Kilimanjaro

July 20, 2011

Well, we made it. All the way up and all the way down. I’ll do my best to recount everything but it may take 2 (or ten) posts to do the trip justice.
Adam and I left two weeks ago on the 8th for Johannesburg. We lucked out big time and the taxi left Maseru as soon as we were in. It was quite a long drive, all on back bumpy roads with more potholes than Minnesota during road construction season. As PCVs, we’re told to avoid the Joburg taxi rank as much as possible, so I was sort of nervous, however other volunteers have said that it’s definitely manageable, and it was. As soon as we arrived, there was a guy outside the taxi offering to bring us anywhere in the rank. It was once we arrived at the airport taxi that he asked for money, but we’d made it safely, so I was happy to pay.
We got to O.R. Tambo around 2pm… plenty early for our 9pm flight… but there were restaurants to visit! At first, it didn’t seem like there was anything available to us in the International Departures Terminal so we had to walk around a bit but eventually found Subway and a handful of other great places. We had sandwiches first (delicious but not quite as speedy as in the States) and then sat down for bottomless coffee and the best muffins on the face of the Earth at Mugg & Bean. Four (or five?) cups and a few hours later, we were wired and walked around a bit before checking in (they let us check in way early – some people are so nice!). Once through security and immigration, we bummed around a few more hours, looking in bookshops and the Duty Free stores. One of my favorite things to do in airports is people-watch and we did a fair amount of that too.
We grabbed some food for the flight (not expecting anything) and boarded, off to Dar es Salaam. That flight landed around 1:30am. We groggily found our way to immigration to buy our Visa for Tanzania. When we got to the desk, they asked for $100 (which we didn’t have) and we offered our credit cards. No luck. The machine that took credit cards was down, they said, but there were some ATMs outside. They held our passports and we headed outside to withdraw Tanzanian shillings, which we would then need to change to USD. No luck. The ATMs we found wouldn’t take either of our cards… At this point, I was getting pretty flustered. We were in a foreign place, it was 2am, we couldn’t get our Visas, our cards didn’t work, and we had to climb Kilimanjaro the next day. Thankfully Adam was incredibly calm about the whole thing. He went back in and explained to the woman the entire situation. She accompanied us to the immigration desk and explained to the guy that we would just need to pay for the visa upon departure. He wrote in each of our passports “subject to pay visa on departure, usd100 for multiple entry visa” and we continued on our way to the next leg of the journey. I cannot even explain how relieved I was, but also how worried I was; my only means of getting cash wasn’t working – would I be able to get cash once we got to Moshi?
We crashed for a few more hours in the airport in Dar before our 6am flight to Kilimanjaro airport. That flight was absolutely spectacular. It was just starting to get light, and above the clouds, we could see the whole sunset. As we approached Moshi, I could see Kilimanjaro in the distance, the top just peeking above the clouds… stunning. Once we landed, it wasn’t too long before a car came to pick us up and bring us to check in for our climb. We were supposed to stay at this little (touristy) oasis of a place, about 15 minutes from downtown Moshi but they were overbooked, so we ended up IN Moshi, which was actually much better. We got to walk around town without having to worry about getting there or back. After not much sleep the night before, I was exhausted… Adam, however, somehow had enough energy to walk around a fair amount. As we were waiting to get a sim card for the cell phone, I fell asleep, right in the store. That was when he agreed to let me go take a nap . My nap was great… he even let me sleep longer than I wanted because he was scared to wake me up (sound familiar Mom?) We found a great local place (right next to the place we stayed) for lunch – Zanzibar rice with beans and spicy sauce and some salads. A huge portion cost the equivalent of $1. We vowed to go back for dinner.
A few more hours of walking around put us at about 4:30pm so we headed back for our group meeting and briefing with our guides and other group members. I had been a bit concerned about who else was going to be in our group… would they be older couples with whom we had nothing in common? Would they be cool? Would they even speak English? All these worries vanished when we met a couple of awesome British guys and another American woman… they seemed very cool. We were told there were two more guys on the way but we didn’t end up meeting them until the next morning: another British guy and another American man. We were 7 in total, 3 Brits and 4 Americans… needless to say, there was a lot of banter flying in the group. We all learned new phrases in the other “language” and got to practice our accents… even though the Brits said our accents were “rubbish” and (to us) they just sounded like hicks most of the time.
I was relieved to find out that the others in the group were just nervous as I was, if not more, about the climb. Our guide and assistant guides were very reassuring; they’d had a great summit record together and were confident we’d be great. The 7 of us bonded very quickly (as you tend to do when in a situation like that) and even our guides didn’t believe that we hadn’t known each other before coming to Tanzania.
The drive to the gate the first morning was pretty long. We were all chatty, not sure what to expect but relieved that at least the first day was said to be relatively easy. When we arrived at the gate, we had to check in with passport numbers and register all our information. They gave us a nice box lunch, we drove another hour (through some crazy brush – in a massive safari-like vehicle on a path that was maybe meant for a bicycle… it was bumpy) before disembarking, packing up our packs and hitting the trail.
The first day’s hike was indeed relatively easy, only about 3 hours, all through the rainforest. Some ups, some downs, and I think we were all on a big hiker high. We arrived at the first camp around dinner time, found our packs and dragged our belongings to the tents. The porters brought us warm water for washing and directed us to the tent where we’d have tea. It was a pretty small tent with a very small (and wobbly) table with popcorn on a big platter, as well as 7 mugs, 7 small spoons and an assortment of tea, Milo (cocoa) and coffee. Then came dinner… first a carrot soup and some bread, then later fish and potatoes and vegetables. We were all in awe – we were going to be waited on hand and foot for the next week. After dinner, our guide, a very gentle, professional Tanzanian named Chombo, came in and told us the program for the next day (which would also end up being the schedule for most of our days). We would wake up for tea at 7am, get some more warm water for washing, take breakfast at 7:30 and hit the trail by 8. We’d go about 6 hours to the next camp, and the day would be sort of difficult. With this news, we headed to the tents to get some sleep. Adam and I had no trouble falling asleep (this is where being accustomed to poor sleeping conditions comes in handy!) and staying asleep until 7am when there came a knock on the tent – they brought tea to our tents.
Breakfast was several courses as well: first uji, a porridge (not unlike lesheleshele in Lesotho) made of maize and sorghum meal. Then came pancakes (thin – no baking powder in them, almost like sweet tortillas) and bread, and finally eggs and sausages. We hadn’t realized how much food there would be so we all sort of filled up on the uji and tea. Then it was time to pack and hit the trail.
As any of my family members can attest, I’m not usually huge on hiking, and even less keen on camping, but this was an adventure. The hike was beautiful – more rainforest, and then eventually into some other ecological zones (not sure what else to call them). Plenty of up-hills and several rests… but the prospect of a good hot lunch was waiting for us. About 4 or 5 hours in to our 6-hour hike, we finally caught a glimpse of the mountain. It was spectacular… and all of a sudden the task ahead got a whole lot bigger. Camp the second night was probably my favorite. It wasn’t as crowded as the first camp, plus we could see the mountain directly out of our tent and caught a grand sunset and sunrise.

Day 3 was easier, pretty flat and basic (though the sun was shining and many of us got a bit burned), a chance to rest up and acclimatize for the next day. Day 4 was rough. It was a lot of uphill, up to around 15,000 ft at a place called the Lava Tower, a beautiful rock formation on one side of the base, and then back down to about 12,000 ft. The up part wasn’t too bad and I think the down would’ve been alright if it weren’t for the fact that we’d already been hiking 4 hours up. By the end of our descent that night into Barranco camp, I felt absolutely terrible. I had a pounding headache and felt weak and worried whether or not the next day would bring any relief.
As soon as we got to camp that night, I went to the tent to lie down, but only managed to rest a few minutes before tea time. Sugary tea and salty popcorn helped a lot, but I still felt pretty terrible… I got to rest probably only 30 minutes (not quite long enough to really fall asleep but to start drifting off) before dinner. I wasn’t sure about eating dinner but figured it couldn’t hurt… and I was right. After dinner, I felt ten times better and slept really well.

Day 5 was supposed to be easy… we had to climb Barranco wall, basically a cliff, up which we “bouldered” … a.k.a. scurried up. The night before, Chombo had told us we should not bring poles because we would need to use our “crawly hands” … absolutely accurate. There were a couple places where we had to be really careful with balance and there was a very specific “left foot here, right hand there” pattern we had to follow. What amazed me the most was how quickly the porters could scurry up the side of the wall with probably 30+ pounds of stuff on their head/neck/back. Several hours later (like 5 I think) we arrived at camp. It wasn’t a super difficult hike but it was not as easy as we’d anticipated either. After lunch we got time to rest but before we could sleep, the assistant guide, Lucas, came to the tent to see if we wanted to go for a short acclimatization hike, basically a short jaunt up a ways and then back down, so we’d be camping lower than the highest elevation of the day (which wouldn’t have been a problem since the top of the wall was pretty darn high). I figured it couldn’t do any harm... I’d been alright that day and had started to get pretty nervous about the summit day and this at least would calm my nerves.
Day 6 actually lived up to expectations. It was not terribly difficult. The hike was about 4 hours, but this time we were seriously going up in elevation. This was the real deal – up to 15,000ft to camp at Barafu for a few hours before the summit hike to Uhuru. After a warm lunch, we were sent to our tents to relax, which we did willingly until our early dinner. Around 5:30pm they brought in a huge plate of pasta with some very thick vegetable sauce – carbo load! As we were taking tea, our guide and assistant guides came in to tell us how the summit would be. Everyone was very quiet but the tent was absolutely electric. We got a pep talk fit for a professional sports team from Chombo (with Lucas and Charles on his sides, nodding and adding in Swahili when he left something out). The plan was as follows:
We were to go to sleep (it was 7pm at this point) until 10pm. We would wake then, dress in warm layers, take tea and biscuits at 10:30pm and set off on the trek up the mountain at 11pm, headlamps on head. We would climb and climb and climb, take more tea about halfway up, and climb some more, all the way to the top. We’d get 10 minutes at the top to take photos and revel in the moment before beginning our descent…

So, at about 10pm, Adam and I woke up and started layering on clothes. I ended up wearing two pairs of socks, hiking boots, 3 pairs of pants (long underwear, hiking pants and water/windproof), 6 layers on top (various wicking shirts, some fleece and insulation), a neck gator, headband, hat, hood, gloves and mittens. Tea was nice and warm and again the tent was electric. Everyone was excited and nervous, anxious about what might happen if something went wrong but optimistic that nothing would.
By 11:05pm we were off up the hill, a nice little train of headlamps up a very big mountain. I think we were probably the second or third group to leave camp that night… one of the group likened it to a Christmas tree – all lit up. We went maybe an hour and a half before stopping for a break; we were all out of breath even though nobody was moving faster than a snail’s pace. At this point we split off – Bill with Chombo to go a bit slower and the rest of us with Lucas and Charles (the assistant guides). At this point, I just remember being tired and cold. Not super fatigued or sick, just tired and cold. After we’d been going a while, we had to go up some bigger rocks and I must have taken it too quickly because everything started going blurry and I felt much worse. I asked to take a break at which point Charles swiped my bag off my back and I was told to go second in line, right behind Lucas. We slowed down a little bit but kept going, trudging slowly, slowly up. The group was mostly quiet but every once in a while someone would ask how I was feeling (or how someone else was feeling). It was really incredible, feeling their support and knowing not only how badly we all wanted to summit but also how badly the guides wanted it for us.

We stopped again and this time I felt absolutely nauseated. I couldn’t tell if I was going to throw up or pass out or what was going to happen… One of the guys in the group offered me some glucose tables which I took and sucked on. There was no way I could’ve taken solid food at this point or I surely would have vomited, so thankfully these helped and I felt like I could continue.

Many hours of the trek are a complete blur. I know we climbed for 8 hours total and stopped several times. We stopped for tea which warmed us all a little bit, and then finally it was only 45 minutes to Stella Point, which was to be 100 vertical meters from the top, another 45 minutes up to the sign for Uhuru Peak.

Somehow, I’m still not sure how, we all made it up. Stella was an incredible site, especially knowing how close we were. The sun was beginning to rise at this point and the sky was warming from deep blue to shades of yellow and orange, and the moon was still full on the other side. Everything was absolutely breathtaking (literally and figuratively). The attitude in the group definitely lifted from Stella the rest of the way. It was almost like a magnet was pulling us up because I honestly don’t know how any of us had any energy left at that point. We just kept going…
Finally, the sign was in site and I couldn’t stop myself from crying. It was such a beautiful moment: achievement, friendship, support… natural beauty too, with the sun rising on one side and the moon still up over another (smaller) mountain on the other side… As I looked around, others in my group were crying too. Then it was a giant hug-fest as we congratulated each other and commiserated about how terrible we felt but how thrilled we were to be at the top.

Several photographs later, we were back on the way down, and as crazy as it sounds to only be at the top for 10-15 minutes, I think we were all ready to go back down and rest for a little while. As the guide told us, it’s not very good for people to be up that high (over 19,000 ft) for very long, and anything can happen at the top. Shortly after 7:15am (and a stop for a little chocolate) we were on our way, half walking and half stumbling, back down to Barafu.

We made it to camp about 3 hours later (though much of that time is also a blur to me). I remember being exhausted, having a bad headache, and being concerned about Adam feeling really sick. As soon as we got to the tent, we were both passed out.
We rested a while before taking another hike back down the mountain about 4 hours, in order to camp at a lower elevation, about 10,000ft. We all slept like babies that night… “like totos” as the Tanzanians would say. The final day was all downhill and that was when I really started getting sore. It was only 4 hours downhill, and we descended 5,000ft before exiting through the gate, boarding a bus, and heading back to Moshi.

Unfortunately, I think I need to get going now, but I will definitely post more at another point – soon!
All my love from Africa,
-Katie