The Global Guy

Our final day on the mountain! We’d been told that there were only about two and a half hours of walking today, so we were eager to get an early start. We practically wolfed down our breakfast in our haste to hurry up and get out of there. All we could think about were hot showers, cold beer, clean clothes and proper food! We set out around 8:00 am, practically flying down the path. The forest looked a lot prettier going down than it did coming up, probably due to the early morning sunlight.

The hiking was much easier on the knees today than yesterday; both Imed and I were amazed at how much better we felt. Whether it was the promise of beer, or the lower altitude there was nothing that could have held us back. We finally arrived at the exit gate around 10:00 and received our summit certificates. We continued to the village where the van from the hotel would be waiting for us, and found a tourist souvenir stand operator who wanted to make a deal for my sunglasses. These were fake Oakleys that I’d bought at the Uganda-Kenya border crossing for the equivalent of about $1.20. I didn’t want to rip him off, but he kept insisting that I select something from his shop in trade. I chose a nice Massai knife that I’d seen being sold by other guys for about five bucks. The guy insisted that the knife was worth at least $45.00, so I told him that my sunglasses were worth about $25.00. I think the deal was sealed when his assistant tried on the glasses and I told him that he looked just like Snoop-Dogg. They tried to haggle a little bit more, asking for a t-shirt as well, but we finally agreed on a straight trade. The guy kept coming back grinning at me, giving me the impression that he thought he’d ripped me off pretty good.

We finally got back to the hotel right around noon where the rest of the afternoon was spent lounging by the pool drinking Kilimanjaro beer and soaking up the African warmth. That evening around sunset the clouds parted over the Kili summit just at the perfect time to get one last photo from town showing what we’d accomplished. I knew that the next few weeks were going to have to be pretty incredible to match up to what I’d just finished!

Kilimanjaro summit day! By today, the fifth day of our trek, our guides had gotten the hang of Emid and my trekking speed. Most treking groups seemed to leave the campsite around 11:00 pm for the push to the summit, but since we were moving so quickly we got to sleep till about 12:30 am. When awoke we were served tea and biscuits, and then headed up the mountain.

The view looking down was amazing. The moon was so close to being full that you really couldn’t tell the difference, and it illuminated the trail so well that after about 10 minutes we realized we didn’t need our headlamps and turned them off. The night was completely clear and cloudless and we could see for miles in every direction. South of us we could see the town of Moshi ablaze with illumination from it’s streetlights. Mt. Meru stood maintaining it’s silent vigil to the west, and across the saddle of the mountain to the east we could see the jagged and forboding Mawenzi peak. Ahead and about 4000 feet up was Kibo, the snowcapped peak that was our ultimate destination.

We began climbing up steep scree lined paths. For once our guides had no need to tell us “pole-pole” (Swahilli for slowly) as I don’t think that we could have gone any faster if we’d wanted to. Despite this, we were still moving quicker than most other groups. We passed two large groups at about the 15,500 foot mark, and they looked at us like we were crazy. Around 16,000 feet we began to see the first patches of snow on the ground. The next couple of thousand feet passed in an almost dreamlike state. As we got higher, my thoughts turned more and more random. I kept thinking of friends and family back home, wondering how they were spending the Christmas holiday, and if they appreciated properly their ability to take a hot shower any time they wanted.

Physically, I was feeling fine. I wasn’t experiencing any physical symptoms of altitude sickenss, but I did notice that Allen, our guide was weaving around the trail like a drunken sailor. We checked to see if he was ok, and he mumbled something about being fine so we just kept on going. We’d been warned that the trail would get dramatically steeper near the top, so we were trying to conserve enough energy for the final push to the top. The trail had gotten a little steeper, but we didn’t think that it was the killer slope that we’d been warned about. Suddenly, we arrived on a flat spot where the guides were all grinning at us. We’d reached Stella Point, the place where one is at the rim of the crater looking down into the volcano itself. It was about 5:45 am, and sunrise was about 45 minutes away. Allen the guide said that it would take about that long to get to the highest point, so we headed off for Uhuru peak.

Towards the east the sky was already beginning to show signs of color, encouraging us to move faster. Despite the altitude and the freezing wind we felt a new burst of energy pushing us on. As we walked to the peak we could see the colors of the sunrise reflected in the glaciers all around us. Finally, we saw a wooden sign decorated with Tibetian prayer flags announcing that we were now standing on the highest point on the African continent. We ran to the sign and popped open a bottle of Moet and Chandon champagne just as the sun peaked over the horizon. We couldn’t have timed it better! We shared the champagne with our guides wishing each other a Merry Christmas. Next we took turns taking photos of each other, and finished off the bottle. I think that we may have wasted as much as we drank…it was so cold at the top that the champagne was freezing to the glass as we drank it, and trying to pour anything carbonated at that altitude just made it fizz out of control.

Finally we’d had enough and began the long trek down. We quickly realized that coming up had been the easy part, and the descent was steep, slippery and extremely hard on the legs. The three hour descent was fun at first, but by the time we reached our camp our knees and joints were screaming for relief. We took an hour nap and had lunch before heading to our final campsite another long vertical mile beneath us. By the time we got to camp, Emid and I were walking like a couple of decrepit old men, much to the disgust of our guides who had kept encouraging us to move faster. After we had a quick supper we crashed hard around 7:30 and slept like dead men till early the next morning.

Camp El 15351 ft. Asc 3024 ft. 13.86km distance.

Today was the farthest distance for hiking so far. It was cloudy all day yesterday when we were in camp , so it was quite a surprise to see how close we actually were to the mountain. Our guide said that it was his favorite campsite, because it lets you wake up with “Kili as a pillow.” There has been a group of three girls shadowing our group, and today one of them dropped out due to altitude sickness. It’s the first case we’ve seen so far. I feel sorry for her, but I’m glad its not me that got unlucky!

My notes for today are pretty sparse. Looking back I think the altitude really started to affect my mental energy. There is a note in my journal that states that the altitude feels like really good weed. Since this is a PG journal, I can only assume that that was written by someone other than myself!

We arrived in the last camp before the summit at around 4 in the afternoon. We’ll get an early supper, and then try to get some sleep before being woken up around midnight to make the final push. It’s actually the first campsite that we haven’t gotten any rain at, but it is extremely windy. I just hope it’ll be nice in the morning!