June 28th – Extreme bus-riding
The adventure begins! We spent the daylight hours on an 11 ½ hour bus ride from Dar to Arusha, a town about an hour and a half west of Kilimanjaro. Like my rides to and from Ifakara, I spent a long time looking out the windows as half the country sped by outside. I completed a friendship bracelet I’d started a long time ago and went a bit overboard, so it ended up as an anklet! Our bus stopped twice for bathroom breaks, and by drinking minimal water I was able to avoid full-bladder discomfort. I’m learning! Towards the end of our drive we went through a baobab forest, which was incredible – I’ve always loved those trees and seeing so many surrounding the bus from all sides was amazing.
Jeanie and I were amused by the Tanzanian TV shown on our ride: seductive music videos set at produce stands (major images: peeling bananas, feeding each other tomatoes), a revenge tale where a bajaj driver repeatedly cheats on his wife with his clients (“My husband who are you picking up at the airport? She is a woman? I say my husband I am taking away the keys!”), and a Jackie Chan buddy comedy about rescuing a baby. As the last movie wound down, we could see Kilimanjaro outside our window, rising up from the plains and bursting from the clouds that ringed the mountain.
As a side note – my Zanzibarf experience ended up giving me a bad throat infection. The day before we left, I went to a doctor and got antibiotics that were supposed to clear everything up. Since this is Tanzania, they didn’t. Spoiler alert: a cough will figure prominently in our Kili tales!
June 29th – Tourist life
We woke up after a refreshing sleep in our hostel and loaded up on breakfast at the rooftop restaurant. At 9 a.m. we met our Kilimanjaro guide Kombe from Kuro Expeditions, who checked out our gear, decided what we’d need to rent, and gave us an orientation to the mountain. We had a preliminary health check: My pulse was 85 (it may be time to run a little more…) and blood oxygen 96.
We met up at the clock tower with our friend Lauren (from our Zanzibar trip) – she works in Arusha and had heard of a cool place called Cultural Heritage to check out. We took a psycho daladala about 2 km out of town and ended up at this astounding cultural center. It consisted of an indoor marketplace that had a collection of basically every souvenir you could buy in Tanzania at ridiculously inflated prices – but with no vendors, you were free from harassment (you get what you pay for!). They had a collection of tanzanite, the precious blue/purple gem found only in Tanzania, fantastic wooden animal sculptures everywhere, and sort-of cultural reenactments (expecting something like Sturbridge Village, got statues instead!).
After 2 hours there and another harrowing daladala to the town center, we got money, snacks for our hike (dried fruit, candy bars, “nut balls”), and dinner at a great Indian place with the best milkshakes EVER. After an avocado shake, great butter naan and an okay veggie burger, we said goodbye to Lauren and went back to our room to finish getting ready for our mountain departure the next day. Excitement and trepidation!
June 30th – First day of hiking!
We woke up at 8 at our hostel to British kids relating stories about their crazy night out and a Spanish guy yelling about a girl in their group who’s had too much fun. After we finished eating all the breakfast (cue shocked looks from the staff…give up, guys), we left at 9:30 with Kombe and our driver. We bought a few more supplies on the way and arrived at the mountain base at 11. After meeting the rest of our 12-MAN ENTOURAGE (including our assistant guide Isaya, a cook, waiter, toilet-master, camp manager, and 6 porters), we “checked in” to the mountain with our passport numbers. We saw our friend Gwen, a French guy who co-organizes the weekly “Dining in Dar” expat dinner parties we’ve started attending, as well as another French woman from our Arusha hostel. All the hikers were white, mainly Europeans and South Africans with a good bunch of Americans and a scattering of Asians thrown in.
Our route, 62-kilometer Machame, would have about 70 hikers and 400 support crew people (guides, porters, etc) starting that day. There are six different hiking routes (good overview here). Machame’s limit is 150 hikers starting per day, which means at the high season there might be 1000 people at each stage of the route, or 6,000 on the entire route! Multiplied across the rest of the mountain, you’re looking at a ton of people all hiking at the same time. Even though we were just at the beginning of high season, the mountain was sure to be filled with people.
We hiked from about 12:30 to 5:30, mainly in a rainforest and ending in a heather forest. The rainforest was humid, but chilly whenever we stopped. Clouds were all around us as we hiked up a ridge above two valleys. White mist surrounded everything on the steep but well maintained trail.
Night pulse: 91
Night oxygen: 90
July 1st – Gettin’ our altitude on
I woke in the middle of the night gasping for breath. We were barely at any altitude at all, but my body could recognize the change! It was slightly scary. I had to sit up straight and force deep breaths into my body. A potentially problematic complication!
July began bright and early with a 6:30 wake-up and our choice of hot drinks in bed. We stayed snuggled in our warm bags until 7, when we heard the persistent call of “water for washing!” They were really into cleanliness (their safety acronym SWAT stands for Snacks, Water, Always Clean, and…T-something). Jeanie went outside like an obedient camper but I stayed for a while and only went to wash up around 7:15. Breakfast was a delight: porridge, papaya, eggs, and toast, once more in our private tent (I could get used to this kind of living). We had our morning checkup of pulse and oxygen, plus lungs to see if we were still fit to hike. Despite my cough, my lungs were clear. Good to go! It was a bright day and already warm, so I wore the same shorts and t-shirt from the day before. Of course everyone else wore long sleeves and pants, but I am nothing if not hot-blooded.
We started off around 9 with a steep section that lasted until lunch. The land was all heather and scrub, a sort of cross between high-altitude Colorado and the deserts of Texas (as I imagine them), plus the English highlands (I was in a bit of a Wuthering Heights mood, having left it halfway finished before the hike). We climbed up steep rocks for the whole time, alternately grappling and using our hiking poles. We stopped for lunch around 12:30 at a big overlooking plateau. We were making good time and were in the first third of hikers, despite our slow pace. We got boxed lunches of eggs, a muffin, banana, orange, crackers, and a 4-layer (for real) PB&J.
As we set off again, Isaya and Kombe kept reminding us to go “pole pole” – slowly! I’m very competitive and kept thinking we could be going faster; every time we’d be passed I’d want to pick up the pace again. But our slow pace was very important for acclimatization, and I was always sufficiently tired at the end of the day. Besides, our need for speed would soon diminish with altitude. We talked to a few people on the hike, including a group from Salt Lake City. The day passed easily overall and we were into camp by 3. We had some amazing views of the summit all day. I couldn’t believe it would take us 2 ½ more days to get there – it looked so close!
We camped at 13,000 feet at Shira Camp, a vast plain rippling with intense wind. It was crazy – there was dust everywhere, including the rim of the toilet seat (a mistaken sit-down necessitated about 10 minutes of wet-wiping). The wind was unusual, our guides said, though nothing to worry about. Over the course of the day Jeanie’s rented boots had broken, with the bottom detaching, so Kombe went off in search of a boot repairman and she would have to hike in sneakers the next day.
By the middle of the day we’d hiked above the thick cloud-layer with only a few large puffs between the burning sun and us. A fluffy whiteness blanketed everything below. We got some hilarious compliments from Isaya and Kombe that we were much better hikers than the British, who “hike for 5 minutes and want to stop for 30.” We confirmed that we’d be beating them on July 4th summit day – very symbolic indeed. We also learned how experienced our guides were: Isaya had climbed 70 times and Kombe 150!
Night Pulse: 94
Night Oxygen: 89
July 2nd – Up and down again: A hiker’s tale
We woke up to hot beverages once more. I used Jeanie’s idea from yesterday to warm the clothes I’d wear in my sleeping bag. It wasn’t too cold, despite the howling wind of the night before, and I hiked in leggings, a long-sleeved running T, and sometimes a raincoat for warmth. We climbed from 13,000 feet to 15,000 feet (and back down again on another route). We passed from the heather moorland to an alpine desert. We were already far above the cloud blanket but now passed through and above the wispy clouds that rose far higher. At one point we were trekking through desert rocks with a cloud rolling through, and it looked just like the beginning of The Two Towers when Frodo and Sam go in circles in the rocks. And so the Lord of the Rings imagery began.
It was an insanely tiring day and my cough and runny nose did not help. Luckily Jeanie had some antihistamines for me to take, so I hoped the next day’s ascent would be more comfortable. It was absolutely our most difficult day (thus far!) but also had so many stunning views: Lava Tower, the summit, and the beautiful valley where we ended up, Barranco Camp. Barranco was luckily not windy, and a tasty dinner of potato-and-leek soup, rice with veggie sauce, and oranges and avocados rounded out a solid day. We passed out a little after 7:30 – we were anticipating tomorrow’s 8-9 hour day and then the 18-hour summit day, so a good sleep was necessary!
Pulse: 98 (morning), 95 (night)
Oxygen: 89 (morning), 87 (night)
Another even more difficult day. We woke to tasty white porridge, papaya, and crepes, and set off around 8:30 (though I could no longer be certain as my watch broke!). Barranco camp blessedly stayed un-windy all night but was still freezing in its valley location. We started off the day by ascending the Barranco Wall, which rose 800 feet basically straight up. It reminded me quite a bit of Minas Morgul! This hike was rapidly becoming one oxygen-deprived LOTR moment after LOTR moment. The climb was tough but fun, as we could scramble to our heart’s content. We could see the whole valley laid out before us as we went up, up, up.
Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent climbing up and up to Barafu Camp’s 15,000 feet. We left the moorland forever and were solidly in an alpine desert, with white-necked ravens the only living things. We ascended a series of steep shale-filled hills; between the igneous rocks and mist, I felt like we were climbing Mt. Doom. I really could not get Frodo and Sam out of my mind! I started getting a bad altitude headache but Kombe had some painkillers handy that banished it quickly. By planting a smile on my face and thinking happy thoughts, the rest of the hike went well, despite my hacking cough.
We turned in as early as we could, around 7:30, for we’d have to wake up at 11 to begin our climb to the summit!
Pulse: 108 (morning), 115 (night) – AH!
Oxygen: 89 (morning), 80 (night) – Hello death.
Summit day! We woke up at 11 p.m., so technically still July 3rd. I don’t think I actually slept more than an hour or so because I was anticipating the day so much. It was cold beyond the coldest cold in our tent and I couldn’t stop shaking – how much colder would it be on the mountain? Well, our questions were put to rest with our very early wake-up – time to go, ready or not! We’d slept in most of our hiking clothing so we got out of the tent fast. If you’re curious, here is how much clothing I was wearing: a sports bra, two long-sleeved synthetic t-shirts, one short-sleeved t-shirt, a long-sleeved fleece, a down jacket, running tights, long underwear, hiking pants, rain pants, two pairs of wool socks, a balaclava, hat, glove liners, and ski gloves. Summit temperatures regularly fall below O, so our clothing was no joking matter!
We were supposed to eat breakfast before heading out but as we’d just eaten dinner before bed, and we were also nervous, we barely ate a thing. Pretty soon, around 12 or so, it was time to leave! I found myself plenty warm in the clothes I had and even took off the fleece. We also hired two of our porters, Salvastory and Kimti, to carry our day bags (all very hush-hush, as they didn’t have summit permits). Kombe told us it would make a world of difference, and he was not wrong.
When we set off it was of course pitch black. Wind was howling as dozens of bright headlights already dotted the looming trail we’d be climbing. We couldn’t see the summit or anything except what was right in front of us; the only way to make out the size of the mountain was by the absence of stars.
Jeanie and I had no watches. Our only sense of the passage of time was a slowly rising crescent moon above Kili’s 2nd-highest of three peaks, the distant Mawenzi. We could see the twinkling lights of Moshi Town in the distance. The wind whipped all around us – much stronger, Kombe told us, than usual. Each breath was arduous and it took so much effort to just move our bodies up another step of rock or foot of gravel. The night thus passed slowly but surely, as we froze our butts and hands peeing in the elements and our core temperatures dropped at the smallest cessation of motion. Pole pole remained the motto of the night; we kept a very slow but steady pace and had infrequent three-minute breaks, maybe one per hour. Jeanie and I hiked between Isaya and Kombe, with our two porters right behind us, and mine and Jeanie’s headlamps the only source of illumination. It was absolutely the most physically and mentally draining thing I had ever done, between trying to shove scant air into my lungs and enforcing a ‘positive psychology’ mental state upon myself (“You can do it!” I screamed in my mind. “Don’t you dare stop! Everyone who’s ever hiked this mountain was in just as much pain as you! This is not supposed to be easy! You are getting to the top!”).
It was amazing how easy the descent was on the lungs, even though our altitude changed very slowly. We just had to use our bodies so much less. I was smiling and saying “good job, almost there!” to those still trudging from Stella to Uhuru, and left my mark 100 feet from the summit with a pee break. I was so giddy and oxygen-deprived that I couldn’t really process anything – the whole day seemed like a dream.
The descent back to Barafu took about 2 ½ hours, and in the full sunlight we could see the enormity of what we’d climbed. I slid down the scree, hiking poles in hand, and we found Jeanie about to pass out a few minutes below the summit. Kombe fitted her with oxygen from the emergency canister and brought her levels up from a scary 65 to a normal 99. I was starving – I’d eaten only a candy bar on the way up – so I downed dried mango and a Mars bar and rallied to get back down the slope.
I didn’t know this at the time, but Jeanie had a crazy oxygen deprivation experience. As she described it later, she felt like she was about to fall asleep and/or pass out for the entire summit hike. Her eyes would roll back in her head and she’d shake herself back to sense. By the time she’d left the summit from nausea and was resting on the descent, she was certain she was about to lose consciousness. I realized how lucky I was to just have experienced a headache from altitude sickness, and how lucky we both were to have avoided the frequent vomiting and diarrhea that affects people as well. Many people we later talked to had seriously hallucinated on the climb up and could barely remember a thing.
We made it back to our camp (which looked just like Edoras from above) at 11 a.m. and got to nap for two glorious hours in our tent under the now-blazing sun. We had lunch at 1 – wonderfully satisfying grilled cheese and veggies and soup – and by 2:30 were saying goodbye to the summit base camp and heading back to earth.
Oxygen (night): 91 (recovering!)
Pulse (night): 110 (please go down some day…)
July 5th – Last day on the mountain!
I wrote this entry from our lodgings (Kilimanjaro Backpackers Hotel) in Moshi, the town at the base of the mountain – a bizarre feeling, indeed, to be back in a relatively hot and busy town after Kili!
We woke at 6:15, earlier than usual, to get a head start on the crowded path. Our descent route, Mweka, was the sole descent route on the mountain, so all the porters and hikers from every trail had to make their way down the same path. It was a brisk but exciting morning, full of sadness since we knew we were leaving the mountain behind, but also excitement at the prospect of a shower and warm bed.
Near the bottom of the 3-hour descent we saw a family of black-and-white colobus monkeys sleeping in the trees. We also had a talk with an American businesswoman, a late-30s corporate type who’d travelled a ton when she was younger and encouraged us to do the same. “You will have plenty of money when you’re older,” she explained, “but no time.” She and her husband had left their three kids for two weeks for this trip, and even that was a lot. I’m not sure how realistic her money ideas were – I’m certainly not going into a corporate job that will keep me rolling in dough – but the truth about shifting life priorities and standards definitely were. We are young, with nothing to truly tie us down, and we have the fortitude and cheapness to stay in grimy places and attempt 12-hour cross-country bus trips. We can travel light and fast. We’ll have the rest of our lives to make money. “I backpacked for 12 weeks after college graduation,” she said. “I should have done 12 months.” She went to SE Asia, the Middle East, and much of Africa. Her go-getter attitude was infectious. “Have a good life!” she said as we reached the bottom. I hope we will.
We signed out, drove in a big van with the crew to Moshi, got to our hotel, took out all the stuff we’d rented from Kuro, and waited forever for Kombe and Isaya to return (“20 minutes” = two hours). We said our final goodbyes to Kombe and made plans to explore the next day with Isaya. From there, Isaya walked us to an Internet café, we bought some dinner food, I called my parents, took a half-hour long shower, ate my avocado and tomatoes, and sat down to write!
Jeanie and I also talked a bit about our experience on the mountain. So much just seemed unreal! Back in a hot East African town, getting harassed all day because people (rightly) assume we’re rich foreigners, etc. – Kilimanjaro was just such a nice mental vacation!
The traffic is streaming by at 8 p.m. as I sit on the rooftop of the hostel. In the deep night air, the shining top of Kilimanjaro is no longer visible. The muezzin’s call has come and gone, and now Muslim prayers echo down the busy street. “Allah-o-Akbar!" I feel my head drooping, my consciousness ebbing. The end of a journey, but one I can relive forever in this diary, in my pictures, and in my future writing. Cheers.
All the rest:
Now that would have been a fitting, pretty ending, but we still had a day in Moshi, a bus ride back to Dar, and a new house to move into!
In somewhat abbreviated form: I went to a Moshi doctor the day after we finished climbing to get my persistent cough checked out. Well, fuck-and-a-half, as I like to say: by climbing Kilimanjaro with an unhealed throat infection, which I was definitely not supposed to do, I’d ended up with bronchitis. Instead of going out with Jeanie, Isaya, and two girls from New Zealand to see waterfalls, a cave, and Chagga cultural museum, I spent the rest of the day in bed. It wasn’t too bad: I finished Wuthering Heights (WHAT A GREAT BOOK) and read the first half of Memoirs of a Geisha. I treated myself to a gigantic, expensive (a.k.a. $13) restaurant dinner of multiple juices, avocado and mango salad, chips, and a grilled veggie sandwich. Always a good decision. I met back up with Jeanie in our room around 8 p.m., got in touch with our new Dar housemate Kalisha, and packed my smelly Kili stuff!
We boarded our bus back to Dar at 8 the next morning. Moshi was an hour and a half closer to Dar than Arusha, so we were back in town by around 6 p.m. Our incompetent bajaj driver got us mostly back to Passionist Fathers; we walked the rest and called a taxi to take us to our new home. After waiting a ridiculously long time – of course, due to communication barriers, he tried to pick us up at the place we were trying to go – we finally made it to our new house around 9 p.m.
AND WHAT A HOUSE IT IS. Words cannot describe how low my jaw dropped when we drove up. We’re in the nicest neighborhood in the city, living on the peninsula with all the expat diplomats and businessmen, and our house is literally a mansion for a family of four. The father works at the U.S. embassy and the whole family is on vacation for a month; Kalisha is housesitting and invited us to join her. Her younger sister Kristin, a college junior, is also here for two weeks. With four bedrooms, five bathrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, a massive kitchen and well-stocked pantry, two gigantic central rooms, a sweeping staircase, indoor and outdoor porches, and 24-hour security, the house was far too grand to live in alone! I’ve certainly never lived in, and infrequently been in, a house this big.
It’s probably not government-sanctioned to post photos of this private residence, so you will all have to use your imaginations. The massive walk-in pantry is stocked with every American favorite ten rows deep: instant pudding, Nestle chocolate chips, box after box of Mac n’ Cheese, so many canned beans, endless Heinz ketchup bottles, pumpkin pie filling, and more clothing detergent than you’d need in years. In an upstairs office there are rows of American brand cosmetics, from shampoo to eye care to cold medicine (yes, I’ll be using that). One of their living rooms has a massive flat screen TV and a movie collection in the hundreds (Hello, Downton Abbey and Star Trek and Titanic and every 2012 Oscar film and, wait, I’m supposed to work for the next month?). I made myself a full box of chocolate pudding for dinner and settled into my new bedroom, which belongs to the family’s teenage daughter. I’d put her at about Mariel’s age, and from her Taylor Lautner posters to Claire’s jewelry to bookshelf full of teen books, I’m perfectly at home. The mattress is as soft as they come, and after unpacking and showering, I settled into my room, just like everyone else, at a really late hour.
I can only call today a failure of a day. I woke up perfectly on time but my bronchitis was really not feeling great, so I decided to just go back to bed and wake up whenever I felt truly rested. And that ended up being 4 p.m. After a good deal of shame, I made my way downstairs, said good “morning” to an incredulous Kristin, ate multiple bowls of delicious Quaker Oats cereal squares (God bless America), and watched Ellen and The Big Bang Theory with Kristin and Jeanie. Realization: Miley Cyrus has gotten no less annoying since cutting off her hair and she and Ellen have weirdly similar voices. We were all mightily entertained by the commercial breaks, which were tailor-made for US diplomats/servicemen abroad. Happy families in foreign countries reminded us all to stay vigilant, Chuck Hagel explained how proud he was to serve our great nation, we received frequent well-shot updates of soldiers in Afghanistan, and Michelle Obama encouraged us to stay active and avoid energy drinks full of unnecessary sugars. I’m never going back to boring old cereal and insurance commercials ever again.
Well, friends, let’s all hope this blog has set a new length record that shall never be broken again. Our 10-day Kilimanjaro-area experience is now documented for all perpetuity, you know almost everything about our hike, and life will go on in our new luxurious Dar home. Tomorrow I’ll try to walk around a bit and get my bearings. I’m planning to work from home until this bronchitis clears up – no need to take dusty rides halfway across the city and sit in a freezing office when I can just do all my data entry from my computer.
Kili out!