Ash

This little piece of rock is more interesting than might at first seem. It is a small piece of volcanic ash that I brought back from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro when I climbed this in July 2004. It is extremely light and full of gas spaces as it was spewed out by the mountain in one of its last volcanic eruptions. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain on the African continent, the highest free-standing mountain on Earth (not connected to a longer mountain-chain) and supposedly the highest mountain on the planet that you can just walk up (as opposed to roped-up mountaineering) but I don't know about the latter point... I climbed it from the northern route - the Rongai Route - from the Kenyan side, and it took five days to up and two to come back down. It was a tough old walk, especially in the thin air of the last couple of days!