At the summit we quickly took pictures and videos and looked around. Since Kilimanjaro is a solitary mountain on an immense plain – the highest free-standing mountain on earth – it may appear one can see the curvature of the earth on the relatively smooth horizon. Most high mountains are surrounded by other mountains, making the horizon irregular and thus making the curvature of the earth less noticeable. In this case, the curvature is undoubtedly due to the camera lens since one cannot see the curvature below about 35,000 feet on a clear day with a broad vista.

Kendal and I opened our empty disposable water bottles and closed them tightly to take home air from Kilimanjaro's summit. After 15 minutes we began our descent.