Roof of Africa — Kilimanjaro
The first adventure of our trip was climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro — we like to start strong.
Sachin and May joined us, and we started the climb on 12/29/17. Getting to the start of the trail was an adventure — we tightly squeezed into a van with our 16 person team of guides and porters for a 4 hour, bumpy ride to the start of the Lemosho trail.
Day 1 — In retrospect, our first day of hiking was a breeze. Starting at an elevation of 2250 m, we hiked 6 Km from the Lemosho trailhead to Mti Mkubwa Camp (about 3 hours). Under the hot sun, we hiked through a lush, tropical forest, spotting monkeys along the way. When we arrived at the camp, our tents were already set up, and popcorn and biscuits were waiting for us in what would be our dining room for the next 7 days.
Which brings me to one of the most impressive aspects of Kilimanjaro — the porters. Arnaud called them the true heroes of Kilimanjaro. These men (and women — we did see a few women porters) are the people who make climbing Kilimanjaro possible. Not only do they carry an unbelievable amount of weight up an incredibly high mountain (probably 40–60 pounds, half of which usually balanced on their head), they do it without any equipment — many don’t even wear hiking boots — and with a friendliness that’s rare even in the best of jobs in corporate America. Almost every porter who passed us did so with the Swahili greeting, “Mambo, jambo. Poh!” which means, “Hi Hi, it’s cool”
And they’re incredibly fast. Every morning, after we started hiking, they pack up the entire camp, put in on their back and heads, and then pass us hiking so they have time to set everything up again before we get to the next site. It’s grueling, hard work. And the pay is low. The porter association mandates a minimum wage of ~$10 per day — which is the less than the living wage of ~$12.75 per day.
Day 2 — Was our longest day of hiking, around 21 Km. We hiked uphill for about half of the day before we took a break for lunch at Shira I Camp, and then started on flatter/downhill terrain. We camped at Shira II camp, and we were lucky to wake up on Day 3 to a beautiful sunrise. Day 3 was misty and foggy, which was apropos for our moods — we were hiking to the highest elevation thus far (Lava Tower camp at 4600 m / 15,000 ft), and we were already starting to feel the effects of the thinner air. Both Sachin and Arnaud had headaches, May had nausea, and we all noticed our shorter breath.
We were all taking Diamox to deal with the thinner air — I recommend taking it, but there are a few side effects. The main one is having to pee ALL the time. Which is inconvenient, especially if you’re a woman on a mountain. Also, make sure you’re taking the right amount for your weight. On the second day, we realized that May was taking FOUR times the amount as the rest of us (1000 mg instead of 250 mg), which contributed to a lot of tingling, nausea, and some kookiness (or that just could be May) — basically the feeling of altitude sickness. Once she started taking a normal dose, she felt a lot better.
But our biggest recommendation is getting a toilet tent. Thanks to May and her research beforehand, we got one — it’s basically a small tent with a portable toilet. It’s really useful, for a couple reasons: 1/Camps are crowded so you have to walk far if you want to do it in the wild 2/It’s cold so walking far isn’t fun, especially in the middle of the night 3/There are some public toilets, but the stench is pretty unbearable. Arnaud swore he would never use the toilet tent and said they he actually enjoys going in the wild, but he confessed that it’s his #1 recommendation for Kilimanjaro (and he probably used it the most! Healthy bowels!)
Day 3 — New Years Eve, but we were too tired to stay up until midnight. But we did stay up later than usual playing cards with our guides, George and Imani. We played this very simple card game, which involves a little bit of game theory — you have to develop your strategy by predicting what others will do. George and Imani picked up the game quick, and George ended up winning almost every game that night! After that, cards ended up becoming a daily ritual for us, and our favorite porter, Daniel, joined in on the fun, as well as May (who doesn’t even like cards). George, Imani, and Daniel taught us a Tanzanian game, called Last Card or Lasty Card. It’s pretty similar to Uno, but you play with a standard deck of cards. Many of our games involved George, Imani, and Daniel debating the rules in Swahili and putting good cards down with a lot of flair and an enthusiastic, “Pachou!!”
Day 4 — The beginning of Day 4 (New Years Day) was tough for some (me) and easy for others (Arnaud and May) — we had to scale the side of a mountain on a very narrow path. The hike also involved scrambling across rocks and making it past the kissing rock, appropriately named since you have to literally hug and kiss the rock in order to pass without falling off the mountain. What kept us motivated is seeing the porters climbing the rocks at a much faster pace, with no fear, and a lot of weight on their backs. Once we made it to the top of the mountain, it was time to go down. In order to acclimatize, we were constantly going up to higher elevations, and then back down to lower ones. After particularly tough climbs up, it was mentally challenging to go back down, although a nice rest for our legs.
Day 5 — We took it easy on Day 5 in order to rest before our hike to the summit. In the morning, we hiked 3 hours to base camp (Barafu Camp at 4673 m), where we had a hearty lunch of potato stew and then played cards all afternoon. We had an early dinner around 4:30, and then George, Imani, and Juma came to our tent to talk about the summit hike. Our guide, George, is fun-loving, talkative, and a bit of a class clown, but he got pretty serious when talking about the summit. He made sure each of us had enough water, a plan for when the water would start to freeze, a headlamp, sunglasses and sunscreen, and enough layers so we wouldn’t be too cold. We promised him that we would share any symptoms as we started to feel them, and he told us that if we’re not dealing with the altitude well, he may tell us to go down. He estimated our chance of making it was 80%. Everyone thought that was pretty good, until I brought up that Hilary was supposed to win with 77% probability…
We went to sleep around 5:30 PM, knowing that we’d have to wake up in 6 hours. It was hard to sleep that night, the uncertainty of what tomorrow would bring and not knowing whether we’d all make it.
We woke up at 11:30 PM to discover that it had snowed several feet. We were already in our hiking clothes, so we just had to put on a few more layers, make sure all our headlamps were working, and have a quick cup of tea before we started to climb. George warned us that the first hour was hard and steep and involved scrambling over rocks, but, man, was it still difficult, especially with the snow, some of which had turned to ice. I was slipping and sliding all over the place, but I had hiking poles which helped stabilize me a bit. The first hour was a bit of a blur — I was focused on getting through it. Once we made it past the first hour, then we felt like we were truly on Kili. Even though we were on Kili the past 5 days, it didn’t feel like it, since you always could see the peak in the distance. Now, there was no peak in the distance. We were on it.
The next 5 hours involved walking very slow (Pole Pole) on a steep incline of snow. From base camp to the Uhuru peak, it was only 5 kms, but we had to ascend 1,222 m / 4,045 ft — that’s ascending 1m for every 4m we walk. Even though we were slow, we passed people left and right. In the first 3 hours, we probably only took one break, as George advised us to minimize breaks because of the thin air. We saw all types of people climbing, young and old, heard many languages, and even got lucky enough to hike in front of some people playing 90s top hits on a portable stereo. The guides were the most lively, often singing songs as they pass each other, and Juma, one of our guides, started breakdancing in the snow out of nowhere.
It may sound like a party, but it wasn’t. Three hours into the climb, Sachin had altitude sickness. He could only take several steps before needing to take a break to catch his breath. We didn’t know it at the time, but he was experiencing dizziness, nausea, and hallucinations — Sachin’s Kilimanjaro was full of wildlife :) But he kept going, by just focusing on taking the next step. May puked and started experiencing major regret for taking this trip and a little bit of hatred towards Arnaud for organizing it! Arnaud had headaches.
Even though we had headlamps, we didn’t need to use them, because the moon was full and bright. The hike up seemed never-ending. Just when we thought we were close to Stella’s point, we’d cross a ridge and see headlamps much higher on the mountain. It was probably a good thing that we were hiking in the middle of the night, without full visibility — if we had it, I’m not sure we would have wanted to keep going. We finally got to Stella’s point (18,600 ft) as the sun was starting to rise. Seeing the sunrise at that height makes you feel on top of the world — like the sun is rising right next to you. We took a quick break at Stella’s point and saw many hikers suffering — vomiting, putting their heads down, trying to catch their breath. Uhuru peak was so close, only 0.7 km away.
We started the trek to Uhuru peak in the bright white snow, with the sun rising. The trek from Stella’s point to Uhuru peak is breathtaking, we saw glaciers along the way as well as Mount Meru in the distance, which seemed small from our vantage point. We started seeing hikers on their way back after reaching the summit, and that’s when you finally feel like you’re truly almost there. It was like a marathon, with the passing hikers cheering you on, “Almost there. You got this. Keep going!” I needed that, as my altitude sickness was revving up — I started seeing bright stars, unsure of whether it was altitude sickness or the bright white of the snow…And then in the distance, we saw the sign — Uhuru Peak, 5895M, Africa’s highest point! We made it!!!!!!
Arnaud planned on staying for 15–20 minutes to take photos, but at this point, we were all experiencing altitude sickness and wanted to go down. We quickly took our team photo in front of the sign with the greatest fake smile we could muster, and then started the hike back down. We were probably at the peak for 5 minutes.
One of the things that no one talks about is going down. We were so focused on reaching the peak that we forgot that we have to hike down, and, fast, because of the elevation. That’s when my breaking point hit, we were on the way down, and got to a particularly steep part of the mountain. I felt like I was going to fall, and I suddenly burst out crying. And then May burst out crying. The realization that we’d have to hike all the way down, from the mountain we had just spent the last 6 hours climbing, was too much for me. But Arnaud was at my side and helped me get a hold of myself quickly. We slowly started making our way down — Poor Arnaud, he’s like a goat going down the mountain and could have been back at base camp in less than 2 hours, but he stayed with me. At one point, he noticed my face had turned pale and my hands started to shake, so he gave me an energy gel. It’s the sugar kick I needed to keep going.
We reached base camp around 10:30 AM, and took an hour nap. Waking up from that nap to have lunch and then hike yet again may have been one of the hardest things of the whole trip. But we had to continue. After hiking four hours in the rain, we finally reached the Mweka Hut Camp site in the evening. We were at 3100M, and it did feel Great to be at a lower elevation. It was a long day of hiking, over 16 hours, and we were ready to sleep.
Our last day, Day 7, we continued our descent for about 3 hours to the Mweka Park Gate. We were practically running, so ready to be back in modern civilization and take a shower after 7 days in the wild. We got our summit certificates, took some pics, and then jumped in a van with our amazing crew for a happy ride back to Moshi.
Our next stop: some rest and relaxation in Zanzibar!
