Kili or Bust

The long awaited blog about Mt. Kilimanjaro.  How do I even start? This was definitely an interesting achievement. Let’s give some background.

Left to Right: Kate, Caitlin, Me, and Paul(The Guide)

Anyone actually know anything about Kili? Other than that it’s just really freakin’ big? OK, well let’s see. The mountain itself has actually 3 peaks. They say that the “Shira” peak was first. Just a random volcano. Then during one of its eruptions, it created the second peak, “Mawenzi”. Then again later on the mountain erupted and between the two peaks “Kibo” was established. The name “Kibo” is actually Swahili for “I admire”. From a distance it looks like it’s just the top of the mountain, but, when you get up there, it looks so strange. There’s this massive “alpine desert” as they call it and the Kibo peak is just sort of sitting in the middle. The next point to mention is probably that there are 4 sections to the mountain. When you start, you are in the rainforest. Then you move into the moorlands. Then the alpine desert and finally the ice cap. Lastly, because of the snow on top, the people of the area used to go to the mountain to pray for rain or crops and things of that nature, so the mountain does hold some religious effects for the natives. Kibo is the tallest peak. Uhuru meaning "freedom" is name of the summit, and it sits at 5895m or 19 and a half thousand feet. It is the highest point in all of Africa, and it makes Kili the tallest free standing mountain in the world. This is where we were going.

Anyways, let’s break down the days.

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Alpine Desert

I’d gotten my Tanzania visa all set up, and we were leaving early the next morning. So I went to Karen to stay with the girls that night. Caitlin’s birthday was on the 6^th, the first day of our ascent, so we did a little celebrating with cake. Cake is really dense here. Yes, that sounds weird, but I know of no other way to describe it. Kate also put all the monies into little organized envelopes. She likes to be organized. Glad someone does. Anyways, after that I listened to some music on my iPod and went to bed.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I was forced to wake up at the ungodly hour of 5:45. How terrible. Loaded into the taxi and went to the shuttle stop. Then we sat there for like 2 hours. Hurry up and wait. My favorite. Shuttle finally got there, and we loaded in. We met a few Canadians going to Tanzania as well. It was a father and his two daughters maybe 12 and 14. Apparently, they had raised money for a well or two down there, and their dad has thought it would be fun for them to actually go and see the place where the wells were. Pretty sweet.

Just hanging out on a mountain

Border was about 2-3 hours away. This is the part where I mention that in order to get into Tanzania, you have to have proof of yellow fever vaccination. Well, guess who never had that vaccine let alone proof of it. Well actually, I kind of had proof. I borrowed Tim’s vaccination papers in hopes that they might just scan it and gloss over his name looking for the words “official yellow fever vaccine” stamp. I had this whole plan to distract the teller with my plans for Kili and then pretend to forget the papers and then pull them out of my bag and all this stuff. At the very least I was a little nervous that I’d spent all this money for nothing, but I got to the teller, he took my passport, stamped it, and sent my along my merry way. I was meant to climb this mountain.

Shuttle went around Mt. Meru which was so big I initially thought it was Kilimanjaro itself. It wasn’t big enough. I remember seeing a sign for Moshi being 60km away and then I looked up at the horizon, and I realized that I wasn’t looking at the sky. There was this massive shadow that spread across maybe 80km. Even from 60km away the mountain didn’t fit in any one window I was looking out of no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t actually just look at the whole thing because it was so big. Gradually we got closer. I wanted to see the top, but it was completely covered in clouds. Wow.

We got the Moshi and went to the Kessy Brothers Agency. We talked itinerary. We talked money. We talked gear, and then we went to the hotel to rest for the night. We met a couple Italians using the same agency. They were going the same route as we were, and they bought me a beer. Instant friendship. I took the last shower I would take for a week and tried to get some sleep.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Hotel offered free breakfast. Finally something done right in Africa. Tour agency picked us up around 8 I think. Maybe 9. Went back to the office and we packed everything up. We loaded our stuff, 9 porters, 2 guides, a cook, and ourselves into the shuttle and set off for Kilimanjaro national park. Once in the park, we had to sign in and Paul, the head guide, had to do some administrative stuff. The porters started going up to the first stop so we would meet them there. Baraka, the assistant guide, started us up the path maybe an hour after we’d gotten there. It was pretty quiet at first. Then we started seeing some people on their way back down. Some were happy and fine. Others looked like they’d been punched in the face repeatedly. There were also a lot of monkeys in the woods.

We reached the first hut in the early afternoon and settled in. I sat out in the sun for a while and listened to some music. At dinner we went to a little dining hall that had been built there. We met all the other groups who were going up with us. There were the Italians, Norwegians, Canadians, Japanese, and even 3 Kazakhstanis. By the end of the trip we would have developed a relationship with each group.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

My good friend, Baraka(Asst. Guide). The
other guides call him "Obama: President of
the Mountain".

We had to go almost 12km on this day. Not too far on a road, but uphill is a little different. Baraka and I, however, took off, and we screamed up the mountain. I don’t know why, but I felt good that day. It was a lot colder at the next hut sight though. Like maybe 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  We got to talk to some of the groups more here. We were neighbors with the Norwegians. The whole group centered around one guy whose name was Kurt. This was his second climb, and he had decided to come back and bring his whole family with him. I spoke with him while he was charging his iPhone with a solar charger. More about them later.

We got in pretty well with Canadians. This mother had brought her daughter, her friend, her sister from Holland, and a Kenyan politician. Her daughter was 13, and, by the end of the climb, she would be the youngest Canadian female to ever climb the mountain. Pretty cool. Anyways, this group hella fun. We got along great with them making jokes and stuff. Really good characters.

The Kazakhstanis were a couple doors down. It was an old uncle and his two nieces. This old guy would not be stopped. He seemed maybe in his 50s or 60s. Smoked I don’t know how many packs a day, but he was as tough as nails. One of the nieces had been having a fair amount of trouble, and the other one was stronger but she’d see trouble later.

Friday, February 8, 2013

These were called the "Zebra Rocks"

This was acclimation day. We went up to see some cool rocks and then came back down and relaxed. We needed this day, too. Caitlin’s weakfish stomach was having a little difficulty switching cooks and she spent most of the afternoon into the next morning in bed. Nothing much happened on this day. It just added to the anticipation of the climb the next night. Yes I said night. More later. Anyways, only bad thing that happened to me was I ate something and got the worst heartburn of my entire life. I think I slept for about an hour that night. Miserable. Absolutely miserable.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

We got up early and left for the Kibo huts at the base of the 2000m high peak. It was about 10km away, but it was another 7 or 8 hundred meters up in altitude. It was going to be interesting from here on out. We started on our way. Of course, Caitlin still felt like total crap, and, after about an hour or two, Baraka took on her day pack to try and help her out a bit. He looked pretty funny with one pack on his back and one on his stomach, but he never once said anything. Took it all in stride. We got to lunch and we could see the huts, but they were still an hour or two off. Caitlin wouldn’t even sit at the little makeshift table. She just collapsed onto the ground. About 10 minutes later the Norwegians showed up at the same spot, and Kurt’s daughter was also having a rough time except that her ailment was altitude sickness. Dizziness and headaches and all the sort of thing. No bueno. I felt bad, but we pushed on. I walked next to Caitlin for the rest of the way just to try and push her along a bit. I don’t know if I actually said or did anything that made a difference, but she made it to the huts regardless. Good timing too because it started snowing just as we got there.

They put us in this big group room. There were 12 beds. There were the 5 Canadians, 2 Spaniards, and 2 French Canadians. Just enough room. I slept for maybe an hour that afternoon. Everyone was pretty jazzed up about climbing this mountain. We could see the peak, and it was really high up. Pretty daunting. We ate dinner, and I got heartburn again. It was so confusing to me. I’ve had heartburn maybe 6 or 7 times in my whole life, and two days in a row I get right before I make this crazy climb. What luck! Anyways, it wasn’t as bad as the previous night, but I only got around 2 hours of sleep because we had the wake up at 11pm.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Yes, you read correctly. I’ve alluded to it twice now. Time to explain. The final ascent of the mountain began at midnight. I don’t know whose idea it was, but that is how it is done. We stumbled out of bed and put all of our gear on. The porters had carried the cold weather gear the entire trip simply so we could wear it on this night. We walked away from the hut at 12 and didn’t look back or even forward. Wasn’t worth it. Couldn’t see anything anyway except for the headlights of all the people ahead of and behind us climbing the mountain.

About 30 minutes in, Caitlin, still reeling from the previous two days of being out of order, knelt on the ground and had some minutes of personal questioning time. Paul, who I had not really built a relationship with up until this point, showed why he was the head guide. He told Caitlin to suck it up and keep moving. She did, and I didn’t hear a word out of her for a couple of hours.

The first part of the night’s climb was the hardest. We had to climb straight up to the ridge and then hook a left up the ridge to the summit. It was literally straight up. The angle of this beast must have been close to 60 or 70 degrees. We zig zagged across it watching for loose rocks which were everywhere. About two thirds of the way up, Kate, who had had no real issues up to this point, began to have a few things go wrong. She got a really bad headache and even threw up a couple times. For a moment, I believe she thought she wouldn’t make it, but Paul stepped up once more. He said, “There’s no crying in baseball!” Wait. That was Tom Hanks. Sorry. Um. I think he just said, “No crying.” That was embarrassing. Anyways, she pushed on as well. We finally got to the ridge. It was called “Gilman’s Point”. It’s the first milestone, and, if you make it there, you get a little certificate when you get back to the bottom. Paul hugged the girls, and the group felt rejuvenated.

We pushed onward. The next 30 minutes were relatively easy but super scary. We were literally walking alongside a cliff. Couldn’t see a darn thing, but it was mostly flat. Then it opened up, and in the waning night we could see the peak, and off in the distance I could see the sign. It started getting hilly again, and with every step I felt like my muscles were giving way. My worry here was no longer could I make it all the way up, nothing was stopping me from that, but rather how in God’s name am I going to get back down!

We got to the sign. There were some germans hogging the sign taking a bunch of inane pictures, and the girls sat down. I said no way. I just wanted to touch the stupid sign. The germans gave me some weird looks. Didn’t care. At 6:20am I smacked that Uhuru sign, and I looked to the east. Almost at that exact moment the sun popped over the low hanging clouds. I could see everything. I looked around and saw the massive glacier just chillin’ on the side of the mountain. I could see a few hundred miles in every direction. Caitlin had mentioned months earlier how cool it would be to have an epic kiss on the summit, so, even though my lips felt like they were falling off, I went up and planted one on her. This random guy said congratulations in my periphery and then I went and sat down and just stared at the sky. I remember posing for some pictures and I’ve even seen them, but pretty much everything from that point to when I got into bed for an hour 4 hours later after descending the peak is a blur.

I knew I had brought my pocket knife the entire way for something.

I got awakened at 11:15 for a late breakfast and then pushed out the door to walk the 10km back down to the huts at a lower altitude. It had been almost -40 degrees at the summit accounting for the wind, and then, even though I’d remember the huts there being cold, they were a lot more tolerable. We saw the other groups make it back to those gradually. Some had gotten there before us, but we had actually done pretty well timewise so most groups were behind us. The Italians, Spaniards, Canadians, French Canadians, all the Norwegians but Kurt’s daughter, the Kazakhstani uncle (we passed the stronger niece curled up in a ball on the ground at one point her altitude sickness was so bad), and the Japanese. Almost all of us had made it. Some of us exchanged information, and then said good bye because when we left in the morning we would never see them again.

Monday, February 11, 2013

It was Kili Time.

And leave we did. Holy crap. We hiked down in 5 hours what we had hiked up in the first two days. Caitlin and I literally ran the last kilometer. We caught hell from Kate for that. Definitely deserved though. I dunno what got into me. We weren’t supposed to reach the bottom until like 4pm. We got there right around 1. We got our certificates. Ate some lunch and were driven back to the Kessy Brothers office. They were really excited for us and for their business. Successful trips are always a good thing. They gave us each a free T-Shirt and then took us out for some beers of the “Kilimanjaro” brand. They also have a “Serengeti” beer that’s pretty good, too. We went back to the hotel. I took a shower. A loooooong shower. Then I took a nap and then went to dinner. We got some celebratory drinks afterwards courtesy of Kate. Thanks Kate.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Once again, I had to wake up at 5:45 to get a dang cab to go to the shuttle back to Nairobi. It was OK though. It was a nice ride. It was a little longer than last previously, and the border took longer than before. We got to Nairobi around 2:15. I said goodbye to the girls and then booked it to the immigration offices because my *Kenya* visa expired THAT day. Got that all fixed and good to go so I could stay for another 3 months. Then I went to the Nairobi Java House and got a milkshake.

Yes I know there were a couple days before and after this epic tale that I didn’t talk about, but those days were mostly filled with me telling people I was going to Kili and then telling them about how I climbed it. Also, this blog is much too long as it is. It was an epic trip, and so much more happened than I can write here. Typing the story just doesn’t do it justice, but I hope I communicated the obstacles and the successes and the experiences well. Kate and Caitlin both have their own blogs with their own perspectives. Maybe reading all three will give you a better idea. All I know is that week is gonna stick with me for a while.

If you’re interested in a Mt. Kili trip or a crazy legit safari or both, we found the Kessy Brothers to be incredible. One of the cheaper agencies, but they give you everything you need and provide a truly great service.

Elections and another trip to Uganda are coming up! More about that later… Haha

-Harris

Us with our certificates and the guides. Good times.