Climbing Kilimanjaro and the Rest of Tanzania

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The trip from Jo'Burg to Arusha was uneventful - except that on my flight from Dar es Salaam to Arusha, I had the plane all to myself. That doesn't happen too often anymore. Too bad there was too many clouds to see Mount Kilimanjaro (the highest mountain in Africa, at 5896 m), my next goal.

Kilimanjaro

After spending a couple of days in Arusha just relaxing, I met the group of climbers who would be going up Kili with me. There were six Americans (a family of five and a single woman) and four Brits (two Welsh, two English). The interesting thing was when we met the next morning (Saturday, June 28) there were actually three groups of African Walking Company doing the same trip. Seemed a little on the sly side - we were supposed to be in small groups, but in the end it didn’t matter. Although our group of 11, another group of 9 and a third group of 5 were all at the same campsites, you didn’t really notice them.

On the ride up to the trailhead, I met Mary and Judy, two Australians in the group of 9. They were quite funny and very interesting - too bad I wasn’t with their group. But the group of 11 (as we became known) wasn’t too bad either.

The first day was a simple two hour hike to Shira 1, the first campsite on the Shira route. And what a campsite! Tent city - there were our three groups, and at least three other there. With the number of porters and guides (our group of 11 had 46 guides, cooks and porters, and the group of 11 had 32) there must have been over 250 people at the site. Crazy. But that’s Kili.

The only hard part of the day was drinking enough. We were told, and told frequently, to drink at least 4-5 L of water each day to avoid altitude sickness. So I did; in fact, for the first five days I drank about 7 L of water. It seemed to help (although I was perpetually peeing ...)

The other frustrating part of the hike was the pace. “Pole! Pole!” (pronounced “polay, polay”) the guides would say - “slowly, slowly” (or “careful, careful” - I wasn’t sure which was the accurate translation from Swahili) and was it slow. Slowest hiking I ever did.

But the food was good, and a good, if cold, night’s sleep that night at 3600m. Lots of frost and the stars were strikingly clear. And for the poor Americans and Brits, it was going to get colder. My only real complaint with the gear I rented was the sleeping bag - way too big for me, so there was a lot of dead air to heat up. Higher up, I figured out to cinch the bottom 15 inches of bag shut with a rope tied around the outside. My feet finally got warm and stayed warm during the night, although it did take two hot water bottles to get them that way.

The next two nights were similar. Day two was a walk up to Shira Cathedral (a small peak on an old volcanic rim crater) at 3750m, and then to Shira 2 campsite at 3840m. (Note that there are some discrepancies with the altitudes of the camps, but I’ll use the ones the guides gave us). A longer day, about 7 hours of walking, but not difficult - the pace was so slow it was nice and relaxing, although I had to get my mind around it at first because I found it so frustrating. But, the weather remained good - cool, but sunny. It would cloud over later in the day, and then clear up before sunset for another cold, cold night.

Day three was a nice short hike to Moir Hut, our third campsite at 4200m. Here, dust was the main problem. Not as bad as the truck ride from Andava, but thick enough. A good, steep acclimatization walk up the Lent Hills to 4600m before another good night’s sleep.

So far, the altitude hadn’t really affected me. I had had a headache for the whole time, but I was pretty sure that was my back and neck more than the altitude, as I had wrenched it the night before leaving Arusha. One member of our group wasn’t as lucky - Dennis, one of the Brits, was feeling quite poorly that night from altitude sickness. The Americans were taking Dimox (the anti-altitude sickness drug) and a couple of the other Brits weren’t looking too chipper, but besides Dennis, no real complaints.

The next day (the fourth) we walked up to the Lava Tower, our highest and most exposed camp at 4500m. Dennis lay down as soon as we arrived (in most cases, the porters would be in camp with our tents up before we got there) and made it up for lunch. He did not look good. Our head guide took one look at him and said, “He must go down now.” There was a rush to pack his gear for him (he was completely out of it, barely responsive to stimuli) and then they put him on oxygen and gave him Dimox. Eight porters and one of the assistant guides ran him down the hill. His friends were, of course, terribly upset but by the end of the day we got good news - he was safe down the mountain and had suffered no more ill effects. It incredible how altitude sickness works. Dennis had some bad HACE (“High Altitude Cerebral Edema”) - his body was pumping fluid into his brain cavity and basically his brain was swelling. Hence his unresponsiveness. Once he was down below 4000m, he made a rapid recovery. He doesn’t have any recollection of the events of that day until he got down to Shira 2 campsite (where an ambulance was able to take him back to the lodge), but he was OK.

That afternoon, we climbed up to the Arrow Glacier (seeing nothing but cloud, unfortunately) for our final acclimatization climb to 4800m. Our highest level until summit day.

And that night, I got hit by altitude sickness. It was a bad night for me. Once I lay down, I felt like I had the flu; weak, achy, bad headache. No fever, but nausea hit me hard, although I didn’t hurl. My bladder was in overtime too, so I didn’t get much sleep. The next morning, I felt very weak. It was also very cold - probably the coldest night, and I would have put it around -5 or -8 degrees. Cold enough to freeze water bottles, at any rate.

Luckily, the fifth day was a descent day. Immediately on descending 100m, I started to feel better. But 300m, I felt fine, the best I’d felt on the trip so far (didn’t even have a headache). It was either AMS or sympathy for Dennis. In any event, I’d not feel that bad for the rest of the trip.

Today was the steep descent down 600m, a 300m ascent up the Baranco Wall (a cliff with a trail zig-zagging up it’s face), another descent and ascent, and then a final descent and ascent into the Karangu Valley, with our campsite at 3930m. A long day, and the only difficult day (except for ascent day) but not bad at all really. The weather continued to hold - sunny, clear, and cold, with clouds moving in occasionally. But no rain, thank goodness.

Our six day was also easy. A short three hour hike to Barafu campsite, at 4500m. We’d stay here for the afternoon, trying to get some sleep, and then up at 11.00 pm to start our summit bid.

In the dark.

Which I thought was interesting. In some ways it was hard - you didn’t know where you were, relative to the mountain, but in some ways it was easy - you just put one foot in front of the other and kept walking. For me, the real enemy wasn’t the altitude (I felt the best I’d felt on the whole hike for this bit, although about 5000m my breath would get a bit short), but the cold. By the summit, my hands were numb and I had to unzip my jacket and shove them into my armpits to get them back again.

On the ascent, it was very slow. About 200 or 300 climbers (no porters, except summit porters to help anyone who needed it get down) were going up the trail, and it was a freakin’ highway. After the first hour, at a slow plodding pace, Evans, one of our guides, asked if I wanted to go faster and I of course said yes. We started to cut up the switchback, climbing “quickly” (it’s all relative) to get in front of a group and then following the switchback trail until we came to the next group, and then jumping in front of them. It was hard, but so much better than the slow, turtle pace the rest of the group were following.

By 5.15, four hours and 45 minutes after starting (in addition to the slow pace, we got off slow and didn’t start walking until 12.30 am) Evans and I hit Stella Point at 5820m, only 165m below Uhuru Peak. An hour later, we were at the peak. The sun hadn’t come up yet - so the pics are black. You can just see the pink of the dawn starting in the background. I was still very cold (it was probably about -25 or -30 degrees, with windchill, at the summit) so Evans and I didn’t linger. As we started down, we passed the other members of our group. All but three would make it to the summit, and those three would make it to Stella. All in all, a great success.

In comparison to the ascent, the descent was a blast. You get to scree run pretty much all the way down, and you get steadily warmer and more oxygen as you descend. By 7.30 I was back in camp - about an hour and a half after I started to come down. It’d be 10.30 before anyone else from the group was in, and I spent it sleeping. I felt triumphant, but the factory-like experience of the hike did not make it that enjoyable. Basically, it was a goal, not a wilderness or hiking experience. I don’t regret one minute of it, but I did feel a little let down at the end.

We’d hike down to Millennium campsite that afternoon, and then on the eighth and last day hike the rest of the way down the mountain to the Mweka gate. I actually did that really fast two - in about 2 hr and 35 minutes. I think I was happy to say goodbye to Kilimanjaro.
A big celebration in the lodge that night - I got to say bye to Mary and Judy, who also made it up. We had chatted as we met on the trail, and I was sorry to see them go.

The next morning, I left with my guide and driver, Jeremiah Si Ngoka, to spend six days at Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti looking at wildlife. It was going to be the end of the trip far too soon.

Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti

The next five days were incredible. Two days in Ngorongoro Crater, then three days in the Serengeti. All five nights I spent in campsites - but the tents had attached flush toilets and showers. Gravity fed showers, with hot water heated over a fire, but it was luxury after Kili.

The days were pretty similar - up early, breakfast in the mess tent, then a game drive. Box lunch in one of the park's picnic sites, and then another game drive. I actually got a little tired of sitting in our Defender Land Rover, but the wildlife I saw was pretty spectacular.

Highlites included: elephants, rhinos, one leopard (yay! finally saw the Big 5!), dozens of lions (including one where a female lion attacked and ate the cub of another female lion; very sad but I guess it's part of nature), hyenas, cheetahs, giraffes, more wildebeest you can shake a stick at and hundreds of zebra.

Not to mention the bird watching - saw almost every raptor that exists in East Africa. Wow!

But, after five days I had had enough. On the six, I flew a small plane from the Serengeti (which comes from the Masai word "Serenget" which means "endless plain" and it looks it) to Arusha, to Zanzibar, and then to Dar. A long wait, and then I boarded my flight to Amsterdam.

I had another long lay-over in Amsterdam but Debbie from Andava came out and we zipped into town for Saturday brunch. It was great to see her again!

Finally, an uneventful flight to Toronto, and safe back home. Another incredible trip. But this will be my last blog entry for a while; no great trips on the horizon. Hope you enjoyed the journey, and thanks for travelling (virtually) with me!

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Comments

[viviana]

cool
so you are having a bad time ??? jajaja i left bs as , returned home to patagonia, but only staryed a few weeks i traveled to find work, to bariloche stayed there a few days not much, just because i didn`t like what they offered so i found a job in pto madryn, jajja. my life always great! but your trips man! i miss you so much!!!! come back soon

[Alan]

What an adventure
Enjoyed reading this immensely Mike - brought back some fond memories!