirdly magical feeling that I was fully at one with nature; both my body’s natural cycle and our world in one of its most natural states, away from manufactured and manicured mayhem, found a rhythmic harmony. Something I had not widely considered prior to this experience is how aligned the relationship between our body’s and our world is. The beauty of the trek: the breathtaking views at the summit, the changing landscape, and the regularity that the sun will rise and set, the basics of time, can all be reflected or paired to features of a menstruating body: the beauty of all shapes and sizes, the regularity of it’s cycles and the basic functions that all components of the body are used for. When you think about it, the natural world and the human body are both beautiful in an aligned way; something I was only able to appreciate when I was 5,000m above sea level. 

While I acknowledge every day women are doing ordinary things without letting their menstrual cycle impact their lives, for me personally, Kilimanjaro was proof to myself that I shouldn’t let a little bit of blood stop me in life. I know the trek would still have been hard regardless of whether I was on my period or not, but this trek taught me a new level of self-respect and appreciation, massively attributed to reaching the Roof of Africa whilst juggling my period and all the joys that come with it.