mount kilimanjaro, tanzania, june 21-25

We arrived in Arusha late and took a 1 1⁄2 hour car ride into West Marangu, a village at the base of the mountain, where we checked into the pretty Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort. In the morning we were briefed on the climb. We spent the rest of the day exploring the area, walking by huts where mostly men were sitting outside chatting, occasionally accompanied by the local maize beer, while women walked the dirt road with infants on their backs and huge sacks on their heads. To be fair to the men, some of them are mountain porters in between hikes, but it does seem that women shoulder an unusually heavy burden here. We bought a couple last-minute things in the market area, and then I went to a barber and told him to shave my head. Kia and Sia did it and look great, so I figured I’d preempt nature and let my melon breathe a little easier. Climbing Kili seemed like the right occasion too. I wasn’t convinced about the outcome, but Madhavi was happy with it and that was good enough for me. On the way back to the hotel we took a quick detour into a lush jungle gorge with a waterfall. Soon it was time to do some blogging, pack our essentials, and sleep.

We woke early and were quite excited. We had talked on and off for a couple years about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Two weeks beforehand, as Kili loomed closer, we started making arrangements and reading all about it: the different routes, views of glaciers, the surprising cold, the difficult summit day in which a significant minority fail to make it to the top, and the insidious risk of severe mountain sickness (with a few deaths a year). So we were a bit nervous too. We met our guide Matthew, our assistant guide Richard, and our eventual favorite porter Frank, and made the 2-hour drive to the starting point of our route, the Rongai. We chose this northern approach because it had untouched wilderness with few hikers and also had a gradual downslope via the Marangu trail (the descent on Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia was brutal on the joints). Unfortunately we booked too last-minute to get into a group hike with a reputable company, so we had to arrange a private one. We wanted to go with a good company as it seems that too many outfits employ untrained guides, skimp on decent food, and sadly even abuse their staff, not paying porters who then depend completely on tips. That being said, it did initially feel strangely luxurious to be going “privately” along with 2 guides, a cook, and 9 porters! Eventually we were grateful for every one of them.

Day 1: Finally, we were off! Starting at 1800m, the ascent was quite easy this day.
The first couple hours took us past wood-straw-mud homes, locals carrying loads of crops up and down, and children yelling “jambo!” (hello) and asking for chocolate. Children asking foreigners for chocolate or pens seems to be one of the peculiar and untoward consequences of tourism in impoverished places. Soon we were in a rainforest where we stopped to watch colobus monkeys and their giant bushy white tails. We continued through this thick jungle and soon noticed we weren’t seeing locals anymore. In fact, we weren’t seeing anyone else at all. We even sat under some trees for lunch and for 30 minutes no one but our porters passed. The solitude was fantastic.

After four hours we had cleared the rainforest and arrived at our campsite 2700m above sea level in the moorland, an area dominated by bushes and wildflowers. The day had been quite overcast, so we were excited to come out of our tent at one point to see the clouds around Kili’s peak clear, offering a first glimpse of our destination. It’s not really a peak, more like a giant plateau, and on the northern side the receding snow covers only the lip. At the small campsite we were joined by two groups, one with 3 guys who just graduated from business school in Chicago and the other with a couple from the UK and one from Australia. That night we chatted mostly with the Chicago guys, who were quite laid-back and friendly. Our porters called us into the mess tent for dinner. We sat down to a 3-course meal, including fresh mangoes and papaya, zucchini soup, grilled whitefish with vegetable stir-fry, and more that I can’t remember. This was most definitely not what we expected! Pretty much every meal was like this. We felt that appreciation/guilt combo again, but soon enough we’d get over it and realize that, more than in our usual daily life, here balanced nutrition seemed to be essential for maintaining energy. The fresh fruit was especially key, and the mangoes in particular were just delicious, as good as we’ve ever had (Tanzanian mangoes, we later learned, are famously excellent). We slept quite well, as we would most nights.

Day 2: We continued up to a plateau, where we veered east away from Kili. We trekked for 8 hours, which would be our second longest day of the journey. We were still in moorland so the scenery didn’t change too much, but we continued to be surprised by flowers of many colors and oases of lichen-covered trees. Our campsite at 3700m (almost 12,000 feet) was quiet; only the UK/Australia group was there with us. As we approached it we noticed that we were now above the first layer of clouds, the ones that draped the rainforest at all times. The silhouette of our tent on the sloping hill against the undulating blanket of clouds was stunning. This scene would recur from different vantage points again and again, and for me it's one of the unforgettable images of a mountain climb.

At dinner we began to realize something – we might not have the great conversations or develop quite the camaraderie with our Tanzanian team that we had hoped. While we ate they were usually turned away from us and speaking only in Swahili. This was understandable (especially given that most of porters spoke little English), but when we tried to break into the conversation with occasional questions their short replies didn’t invite much more. We couldn't have expected much more from the porters, but we had hoped that our guides would translate and facilitate more. In the end we figured that many people doing private trips aren’t that interactive while those in larger groups are satisfied talking amongst themselves, so perhaps they rarely need to make much effort socially. Regardless, early on we did sometimes wish we had some people to share the experience with.

Day 3: We awoke to the usual: hot water basins to freshen up and hot tea to warm up. We were now pretty high in the sky so it was getting cold, and we knew it would only get colder. So we took this opportunity to wash more than our hands and feet – we went nearly naked for a few minutes and scrubbed where it counted until the shivering stopped us. Today wouldn’t be too tough. Matthew and Richard led us on a 4-hour hike up and down the hills of moorland, which was becoming more barren. To break the long silences we started asking lots of questions and they started talking a bit, mostly about the flora and fauna but it was something. Then I decided it was time to sing. This seemed to coincide with our reaching 4000 meters, so there may have been an issue with low oxygen. Everything from Ramblin’ Man, Paint it Black, Waiting for the Sun, People are Strange, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and A Day in the Life, to Goin’ to Carolina (changed to “goin’ to Kilimanjaro”), La Isla Bonita, and especially Cecilia. Actually, Madhavi thought of Cecilia (by Simon and Garfunkel) and it stuck, becoming the closest thing to a Kilimanjaro theme song. Approaching our campsite at 4100m we saw giant seneca trees for the first time. Looking fantastically out of place, they’re like a cross between a palm and a cactus tree. The campsite is the end of a detour off the Rongai route, and it put us at the base of beautiful Mwenze Tam, a 5100 meter jagged rocky volcanic mountain that contrasts nicely with Kili. We passed the time playing frisbee with another group's porters, doing an acclimatization hike up Camelback Ridge, and reading. We finally met the couples from UK/Australia, nice people who impressed us with their preparation - they used walking poles at all times because "it reduces energy consumption by 25%". The nights were getting cold. We piled on layers of fleeces and sunk deeper into our sleeping bags.

Day 4: The sunrise was more beautiful each day. Sitting outside between Mwenze mountain and a spring-fed pond, eating tropical fruits and toast, sipping hot tea, we basked in the marvelous orange glow. So serene. And so deceiving. For this day would really become two days and one long night, the most physically brutal 38 hours of our lives. We set off across the vast barren plain ("the saddle") between Mwenze and our destination, Kibo base camp. Vern and Nicole, a great couple from New Jersey whom we had just met at Mwenze, hiked with us. We talked about travel experiences and wine, including how they make their own vintage every year. But the conversations dwindled as we began the gentle ascent to Kibo. We had to conserve our breath in the stingy air.

After a surprisingly long 5 hours across a plain that never wanted to end, we arrived at Kibo camp, 4700m (15,500 ft) above the sea at the southeastern corner of the mountain. The top of Kilimanjaro seemed so much closer than it really was, another illusion arising from enormous scale. It would soon disappear behind the veil of thick clouds that dominated everything that day. Back the other way, the saddle was gray and black and empty. As the sun drifted down, Mwenze majestically rose above the clouds to be beheld. Dinner was early, and afterwards Matthew gave his pre-summit briefing: what to wear head to toe, what to bring, what to expect. He would wake us at 11PM. It was now 6:30PM, and we climbed into our tents to try to sleep.