Our hike will be on the Machame trail on Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Tanzania and Africa. At 19,341 feet, this highest freestanding mountain in the world has three distinct volcanic cones, two of which are extinct and one that could erupt again. It lies within the 756-square-kilometer Kilimanjaro National Park, one of the few places on earth that encompasses every ecological life zone—tropical jungle, savannah, desert, montane forests, and alpine zone.