Guide Scam – Have clients descend the mountain early

Another fairly good scam on Mount Kilimanjaro, often orchestrated by the guides, is to basically have the people come off the mountain earlier than planned.

Here is how it works. The guide usually pays for the least amount of day possible before the climb begins. If it’s a planned eight-day Lemosho or Machame route, the guide will pay for seven days. If the clients spend the entire eight days on the mountain, the guide will pay the difference at the exiting gate.

If, however, the clients decide to come down the mountain early since they are tired, hungry, or whatever, most do not know that the guide didn’t pay the park fees for the last day. Normally this isn’t an issues. However, if you finish your summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and spend your day hiking to Mweka Camp, sometimes people push on another 3 hours, and finish at the Mweka Camp gate, one day early. You should get the park fees back. Most people don’t know this.

The thing is you need to see how many days your guide paid for at the beginning of the trip. If you know this during sign-in, then you can see if he manipulates this or not.

Again, this is an age old scam and a majority of the guides pay this in full, in good faith.