a long post about a long trek

you know what we learned on our kili trek? the guy matata who tried to sell us the trip for really cheap? his name means "trouble" as in, hakuna matata (you know the song as well as i do, so i'll spare you). what's in a name you ask? well, word on the street is that he's done time. second chances and all that, but not while climbing a 5895m mtn, thanks all the same.

kessy bro's did a really good job of taking care of us. the USD1115 we paid was the cheapest out of everyone we asked (altho lots of ppl booked their trek from overseas, where you're liable to get charged anywhere from $3500 to $1500--even though companies will most likely punt you off to zara, who will charge you around $1200 if you book directly. on the last day, we had dinner with todd and skip, both of whom were trekking with zara. skip paid $1900, which includes a $300 single traveler fee, and todd paid $1200; no fee, even though todd was also traveling alone. ouch.

anyways, our guide's name was nicholaus, nickname sungura ("rabbit"). we requested him b/c we'd heard that he was the assistant guide for jimmy carter in 1988. nick says carter used the marangu route, didn't summit, and had lots of security helicopters circling the mtn.

we started monday morning at machame gate (1800m) and hiked to machame hut (3000m). it was supposed to take us 4.5 hours, but we did it in 3.5, which includes the 30min we took for lunch. along the way, we lost nick b/c he was too busy talking on his phone, and we were too busy to notice. we thought he'd catch up eventually, but we didn't see him again till camp. we did the whole thing in a very comfy stroll--only breathing faster on the longer stretches of steps--but we managed to pass not only every other group, but also most of the porters. our punishment for speed = sitting in the rain waiting for our porters to show up with our tent. oh well.

a porter kilimanjaro

one of the groups we passed consisted of a bunch of ppl who had just run the kili marathon the day before. and now they're on a 6 day kili trek? crazy (k'cha in swahili (sp?)). a bunch of them even flew in from the US for the express pleasure of running a marathon at 4000feet, then climbing kilimanjaro the very next day. it was sold as a package tour like that. for crazy ppl by crazy ppl. not just the president, also a member. you get the idea.

we also met jeff and curry. jeff runs a fire department back in the states, but he's only in his 30s. he's also done tons of amazing things like expeditions to antarctica, etc. he's the one who convinced me to start my diamox the third day while throwing a frisbee around at 3900m. i don't know anything about curry except that he's afraid of spandex.

we hiked through eerily quiet rainforest. not a single animal on the way up. the odd bird call. like the whole forest but us was aware of a hidden danger sleeping in the next grove. pinpricks of wildflowers, red & yellow, pink, purple. wildberry bushes with tart, miserly fruit. the same grew by our tent, and erika ate some to the chagrin of our guides and porters. that girl is always hungry; most of her problems can be solved by feeding. this, after 1.5 months of listening to her stomach rumble (one night she woke up to her own hunger and thought that it was distant thunder. then she fed herself some coconut biscuits. also, more than one night, she's told me she's had nightmares about the striped mice stealing her biscuits--we saw striped mice even on the summit hike. i would guess at around 5000m...at that height, i have no idea what they'd eat...unless they feed exclusively on human vomit and erika's biscuit crumbs).

From kilimanjaro

wild berry bushes kilimanjaro

right around sunset, flashes of red lightning lit up the clouds. that first night, i slept amazingly--the silent forest a welcome change from the street noises of moshi, the party noises of jinja, and the tin roof amplifications of mbita. i lay snug in my sleeping bag, a hot nalgene tucked between my thighs for added warmth (another helpful tip from jeff). we were high enough to make the heart beat exciting, but not yet to make the head ache. waking up to pee, i see the loud stars overhead and hear the distant chanting of the night warden's radio.

first sunset kilimanjaro

in the morning, we ate breakfast outside, with the welcome sun warming my back. uhuru peak stood in the distance like a challenge.

on day 2, we hiked to shira camp (3900m). right before starting out, some of the porters discover a thomson (?) grazing near the cook tent. it's a fat black deerlike animal. when we first saw it, we both thought it was a pig. other than this, all we've seen are striped mice. too bad--apparently there are supposed to be honey badgers here (a kili website has this to say about them: "Don’t be fooled by the rather cute name. As well as being blessed with a face only its mother could love, these are the most powerful and fearless carnivores for their size in Africa. Even lions give them a wide berth. You should too: not only can they cause a lot of damage to your person, but the thought of having to tell your friends that, of all the bloodthirsty creatures that roam the African plains, you got savaged by a badger, is too shaming to contemplate.")

can you see the thomson? he's staring at you. kilimanjaro

this day's hike was thru heather, moorland. dwarf trees hanging with moss. much rockier, steeper, and through some of the lower clouds. we started off fast again (erika's fault), but soon learned to pace off a team of friendly germans. jakob is a 23 yr old med student who did a rotation in south africa, and is now climbing kili with his dad (corny, short for cornelius, but we all called him babu lungo--"gramps"). claudius, the random german guy who spoke no english, rounded out their group (incidentally, we didn't know that claudius didn't speak english until the fourth night, when we were playing rummy and jakob left the tent to pee. that's a long time to talk to someone without them understanding a word, but at least i finally knew why he blanked me whenever i asked him a question). thanks to jakob & co, we managed to hit the eta of 3.5 hours (including lunch).

From kilimanjaro

From kilimanjaro

at shira, i start feeling the elevation. a slight buzz in the hindbrain, a perfect happiness to just sit. the camp is covered in clouds when we first arrive. visibility of maybe 20m. murders of huge crows everywhere to feed on our trash. the dizziness goes away after a diamox and a nap. i break out the disc, and jeff, erika, and i have a toss. it flies faster than usual, and a couple of them hit us hard in the gut. doesn't hurt thanks to the layers.

layers of mountains kilimanjaro

venus setting kilimanjaro

bathroom above the clouds kilimanjaro

kibo kilimanjaro

nick brings us exciting gossip (yes, i've switched to present tense...sue me). a group of "superstars" are camping at shira hut that night (~30min away), and a paparazi who works for the daily mail (a british rag) has been kicked out of their camp into ours. he was supposed to climb all the way to baranco (where we are going the next day), but he balked, claiming sickness (i'd be sick too at the thought of starting the 6 hr hike at 4pm), so instead, he had 4 park wardens guarding him, and 1 armed park warden to guard the superstars at shira hut. much drama in the next 24 hrs, as the superstars try to force him off the mtn (apparently he already took a pic of someone peeing, and he's been running ahead of them, hiding in a bush, and popping out to take pics just when they look their worst). they've offered to pay for his tour, but he's told his guide that they don't have any money, and that he gets 40k lbs per pic to try to get his guide to help him out instead. when the park wardens arrive and ask why he isn't going to baranco as commanded, he tells them that his guide told him to come to shira camp instead. his guide is like," wtf! you told me you were sick!" but the park wardens threaten to revoke his guide's license anyways. eventually, the paparazi does get kicked off the mountain. at the time we wondered how anyone can kick anyone else off the trek that they've bought. i mean, it's a national park, not private property. turns out the superstars (who are actually the comic relief team from the uk, doing a red nose day charity climb) are pretty tight with the government (they paid a lot of money for their visas), and the paparazi is here on a tourist visa, but since he's selling photos, he should be on a work visa.

the comic relief team had like 200 ppl (including porters, guides, etc), so they were literally an army, even staying in army drab tents. they did an 8 day hike, the last 4 days of which coincided with ours. the celebrities involved are: Gary Barlow (of take that), Chris Moyles (dj for radio1), Ben Shephard (english tv presenter), Ronan Keating (of boyzone) , Fearne Cotton (tv and radio presenter), Denise Van Outen (english actress, tv presenter, and rear of the year 1999), Kimberley Walsh (of girls aloud), Cheryl Cole (wife of chelsea soccer player ashley cole and member of girls aloud) and Alesha Dixon (formerly of mis-teeq, now solo, winner of strictly come dancing 2007)--can you tell i had to wiki most of them? some of them were really friendly, and some of them were really aloof. i guess that's not really all that surprising.

bbc is covering their efforts. the show is airing thursday at 8pm on bbc 1. i prolly won't be in any footage, but at least you can see exactly what we went through (although we didn't quite have the same level of support as they did...i think the last girl literally got dragged the last kilometer or so. we met them on our way down and i gave her (and her two guides) my last packet of gu).

on day 3, we hike to lava tower (4600m) where the comic relief team will spend the night, and everyone else will hike down to baranco (3950m). when we wake up, the sky is clear as usual, with a few fluffy clouds below us. i spot a short rainbow that seems to go from nowhere to nowhere. we climb steadily through red: reddish moss covering darker rocks that break with bright red streaks. wisps of cloud pass amongst us, moving fast. the plantlife is reduced to short things alee of the rocks: spiky thistle plants with mild pink flowers, lichen. we get our first clear glimpse of kibo ("there is"). it rises directly in front of us. eventually, we start seeing ice on the ground and some streams of meltwater. at lava tower, we lose sight of the peak. we eat packed lunches amongst jagged volcanic cliffs enshrouded in mist; harsh winds whip our faces. i can't believe anyone would want to camp here. we hurry our food, scrambling down a steep path that skips gradually back into vegetation. a grove of tall senecio plants herald our arrival at baranco camp. the whole trip took maybe 3 hours up, 2 hours down.

snow at lava tower kilimanjaro

scrambling down from lava tower kilimanjaro

sungura's senecio garden kilimanjaro

after dinner, we wander to the cliff edge with jakob to see moshi town. instead, we find a serval, sprinting amongst the bushes. long graceful strides until it was out of the clear. i think it was afraid of us. a serval is a small, leopard-colored cat with longer ears that feeds mostly on rodents. our first cat sighting in africa! after that, the night lights of moshi hardly thrilled. we spent the rest of the night in jakob's food tent, playing rummy with him and claudius.

tents at the base of a glacier kilimanjaro

that night, i couldn't sleep for excitement. most of our friends were on the 6 day trek, so they would be summiting at midnight the next day after a 6 hour hike to barafu camp, where they'd get a meal and a couple hours nap. erika and i still had a good 2 days to go, but i got the anticipation jitters. at least my nightly wake-up-pee was less painful than usual...i mean, if i'm restless anyways, then it's not much of a sacrifice to crawl out of the sleeping bag. outside, the night is clear as always (it's been raining in the afternoons and clearing up in the evenings). stars overhead, moshi lights in the distance, and the glow of the glacier on the mountain.

in the morning, a fly rests on my teaspoon, and thinking to chase it off with my fork, i make a slow stabbing motion towards it. apparently, i was too fast for the fly, who ended up impaled on my fork. i guess i won't be using that fork anymore. this must be what it feels like to be a squirrel: you think you're moving slowly, but the rest of the world is like whoa there fella. or maybe the fly saw me coming, but couldn't fly away for the altitude? a slow dreaded death like the pit and the pendulum...or maybe it saw me coming, but the tea was just too good...like a drug addict.

From kilimanjaro

since we only have a 3 hr hike, we start off really late (actually, we're usually the last to leave camp, but this time we actually have an excuse). our first challenge is the baranco wall (aka the breakfast wall, since you climb it right after breakfast). it looks impenetrable, but there's a hidden path that winds thru it. it's the toughest bit of the trek in terms of technical climbing ability, but it's still pretty easy...unless you're a porter with a table on your head.

we watch the marathoner group snake slowly (very slowly) out of camp. then, 20 min later, we see 2 of them stride back. they're going down. the first to quit, and still days before summit. already. already!

ppl winding up baranco wall kilimanjaro

clouds above and below baranco camp kilimanjaro

From kilimanjaro

we climb to 4200m today before starting our descent into karanga camp (3930m--yes, it's slightly lower than baranco). most of the terrain is arid wasteland. not much growing at all. riverbeds (glacial deposits?) of gravel. every once in a while, a cloud blows thru to make you feel even more alone. before reaching karanga, we have to climb down a valley and climb back up again. on the way up, my face starts to tingle. interesting feeling. we catch jakob at karanga before they head off to barafu, wishing them a last round of luck. babu is feeling pretty down...we hope he can make it.

karanga camp kilimanjaro

karanga camp is...well, not very pretty. it's on an unprotected slope with rocks all around. the only reason to be here is that it's close to a river, from which porters carry water for boiling (unless you're with comic relief, in which case you drink bottled water the whole way). i feel pretty lonely and antsy. all of the friends we've made along the way have gone ahead without us. i really hope they make it. and i wonder what will become of the marathon group.

needless to say, i can't sleep again that night. the gradient in our tent which keeps rolling me off my sleeping mat doesn't help at all. in the morning, we're the last to leave again. the comic relief team trudge past us, one by one. the girls seem like they're going really slowly...at what i'd like to call chain gang pace (like they have ankle shackles on). or maybe it's more bridal march pace? take a step, wait a beat, take a step. at least it's clear in the morning. we can see mt meru in the distance.

mt meru kilimanjaro

it takes us 2 hrs to reach barafu. we pass everyone and their mother on the way. at one point, a security dude in sunglasses walks out onto the path and holds up his hand (but he doesn't say a word). i'm kinda like, dude, you don't own the mountain or the path, so unless you actually ask me politely to stop, i ain't gonna. when we keep walking, some porters behind us tell us to stop b/c some of the famous girls are peeing. ah ok. fair nuff. later, as we walk past them, we say hi, but receive grumpy stares in return (they may have been tired).

the last uphill slope before camp is steep. we let nicolaus go ahead, and he adopts his moonwalk pace. i actually caught him stepping as if going forward, but letting his foot fall behind his other foot once. reminds me of those math problems...if a snail crawls up a well at 1 inch a minute but falls 3 inches every 5 minutes, how long will it take it to reach the top of a 10 ft well?

we both feel the elevation at barafu (4600m) despite the diamox. i'm not hungry at all. just want to crawl into my sleeping bag and stay there for a while. we're early enough to meet most of our friends on their way down. nearly everyone made it, even babu! jakob says that babu was feeling pretty bad, but when his guide suggested turning back, babu got a sudden burst of power and managed to make it to the top. the marathoners all made it too. when they came down, i saw that one of them had a bunch of caked blood around his nose/mouth. i was impressed...altho i shouldn't be surprised that marathoners are good at pain tolerance. masochists, every one of them.

a celeb girl making her way past barafu to kosovo kilimanjaro

after we had a light lunch, erika and i took a very nice 2 hour nap. i woke up in time to see the celebs walking past our camp, into their higher camp, called kosovo. it's 1 hr higher into the mtn, so they get to forego the steeper rockier bit at the beginning of the hike. you need a special permit to camp there, since there are no toilets, but their porters were carrying portable toilets for them anyways. we also saw a porter carrying a box of bottled water up for them. fancy.

our porters had to carry our water all the way from karanga, so we had to use it sparingly, plus one of our porters was suffering from the altitude, so he went down a day early (accompanied by another porter), so we were 2 porters short. those guys are pretty amazing.

mawenzi peak in the distance kilimanjaro

clouds rebounding off of hot rocks kilimanjaro

after our nap, nick took us up to kosovo so we could see what we were in for. i was still feeling groggy, so i just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. we got back down, ate some dinner, and slept again for 2 hours. at around 10:45 pm, i wake up to my bladder, and am too excited to fall back asleep. the summit hike is nigh! danny, our waiter (sad, i know), brings us some porridge and biscuits, and i force them down. at least it wasn't yet cold outside. the stars are out in force, and i am excited to get going.

the first 2 hours of the hike are easy. not very windy, and we'd already done the first bit of it anyways. i keep telling myself not to be an indian (apparently, indians are the most likely to turn back early. on the marangu route, there's even a place called indian's point about 1 hr into the summit hike, where most indians give up. the japanese are the hardiest. nick says he's had japanese clients crawling on hands and knees to reach the summit despite their altitude sickness). the excitement keeps the going good.

between 2am and 3am, i start to get bored. this coincides with the picking up of the wind. not good. i feel like a little kid in the back seat of the car. when are we going to get there? but at least being antsy while walking is better than rolling around in my sleeping bag, anticipating the antsy walking. i try to sing some songs in my head (in particular, a chinese one about living in the northwest high country. there's a bit that goes: "a big wind blows overhead. doesn't matter if it's northwest wind or a southeast wind, they are all my song." it's best sung in a loud wailing manner, where you really just open your throat and let it rip, but i can't really do the song justice, so i just let it bounce around inside my brain), but nick is singing some tuneless song (i think he was motivating us?), which he alternates with the tanzanian national anthem (which i preferred), which he alternates with roaring and growling and yelling of "we're going to the summit! why not?!". i can only imagine what the ppl below us thought (oh yeah, we start off behind a couple of groups, but true to form, we soon pass them. one group of old folks even yelled out "polle polle"--"slowly slowly", which i like to sing to the tune of the siberian slave driving tune (actually, i dunno what the tune is called, or really how to describe it, but trust me you've heard it)). nick's cheering prevented me from getting into a groove with any of my own head songs, but i did manage a mantra: "polle polle up, down with impunity". mantras are important on long distance things. they keep your feet moving like a robot.

the wind really starts to blow, stealing my breath. i hold my gloves in front of my face to try to create a pocket of warm still air, which works, but my arms soon get tired. nick sees this, and offers me a face mask. life saver.

erika stops to pee, and i notice that i am shivering hard. i hadn't realized that my muscles were this cold. i try to limit the stops to as few as possible. gotta keep moving, even if we do it at chaingang pace. my footfalls never fully exceed my other foot, and every once in a while, i stumble sideways or backwards. mostly just from disorientation. still no headache, which i was expecting. to stave off boredom, i use the turns in the path to stare alternately at the big dipper, which hangs barely above the mountain (in fact, we lost it altogether for a bit of the way), and the city lights down below. i think about the underground railroad and the long march.

two streaks of light overhead cheer me. i think they are shooting stars, but at our next pitstop, i see streaks of green light shooting across my bag as well. great, i'm hallucinating. this is the most expensive hallucinagen i've ever bought. at least i still feel almost no pain. diamox, do your work!

around 4 am, i get my second wind. i feel great. i guess part of the 2-3am downer was the fear of running out of air...but now we're high enough that i know i can make it. stella point is just an hour away! but erika is flagging. she's walking with her eyes closed...sometimes standing for long stretches that way. nick and i end up losing her for a couple of yards and then waiting, even at this slow shuffle. the waiting is painful for me...i'm really cold and can't stand to stop moving. finally, she eats a granola bar, and the sugar rush wakes her up (told you, the answer is always food). she's much better now, but says she feels a headache. i'm still headache free.

the approach to stella point is steep, but i don't mind. my legs were never the limiting factor anyways. we just shuffle along at our slow pace. like broken windup toys. up and down, but barely forward. i worry that we'll make the peak too early. it's freezing up there before sunrise, but i don't want to stop for cold. nick says stella point is just ahead (it's around 4:30am). i see a shack with a light in the window, so i point and ask him, "what's that?" he's like, "what?" "that." "a rock?" "no, beyond the rock" "um....another rock?" yeah, hallucinations. the light in the window was a star, and my mind constructed a lighter patch of sky around it to make the shack. after that, i kept my discoveries to myself.

right around stella point, i see more shooting stars, but these look different than the previous ones. i say, "shooting stars", and nick confirms that he sees them too, which is really important to me at this point. yay, not completely crazy.

nick wants to stop a while at stella point (so we don't peak too early), but i've heard too many ppl say that they made it to stella and no farther. i don't want to stop at all. if we don't stop, we have no chance of, well, stopping there. plus, i was shaking from the cold. my mantra changes to "fuck stella point". i did not go this far to say, "well, i almost summited" and then have to explain how stella is really close to uhuru after all. no asterisks for me. at around 5:15, we reach the last outcropping of rocks before the summit. sunrise won't be till 6:30. i finally consent to stop, and we sit shivering under the rocks, trying to huddle for warmth. while we're there, we see todd (a british kid) come down from the summit b/c of the cold. he had started climbing at 1:30 am (most ppl start at midnight), and gotten there way too early anyways. now he would miss the sunrise. another group start to pass us, and i call out to them to come huddle for warmth. they don't really respond to this, and only later do i learn that it was the comic relief group.

at around 6, we go the rest of the way to the summit. it's still dark when we reach it, and we keep looking east in hopes of seeing a lightening of the sky. finally arriving at the signpost announcing uhuru peak is amazing. my eyes start to tear...but i realize it's silly to cry over this, and stop myself. big hugs all around with nicholaus and frankie (our assistant guide). some of the comic relief team is already there with their camera crew, and they're shining their headlamps into the faces so they can tape. i'm happy to let them hog the sign announcing uhuru for now. they jump around a bit, their guides and porters do a kilimanjaro dance that gets taped (while we try to stand out of the way), and then a bunch of them start their descent. the sun hasn't even really risen yet, but i guess they want to get out of the cold.

i venture up to the sign, next to someone with a poofy comic relief jacket on. i say, "so did all of you make it?", but i think he heard, "all of us made it!", so he replies, "yeah, isn't it awesome?!" and gives me a big hug. huh. i remind myself to look up who he is later, but i'm excited b/c i'm pretty sure he's one of the boybanders.

we don't stay on the peak for much longer. maybe 10 minutes to take pictures. it hurts to take my hands out of my mittens, so quality of pics are sacrificed.

From kilimanjaro

first glimmer of sun kilimanjaro

From kilimanjaro

glacier at the peak kilimanjaro

From kilimanjaro

From kilimanjaro

nick makes us run the descent. he says staying in the sun too long will make us weak. the thing i hate most about climbing mtns is the coming down. what's my motivation? but we slip and slide down the gravel and the volcanic ash anyways. at least i have the experience of fuji to help me out. i remember to dig my heels in and not commit too much to any step. my quads are really burning.

on our way down, we pass alesha dixon, struggling past stella point. she has two guys abreast of her, one under each shoulder. i hear one of them tell her, "you see that? that's the mountain. that's it. just that." i offer them my last packet of gu (mint chocolate with caffeine!), but i think they don't really know what it is, and think i'm creepy. then i offer it to one of their camera crew girls, who thanks me for it, and gives it to her and a cameraman, who had also hit a wall. oh well, i was done. i had made it.

we pass a couple more ppl on the way down and offer encouragement. by the time i get to camp, my knees are shot, and i almost get blown over twice by the wind. the wind is really at it now. it had already blown over lots of tents. we crawl into ours, take another nap, and listen to the flapping outside. enormous force of will to pack our bags for the rest of the hike down to mweka camp.

it takes us 3 hours to hit mweka. the hike passes in a painful blur. i'm not looking at scenery anymore, i've seen it all, done it all. i just want off this mountain. i want a hot shower (after 7 days of hiking without bathing) and a pizza, and i can't believe we have to spend another day at camp. i also can't believe that the only way off is by walking. didn't i pay a $20 rescue fee? come on! no more walking!

the next morning, i'm not as sore as i expect, and my knees have stopped aching. sweet! still, i'm ready to get back to moshi (never thought i'd say that). i practically run the rest of the way down, and sit at the gate waiting for nick and erika (erika was having eye problems, so she couldn't go as fast).

while waiting, two of the boybanders come down. this is my last chance to talk to them, so all caution to the (ample) wind. i make my smooth approach and say, "are you the famous ppl? hi, i'm lily. what's your name?" (i know, this charm can't be taught). turns out the guy who gave me the hug at the summit was ronan keating! he was super nice, and even offered to buy me a beer. i initially said no, but then when greg, a former olympian pentathlete, now a member of their crew, offered again, i thought, when am i going to drink kilimanjaro beer after climbing kilimanjaro with ronan keating and ben shephard again? so yeah, i had a beer, and got a bit tipsy (but much better than normal, i had no breathing problems whatsoever and became really good at both bargaining and arithmetic--i bought a masai knife and arranged our safari while tipsy. that's what i call altitude training). ronan and ben are both really down to earth. they even asked me what i do and why i was in africa. so yeah, my brush with fame.

ronan keating! like, ohmigod! kilimanjaro

and then when i got back to moshi, i found out that i made iceni!!!!! HURRAH! that's better than all the boyband encounters in the world! SO EXCITED!