Climbing to the Roof of Africa — Mt. Kilimanjaro

How we almost made it to the top

Saalik Lokhandwala
Saalik’s Journal
8 min readAug 14, 2019

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July 27, 2019 — the Lokhandwalas began their ascent to Uhuru peak, the tallest point of the African continent, and the tip of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

What follows is my account of our trip — the success, failure, trials, and lessons.

We hiked and camped along the Machame Route, a 6 day trek up and down the mountain. The map of the trail is below.

Map and facts of the Machame Route

Intentions 🖋

Before every major trip, transition, or event, I set intentions for my experience. I think it’s worth noting what I wanted out of this trip.

Incase you can’t read my shaky airplane writing, my intentions were:

  • To surmount a considerable challenge. One where there is less certainty of success.
  • To embark on an adventure of weight with the family in tow.
  • To foster a connection with the Earth, God and Africa
  • To explore a broad new continent, and invent new possibilities for myself along the way
  • To disconnect — in order to reconnect

A Family Journey 🛣

It’s not often that a family skips the beach to climb a mountain. Yet, that’s exactly what the five of us did. Mom, Dad, my two brothers, and myself were one of the few full families hiking together on the mountain.

Of course, our ambitious goal was to summit Kilimanjaro in the six days we had allotted to the trip, conquering the highest altitudes we had ever experienced, braving the freezing cold days and nights all while staring in the face of tiredness and subtly nagging self doubt.

We knew it would be tough, but “tough” is a fuzzy term. There’s no concrete picture we had in our mind.

As we experienced, climbing the mountain is 30% physical strength and 70% mental strength. It took persistence to get to the point that we did, but the journey was incredibly worth it.

The Days ☀️

You guessed it — we spent (most) days creeping slowly up the mountainside, to a new camping destination each day.

We practiced what I call “Pole Pole”(pronounced polay polay) hiking. That means “slowly slowly” in Swahili. We walked and climbed extremely slowly. At first we were annoyed with the slower pace, but eventually we came to appreciate the pacing, when the altitude sickness got very evident.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were led by three amazing guides: Ian, Wilfred and Atanas. Each are amazing in their own way. Ian led our merry band of hikers and was in charge of the 20 porters needed to lug stuff up the mountain for us. Wilfred, ever the calm one, set our pace and led us down trails the entire journey. Atanas, a 62 year old, has been a guide for many years and knows the mountain like the back of his hand.

The challenge during the day was the rising altitude. As we steadily climbed, the air got thinner and thinner. Altitude sickness is subtle, and it creeps up on you. It psyched us out, because we didn’t think we were feeling it, until we did.

Everyone got headaches and felt lightheaded at several points of the climb. The pulsating headaches would come and go, seemingly randomly, as we breathed, walked, drank water, and emptied ourselves as we needed to.

On the worse side of things, Mom, Kaamil, and Nabeel experienced nausea and vomiting on the trip from the altitude sickness. Nausea is an awful feeling, and so it pulled us all down to see one of us struggling.

Although challenging, we sang songs (at lower altitudes) and goofed around, learned some more Swahili and made friends with other hikers from all over the world. There were people from England and Idaho, Japan and Germany.

As we proceeded, we marveled at the constantly shifting landscape of the mountainside. It’s true that hiking Kilimanjaro is like hiking through the four seasons. From our start in a lush rainforest, the fauna transformed into a fascinating alpine tundra, to a cold and dry desert, and ended in solid rock devoid of vegetation — something that looked more like the surface of the moon than a mountain.

Machame Camp
Shira Cave Camp
Baranco Camp

The Nights 🌙

(Camp pic)

Camps were wonderful to reach, but they weren’t without challenges. Using the bathroom was one particularly fun adventure every morning and evening. I won’t go into details (unless you ask me) — so let’s just leave it as an adventure.

Sometimes, the nights were harder than the days because of the cold. At each camp, we ended up at a higher altitude, and the temperatures were colder than the night before. We were fed a an incredible dinner for being tent camping, with lots of soup and tea to warm us up. Then we would grit our teeth and squeeze into sleeping bags until our bodies would warm them.

I would completely bury myself in my sleeping bag, leaving a small crack open for fresh air, but staying as close to the warmth of my body weight as possible.

(porter pic)

Yet, for tent camping and walking up a mountain, we lived much more luxuriously than we expected. When we arrived at camp, tired from a day of walking, we found our team of porters had beaten us up the hike, and had set up our sleeping tents and a dining tent — with tea, popcorn and food waiting for us. We ate protected from the wind, and unlike traditional backpacking, we didn’t have to set up or carry our tents or food.

Barafu Camp

It would not have been possible to make it up the mountain without the porters on Mount Kilimanjaro. Seeing them and meeting them truly shed light on how much effort it takes to keep just 5 measly humans alive and climbing. On a deeper level, it made us realize how many resources we use every day just to keep us alive, and how much work it takes for governments and people to keep those resources running. The world we live in is truly incredible. I digress.

While we huffed and puffed up the mountain, these porters carry water, food, tents, propane tanks, and baggage, passing us with a smile and a “Jambo!” as if they were strolling through the woods somewhere on sea level.

The Summit Attempt 🗻

The day of the summit attempt was different from any other, primarily because it was a night. We woke up at 11PM the same day we got to Barafu camp at 5PM, with only a couple hours of sleep in between hikes. At 14 degrees Fahrenheit, and in the dark, we used our headlamps and fully geared up for the summit. That meant everything was on us: hats, gloves, five top layers, three bottom layers, including snow pants. We were ready for the big challenge. Tired, freezing, bundled and guided only by headlamp, we set off.

Immediately we felt slow. Everyone summiting with us that night was slow, but we were slower. The night crept silently on, accompanied only by the sound of heavy breaths and hiking boots on loose rock, beneath a blanket of stars. I’ve never seen such a starry sky in my life.

After an hour or two in, things took a turn for the worse. My brother Kaamil was nauseous, and it was obvious that he wouldn’t be able to make it up the mountain. Stumbling in the dark, the guides knew he had to turn back or risk being carried back down the mountain that same day on a stretcher.

Mom refused to leave his side, even though the guides insisted she was strong enough to continue. Grudgingly, Dad, Nabeel and I decided to go on while Kaamil took a break with Mom — deciding to rest on some rocks before returning to the base camp.

Shortly after, Dad slowed. His breathing was heavy, and while we couldn’t see his face (our faces were completely covered to shield ourselves from the wind and lightly falling snowflakes), we knew he was drowsy and exhausted. Dad knew he couldn’t continue, as much as he wanted to.

That’s when Nabeel and I wanted to turn back. But he insisted that we try to reach the summit. He maintained that if some of us could do it, we should try.

Nabeel and I continued alone, but disheartened, while another guide took Dad down. What remained was me, Nabeel, our guide Wilfred, a huge gap between us and the rest of the hikers, silent darkness, boots on crunching stone, the blistering cold, and a sky full of stars.

We were 3 hours away from Stella Point, and 4 hours from Uhuru Peak when Nabeel and I started feeling lightheaded and we made a decision. Our heart wasn’t in the climb. We came as a family and we would finish (or not) as a family. Leaving three of the five of us below didn’t feel right. The silence was oppressive and the journey felt very, very long. Could we have physically made it? Perhaps. The guides certainly thought so. They couldn’t understand why we were turning back.

Yet, that moment was a very important one. It’s a moment that I’ve reflected upon and pondered intensely. Was that moment one of weakness? Of failure? Or was it a show of strength, and resolve, of commitment to my intentions?

It’s easy to postulate in retrospect. All I know is that in that moment that I needed to be authentic and recognize what I was feeling. And what I felt in that moment was that Uhuru Peak could wait. Being with family was more important.

Oh, I’ll be back 🤞

I’m incredibly proud of how far we got on the mountain. All five of us feel immense gratitude for our experience, despite not making it all the way up the mountain.

I have unfinished business with Mount Kilimanjaro. Next time, and there will be a next a time, my heart will be set on reaching the peak and being there to see that summit sunrise.

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Saalik Lokhandwala
Saalik’s Journal

Seeker of adventure, lover of ideas, lifetime learner. Writes and reads about tech startups, mindfulness, and fantastical worlds.