CLIMBING THE KILIMANJARO MOUNTAIN

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I have just arrived back in Mexico after an epic adventure in Tanzania, climbing Africa's highest peak, the Kilimanjaro Mountain! So much to tell! I though a lot about all of you and the role you play in my life, so I'd like to share some moments with you, and a little bit of what I went through!!

The People:

I climbed in a party of five: Foyenne and Sarah, school teachers from Texas, Jerry Lynne a principal in NY, and Bryant, a pilot for the US Army. We were all very different people, but got along extremely well sharing out love for adventure and outdoors.
Tanzania is home for 125 tribes, each one with their own language. In 19XX, a guy called XXX XXXX (I am terrible with names and dates..) created the official language in Tanzania (and west Africa), the Swalli. The Kilimanjaro area belongs basically to two of these tribes, the nomads Maasai (very isolated, no pictures allowed) and the Chaga (that adapted very well to the colonization, live in houses etc). Most people you will see in the pics are Chaga, since the Maasai live in their own remote and primitive villages. I did try to take some pictures of the Maasai when we came across them while driving, but they are not very good...

Besides the other 4 climbers, three guides (Felix, Emmanuelle and Action Jackson) and 30 porters joined us. Those we extremely respectful, helpful and sweet people, I was very positively impressed. The porters climbed that mountain caring all the weight of food, water, tends, cooking equipment, safety equipment and our stuff. We, the climbers, would take a day pack of about 5 Kg with some waterproof clothes, sunscreen and water.

The Mountain:

Kilimanjaro comes from the Chaga words Ki Mlima Njaro. Ki is a prefix of sweetness, Mlima means mountain and Njaro is the devil of Coldness. So it is something like "Beloved Mountain of the Devil of Coldness". Makes sense once you are there. The mountain is absolutely gorgeous, majestic, and cold.
It is formed but three mains peaks: Shira, Mawenzi and Kibo. Kibo is the highest one, where Uhuru peak is located (the highest point in the continent, at 5895 mts). Uhuru means "freedom"
You can find all kinds of environment as you climb the mountain. The jungle, in the lowest altitudes (with animal and stuff) rapidly gives place to the Moorland (with rough vegetation), Alpine desert and finally the Arctic landscapes, where not even the rocks felt quite comfortable...

There are different trails to reach the top, with different degrees of difficulty. The Marango/Coca Cola route is the fastest (and steepest), for grown ups only. My approach was the Shira rout. We started at the Base Camp in Shira, climbed up to Shira I, then crossed the great Shira Plateau to Shira II/Shira Hut, then to the freezing and gorgeous Lava Tower Camp, a bit down to Karanga (Peanut) Camp, up again to Barafu (Ice) Camp through the great Barranco valley and Barranco wall, and finally the ass-freezing Crater Camp, at the very top, by the glacier.

The routine:

We would normally get up at about 6:30 with a guy offering some tea in the tent! We would get all our stuff together, put it in the duffel bag and go for breakfast. By 8:00 we would start moving. Some days we would hike for about 5 hours and reach the next camp for lunch and go for a acclimatization/exploration hike in the afternoon. Other days were harder and we would hike for about 9 hours.
The porters would cook for us, there are some nice pics and video of the "kitchen tent". Normally we would get vegetable soup, vegetables and bread with some rice and meat. Dessert was always some fruit like bananas, avocados, pineapple, mangos and papaya.
Our....bath ... was basically half a liter of warm water by the evening that did not help much... the idea was to get an old shirt and scrub yourself with it. We were always so filthy that after cleaning your face the water would be so dark it was pointless trying to use it more...
What I would normally do is get about 1 or 2 liter of my drinking water to help in the shower...it is my Brazilian blood, I NEED TO BATHE TO SURVIVE. So I would get all the water I could and go try to hide somewhere to do a not so ridiculous cleaning job. While in the jungle finding a hidden spot to clean and pee was easy, but by the colder and more desert areas it was quite complicated....there were many rocks but only a few big enough and privacy was .... an issue... and some of the camps had more crews than just our own... So, by the time I'd find a decent shower rock my water was not that hot anymore..... There was no way to wash the hair...after 10 under this condition grease and dust had turned what was once my hair into a weird dreadlock kind of thing... Since we were also so dirty I could not use contact lenses due to the high risk of contamination.

Everyday we would also take out vital signs in the morning and evening. That would be Oxigen saturation, heart beat, breaths per minute, water intake, pee color (!!) etc, so we could analyze how everyone's body was adapting to altitude.

The hikes were tough. We would carry a 5 Kg daybag and our heavy snow clothes on freezing thin air up heel. I must comment that I did worry about my screwed up arrhythmic heart on many occasion but it did amazingly well, kicking ass like always. No beta block for the next 30 years for sure.
Shira I camp was one of my favorites since it was very vast and wide open. Lava Tower was also amazing, but freezing. The morning we left Lava Tower, before the Sun showed up, I really though I’d loose a finger or toe (what does indeed happen in this mountain). My hands turned dark blue and my sight would turn black sometimes, what never happened before even skiing. The idea was to keep walking. I never said so many horrible words in my life, desperately begging for the mother fu*&9 sun to show up, kicking the temperature up to 20 while crossing the Barranco Valley and climbing the Barranco Wall.
Karanga and Barafu were more crowded places, since trails would converge. That’s where privacy for “bath”and pee was an ultimate challenge that could no always be achieved. Jerry Lynn was a pro when it came to those matters…she would just scream to people to look the other way and do her business wherever… I never really got to this point, but I admit I had to become more flexible…as she would always say “If it is so important for someone to see my ass while I pee, so be it”… a mountain expert…

Kilimanjaro has a mantra, the famous Pole Pole, that stands for Slowly Slowly. Don’t you ever underestimate the power of this mantra when climbing anything, because Haraka haraka Rayna Baraka (if you go too fast you have no blessing!)

The summit attack:

Most groups attack the summit from Barafu camp and back leaving at midnight and returning the same day so they do not have to stay in Crater camp, up by the peak. Due to our adventurous spirits we decided to overnight in Crater, by the glacier.
We woke up at about 5 am and packed only the super necessary stuff, the rest would stay behind. The climb was exhausting, and there were moments that I really though I would not make it. The path was made of loose rocks and extremely steep. Each step you gave you would slide down due to the small gravel, making you energy use very inefficient. Oxigen saturation was ridiculous. The wind was freezing and clouds would build up around the mountain so did not even have sun light for most of the way. I felt really tired at that point, even presenting good vitals. The heart would beat so strongly I could hear it and feel it all around my body. We stopped for lunch about 40 meters below Stella Point and I was so, but so tired, I could not eat on my own! And that is not normal for me… but I really could not reach for my food, having Felix give me some bread, carrot and avocado.

After lunch we kept climbing pole pole to Stella. Stella point was a bifurcation, you could go left up to Uhuru peak or right to Crater camp. By the time we got there it was about 3 pm. Even though we were exhausted Felix insisted we should summit at that moment instead of in the next morning after sleeping in the crater. His argument was that altitude sickness was very strong at that point and in the next morning people normally did not feel so good. Most of our group did not like the idea, but since the advice was put in strong words, we decided to summit. I must say I felt much much better after reaching Stella. The sight of the crater and of Uhuru (it was already visible from there), gave me strength I tough I did not have. It was right there, so close, finally! I could see the sign, it indeed existed!!!! All of a sudden I felt so good, let’s go and get this summit!!!!
We walked for a couple hours more through the glaciers before arriving at the peak. I cannot describe the feeling; it is not a normal thing. As I pulled my brazilian flag out of my backpack I admit I got a bit emotional, hahaha we all did.
We could spend no more than 20 min in the peak due to the risk of hypothermia and then walked to the crater camp where we would spend the night.
When we got to the Crater people started feeling sick, altitude sickness. Symptoms are vomiting, nausea, headache and shivering. Everyone was feeling horrible with those symptoms and Foyenne’s oxygen saturation hit the lowest allowed limit of 60%, Sarah had heart problems and even the porters started feeling bad and vomiting. Our guides had horrible headaches. Altitude had gotten everyone except…me! I was looking bad, but feeling great! Like an explorer, so good, I was feeling energized, all happy, talkative (though I had no one to talk to)…and amazed by how well I was feeling! I must have had a mountanist ancestor, or super genes or whatever! Dinner time came and I was hungry, totally alone in the dinner tent I ate my Bolognese like a queen, looking at those poor sick souls outside…I actually ate my share and theirs, (u know me)… and still hoped there were some desert. I was so happy, my vital signs were so good, and everything was beautiful!

I was so consumed with my thoughts of self love and personal amusement that I barely had time to run out when the delicious Bolognese changed direction and came out as strong as it could. And it was not alone; it brought the world’s most powerful headache along. In a matter of seconds I found myself on my knees with all the symptom of altitude sickness as strong as they could be, (almost) wishing I had not been born. My friends, there can be no worse feeling. The sun went down and temperature started dropping down to minus 40, with a nice freezing wind coming along. After vomiting everything, I took my headache to “bed” with me, hoping exhaustion would prevail and I would fall asleep. Nope…my head was killing me, the nausea was unbearable, and everything was turning around as if I had drunken the whole day. It was cold inside, and due to the fact that we could not open any zipper in order to keep the heat in, the humidity of breathing made the tent wet inside. I really thought nothing could possibly get worse, until it did..I started vomiting again, every hour or so, things I could swear I had not eaten… and for that I had to go outside in the freezer, not feeling my legs and arms…and there was no one to feel sorry for me, no one to pull my dreadlocks back…everyone else was busy doing the same thing…

In almost desperation, I stated looking for a medicine that could help at least with the headache. The gringos had huge bags with all kinds of drugs, the famous Diamox, malaria drugs, medicines for headache, heart problems, flu, cold, runny nose, bad skin, broken nail, everything…so I knew I should have something…
But I did not! I hadn’t packed a single medicine for nothing! I am never sick, so it didn’t even occur to me! After what seemed like days searching all my stuff I was lucky enough to find a…BandAid! Ohhhhhhh my, what could I possibly do with a BandAid?? Maybe glue it on my lips so I’d never eat Bolognese again… other than that I was screwed. I swore I’d never complain about Villahermosa again, the hottest city in the planet, on sea level…
As the very first photon showed around the camp, Felix dragged what was left of us out of the sleeping bag and we immediately initiated our descent before anyone presented a more serious health condition. As my trembling legs walked to Stella Point I promised I would try to be a normal person and have normal fun from that day on. Maybe a normal job, perhaps even a normal love life, hhaha. Stella was so damn faraway, the wind was so strong. And we finally got there. As we crossed Stella Point, the mountain itself would shield us from the freezing winds. We descended fast and the increase in temperature, oxygen and pressure was substantial. All of a sudden I felt I was not just a survival anymore, I was a living being again. The more we would go the better and better we would feel. Instantaneously.
About a mile down I didn’t want to be normal anymore, I was planning my next summit!!! We all felt so euphoric about what we did, now that we had the strength! What a journey! What a mountain…

Conclusions!

There is a lot to say, but this mail is already huge, so I cant wait to meet each of you to share more personally. An expedition like this demands a lot from someone physically, but even more mentally. You must have you mind set on it, you must have your spirit willing to go, and the profile of a..not so normal person…A person that will spend 11 days with no shower, freezing, hardly breathing and that will look at the sun setting above the clouds and be fulfilled. The adventure, the experience, it is all very personal, and the sensation of taking yourself to the edge is unique. Getting out of your routine, being isolated, seeing thing you could not imagine, meeting yourself under these conditions, you feelings, your body, your responses, the places your mind goes rest when the body is so screwed. Meeting such different people, with completely different lives such as out porters, and find in them friendly smiles that are really willing to help! Great hearts and souls.
You must be a team player, you must truly care about others, you will eventually need them as much. You must, MUST, be able to laugh at your own misery, and let others do the same. NO FRILLS, have in mind this is a spiritual and mental experience and focus on that. You will have to treat your body well so it can endure it, but it will never be comfortable, nor clean nor warm, so don’t focus on it.
I thought a lot about my life, especially about the people on it. Not that I had any great conclusion, but I just kept remembering people and situations. And the whole bunch that I love my family and friends. It is a true blessing having you around.

By the time we reached Millennium camp on the descent, my Ipod came back to life! It had stopped responding on Lava Tower and I was desperate not knowing if it was hibernating or if it was dead. Ipod came back playing “I wish you were here”!! Just when the guy says : “So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell?” hahahaha my philosophical mp3 player. Indeed it is so hard to tell…so I decided I would make heaven out of everything. And so be it.

In the last day we had a party with all the crew at Simons’s farm. I will never forget them.


Thank you for journeying along with me!

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