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Bright and early the next day, we began our great big adventure up the tallest mountain in Africa. This was the highlight of the trip for me, this six-day 62-mile trek up the Machame route. It was what I had been looking forward to most on this entire trip. I had even trained the previous week by walking around the Great Mall. Twice. In the same day. All joking aside, I was super determined to make it up this big bad mountain, of which I still could not see the top. And, in retrospect, it was lucky for me that I had the most fabulous group of people with me for the journey.
First and most important, of course, Lea, my fabulous Africa travel companion and confidante. Tina, my brand new buddy from DC who I absolutely adore for her wry sense of humour. Edward, our guide, appropriately dubbed the mountain goat because he was forever wandering off on his own little route up the mountain, and who was so awesomely cheerful and full of song the entire trip. Julius, another guide, who was constantly checking on us to make sure we had everything we needed and/or wanted and actually accompanied me all the way up to the summit. Marcarius and Jamal, our chefs, who somehow made these super gourmet meals on the side of a mountain. I don't know how they managed this, but I found myself downing the yummiest soups every night and eating things like popcorn balls, pancakes, avocado salad, fried chicken, potato wedges, and, on our summit day, goulash. It was actually ridiculous how awesome the food was. They were also kind enough to borrow rice so I could make Chinese rice porridge (we were all having trouble holding down food on the mountain). And, last but not least, our awesome staff of porters who were all carrying huge 20kg (50lb) loads up the mountain and still managed to beat us to camp every day. This while we were all struggling to walk up with our tiny day packs. Honourable mentions go to: George, our scout, who was always so super happy to see us that greeting him as he passed us became a highlight of every morning. Marcuz, our waiter, who woke us up every morning by handing us a steaming cup of tea we got to enjoy still warmly snuggled up in our mummy bags. Unfortunately, he ended up getting sick and having to descend the mountain early. And finally, Fabian, who took over for Marcuz and who I absolutely adore because, in addition to his actual job as our waiter, he went out of his way to make sure I always had my little plastic baggie of hot water for my knee, which had started to act up as soon as we hit our first downhill patch, and who actually put on my gaiters for me one day when he saw me struggling with it. I was SPOILED on that mountain. I admit it. I'm telling you, the BEST mountain family a girl could ask for!
The morning started off super dreary and drizzly. Hiring porters, which is done by tour companies at the gate, weighing their loads so as not to exceed the 20kg limit per porter, registration for both ourselves and our guides, making sure we had adequate food and supplies, etc took until almost 11am. And for a brief moment during that wait, I began to again question my sanity in striving to climb this mountain. But that feeling passed quickly and, with the logistics out of the way, we finally took off up the mountain. Along the way, I was inundated with the words deemed necessary to survive the next six days. Pole pole meant slow down, while pole itself meant sorry. Asante is thank you and karibu welcome. Twende meant let's go, juu is up and chini is down. Poa kichizi kama ndizi, one of Lea's favourite phrases, was cool like a banana (this one took me forever to learn and I still had to Google to even come close to the spelling). Habari is how are you and mzuri sana meant very good. Or, you could say mambo vipi, which is a more informal version of how are you. Rafiki meant friend. And the most important word I learned that day? Choo, the literal word for toilet. We probably asked for a "choo break" at least ten times a day while we were on that mountain. Girly AND classy, huh? :) As a side note, we actually ended up running out of toilet paper and had to borrow more from the boys' friends. For future reference, 3 girls x 6 days on a mountain = 18 rolls of toilet paper. Minimum. It's a law somewhere, I'm sure.
Weaving up through the rainforest, we arrived at Machame Camp with plenty of time to settle in before sunset. That's when we got our first surprise. There were actual squatter bathrooms on premise. Well, single stall wood huts with holes in the floor. But still, it was a relief to behold. The day before, someone had told us there would be a porter to carry up a portable toilet for our use. At the time, all I could think was how uber awkward it would be to have to interact with the poor fellow who would be cleaning up/out our crap. Literally. We were so glad to find out that it was all a joke. Tanzanian humour takes some getting used to. The next day, after being coaxed out of bed with Kili tea, we made our way up out of the forest and through the moorland. Shorter hike, steeper inclines. And lunch on a very very very windy ridge. We eventually stumbled into Shira Camp in the late afternoon, where we were rewarded with an amazing view of a mountain chain in the distance. I'm fairly sure both Edward and Julius mentioned the name, but at that point, all I was focused on was getting to the top of the mountain I was on. This was also the first day I witnessed people having trouble acclimating to the altitude, in the form of massive migraines. I was glad that I had taken the altitude pill that morning as a precaution so all I was feeling was tingly fingers. And the incessant need to pee all the time. Acetazolamid is a diuretic. Combine that with our ingesting 3+ litres of water a day + my super small bladder, and you can only imagine how annoyed the guides were that we had to stop pretty much every hour. The other kicker? It turned out that I didn't actually need to take Acetazolamid. I ended up forgetting on summit day and made it up and down the mountain just fine. Go figure.
Day three was our big acclimatization day. We climbed 800 metres through the desert to the top of Lava Tower, where we enjoyed a fabulous hot meal courtesy of our awesome chefs, before a very painful 700m descent into Barranco Camp because, genius that I am, I forgot to put on my knee brace. When we finally reached camp, relief set in for about five minutes until Julius pointed out the huge wall we'd have to scale come morning. It was daunting to say the least. What I didn't realize until I was actually climbing it the next day was that we would be rock scrambling right up the side. Super scary, but I somehow managed to sucker myself through it without bursting into tears (yay me!) and eventually wound my way up to Barafu Camp, our base camp for the summit. This was the one and only day we were able to beat our tents up the mountain. SUCH a proud moment. We passed out sometime around 7pm and slept for a solid four hours before waking up to the biggest night of our lives.
Summit day began not-bright but super early, at midnight. With headlamps lighting up the path, we, along with our fellow adventurers, filed like an ant colony up the long, steep incline towards our goal. Not since the top of Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan had I seen so many stars littering the sky. The moon was just a silver crescent resting atop a faraway mountain and the air smelled so pure. It was the most picturesque scene one could imagine, standing astride one of the tallest mountains in the world. Despite being reminded by Edward to stop looking up and start watching where I was going, a very good point given my track record, it was super difficult not to get distracted by the shooting stars. The first couple of hours flew by with pretty much the same, monotonous uphill climbing routine. But at some point, having meandered on ahead with Julius, the cold, the altitude and the lack of sufficient sleep set in. I finally stopped chattering away (surprise!) and started concentrating on breathing. It began to be harder to take each step upwards. I would literally breathe in, take a step, breathe out, and repeat. The hike began to take on a more mental challenge, and my only motivation, the fact that I had already told people I was going to walk up this mountain. And thankfully, my pride won out. I eventually made it to Stella Point, and then onwards to Uhuru Peak, summitting at around 7.30 in the morning. Along the way, I attempted to take a 2-minute nap which Julius emphatically put his foot down over, nearly overbalanced a few times and luckily he was there to steady me, and complained about how much harder this walk was than having swine flu last year, which he pretended to care about. Can you only imagine how much I adore my guide? I also saw just about everything happen on that mountain. There was no shame. This one chick flat out pulled down her pants in the middle of the road to take care of business. Nobody even looked at her. I at least made it behind a rock the one time in those 12 hours that I needed to pee. Guess I am modest after all. Hah. There were some people crying hysterically. There were some people throwing up. There were some that just turned around and walked back down. But most eventually made it. It was only a matter of time. And it turned out we got so incredibly lucky with our timing. It had started hailing, what they call mountain rain, just as we completed our descent back to base camp. Imagine if it had begun the evening before, as was the case with the group that was ascending the night after us. The hike up would've been ten times harder and I'm not so sure I would have made it. Thank god we had good mountain karma.
After a short rest at Barafu, more yummy soup, and Chinese rice porridge courtesy of moi (bet ya'll didn't know I can cook very very basic Chinese food, huh?), we began to make our way down the mountain to our final camp, Mweka. I'm actually surprised and definitely relieved that I made it all the way to camp without my knees giving out. They were aching THAT badly. But you would not believe what motivation a nice cold Kilimanjaro beer can be. And Ghirardelli chocolate from SFO that one of our awesome porters schlepped up and down the mountain for us. Don't worry. We shared the love with la familia. After having been up for 20 hours, we were all oh-so-glad to finally crawl into bed at around 8pm.
The next morning, we started the last leg of our journey downhill. And boy, were we slow. To put it into perspective for you, despite the motivation of a steaming hot shower, we were actually passed by the sweet 65-year-old couple from Switzerland. On their 30th anniversary adventure. Laugh if you must, but we were in THAT much of a world of hurt. We finally made it down a little past noon, got our certificate-of-success (which will be framed and hung next to my college diploma), bid adieu and promised to keep in touch with our awesome mountain family, and began the long drive back to Arusha. Along the way, we got a little taste of bongo flava, the local musical style, and then suddenly Ludacris' "Area codes" came on. At this point, we were still unsure how much of the song lyrics the boys actually understood. We got our answer when the next song popped up and they all studiously worked to avoid our eyes. I don't know what the song was actually called, but the lyrics stated something to the effect of "let us copulate with some young ladies of questionable morals" and a couple of inventive ways to do so. They were soooo embarrassed and scrambled to skip the mini-disc to the next song. Uber cute. Gotta love the boys.
Looking back, the Machame route is not a hard hike if you can handle the altitude. The upward climb is not as daunting as it seems. BUT, the downhill sucked big time. At least for me. It's now three weeks later and I'm still in recovery mode. I should've just "accidentally" fallen off a small cliff or something so I could've been airlifted out. Which, I recall, I actually contemplated out loud to Julius at some point. But, in all honesty, I wouldn't have traded this experience for anything. I learned so much in these six days! About myself, in that I can survive without a shower for six days, take care of nature's needs anywhere anytime, and that it is actually possible to exhaust me to the point of silence. And about Tanzanian culture and customs, the different tribes that make up the population in this area and how they differ from one another, and the social-political structure they ascribe to. Knowledge I would never have acquired had I not actually been there and lived it.
The one thing I had the hardest time adjusting to was the caste system on the mountain. Somehow, we were at the top, followed by the guides, the chefs, the waiters, and somewhere on the bottom tier were the rest of the porters. I didn't even realize how complicated the system was but apparently everyone has their place and their specific duties. Even eating followed these rules, which made me more than a little uncomfortable. According to Julius, there are actually some clients that found it awkward to have the guides eat with them. Me? I found it awkward that nobody else ate until we were through. And I'm sure I made them equally as uncomfortable when I kept serving them first after we all finally sat down to eat together. Asian youngest female syndrome rears its well-trained head.
And the most horrifying thing I witnessed on the mountain? As we were making our way down from Lava Rock to Barranco Camp, we came across a porter who had not been fed. It was appalling really. Apparently, some of the companies did not have enough food rationed for their porters so some of them went hungry. For the duration of the trip. "WHAT???" (my exact reaction). I was totally flabbergasted. Who can even fathom that some of these tour companies would allow the porters to risk their lives on the mountain, yet not feed them properly? Yes, porters are independent and can work with whichever company hires them at the gate. But that does not mean the companies do not hold responsibility over their lives during their period of employment. Or it shouldn't. This was just so unbelievable to me. We ended up giving the guy some of our energy bars and one of our guides sent a porter to bring help for this man. I honestly had a really hard time leaving this poor guy on the side of the mountain but at least we did what we could. Which reminds me. I really should write a letter to the Tanzanian government about this.
Hmm…Have I already mentioned how much I adore my little mountain family? I mean, obviously, like with any family, there are some people you aren't super fond of. But all in all, I couldn't have asked for a more awesome group of people. The boys did SUCH a good job of making sure we were well taken care of all the way up and down the mountain, often going above and beyond their job responsibilities. And what made the experience even better was that Amani Afrika donates at least 10% of the proceeds each year to provide mosquito netting for orphanages in and around the area. Godwin's sister passed away from the disease some years ago and he himself got malaria over 20 times so the prevention of malaria is a cause near and dear to his heart. It sure felt good to be giving back to the local community filled with wonderful wonderful people, like our mountain family.
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