Having acclimated to the best of our ability in Rwanda, we hopped on a flight to the small JRO airport near the mountain in Tanzania. We were excited, until we saw this - then we were just nervous:
Wuuuuuuut
At that point it sank in that this was not just a hiking trip. But we were still surprised when we basically crumbled instead of sauntering to a photogenic triumph of a summit. Let me explain:
You can't hike Kilimanjaro on your own, even if you're Awesome McHikerPro. Booking campsites in advance requires varying degrees of professional involvement, to say nothing of the guidance you will need in things like finding the right trail (if you're most people) and how to put one foot in front of the other without collapsing (if you're me). We researched which company to go with quite a bit. We settled on Ultimate Kilimanjaro because they use locals not only as porters but also as lead and assistant lead guides, and we didn't want to set ourselves up for a magical experience in Africa only to be led by European guides.
Our lead guide was Robert, a very experienced native Tanzanian who was older than me by a few years but looked about 22. I was initially convinced his youthful appearance was due to all the fresh outdoor time and perhaps some secret mountain magic, but if that was the case it did not translate to my complexion - by day 8 I looked like someone who had been kidnapped and chained to a radiator for 70 years. Maybe his skin was cryogenically frozen from the 5° fahrenheit temperatures at the summit? Not sure. Anyway, besides having summitted approximately 200 times, once in as little as two days (we asked), Robert had the best English of the group. The assistant lead guides were Mauru, a young and insanely fit expert (pretty much everyone was insanely fit actually) and Dismas, nicknamed Kikura, a slightly older man (maybe 50? 60? The cryogenics make it hard to tell), and I am not exaggerating when I say I think he personally knew every local on the mountain.
The company offers quite a few trip options, and you can choose your route and your hike duration. The longer the duration, the higher the chances of success (i.e., making it to the summit and not getting injured). That's because the number one reason people don't complete the hike is altitude sickness, and the longer you take to get up the mountain, the longer you have for acclimation. Wanting to give ourselves the best shot we could, we chose the 8 day Lemosho route. While there were quite a few scrambles (holding onto a rock above you and hoisting yourself up), the majority of the route was "just" walking for 6 days (with porters setting up camps for us at night) and descending for 2 days. Sounds totally manageable, right? Especially for some relatively young, relatively fit people like me and Boyfriend, right?
We did not manage.
The very first night, Boyfriend didn't sleep because he was so sick to his stomach. The guides confirmed that we hadn't hiked high enough to trigger altitude sickness yet, so the consensus was that the culprit was food poisoning. The guides did their best to make him comfortable and help him recover. He hiked for another very uncomfortable day, but didn't get any desperately needed sleep the second night either - the food poisoning was not going away and was sapping his strength. On day 3, he made the heartbreaking decision to go recover at the hotel - what else could he do? He turned back and Mauru escorted him to the hotel to make sure he was ok. Getting from the trail to the emergency evacuation road and back to the hotel took about 4 hours, I would find out later. Please imagine having food poisoning for 2 days then having to wait 4 hours before getting to a place with plumbing. Poor Boyfriend.
As soon as Boyfriend turned the corner from us I had a little cry - but Kikura was not having it. He came right up to me and in true older man fashion he comforted me by ordering me, "Be happy!" "Ok, thanks," I replied. "Just processing this since it just happened about 5 second ago." Kikura became mock stern. "If you stay unhappy, we go back right now!" Bless him. He was using soothing strategies straight out of a 1950s parenting book. I thought this would damage our relationship but Kikura would later practically carry me up the last 1,000 feet of the mountain, and my overall opinion of him is very favorable despite his lack of Sensitivity Training for Crying Westerners.
So I continued with the rest of our group. Besides the guides (temporarily minus Mauru), there were over 20 porters who came with our group of 6 (well, now 5) hikers. Outrageous, right? Approximately 4 Tanzanian porters per hiker. They were kept busy with bringing our food, tents, and equipment to each of the nightly camps, setting up our portable toilet every day (BLESS), and generally keeping us alive. I was very curious to see what the other hikers in our group would be like. They ranged in age from 25 to 44, 2 were solo travelers and the other two were a pair of roommates. They were from the Czech Republic, Brazil, and the US, but they were all white (we saw a few people of color in other tour groups, but the majority were European/white).
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| This is all our group! Kikura bottom left, Mauru right next to him. Robert is on the far right. |
I would say the hike is mostly divided into 3 parts: general climb, summit night/day, and descent. It appeared to me that the hikers in our group were enjoying the general climb against all logic. It was constantly cold and wet; we often had sleet whipped into our faces for hours at a time. The magic of waking up at cloud level was lost on me after about 1 hour of hiking, and each day held about 7-8 hours of hiking, so that math did not work out in my favor. It was super interesting to see the mountain flora, which we all agreed seemed surreal and otherworldly and very interesting. Interesting, but not warm. I needed something warm.
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| Bit of a traffic jam at a steep scramble - typical at the Barranco wall because of its narrow trail. |
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| Clumsily traipsing through the alien landscapes. |
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| I had been told there would be quite a bit of downtime, but really only one day gave us enough time to use the cards I had brought. Here we are in the mess tent. I taught everyone Egyptian Rat Screw and they promptly beat me. Rude. |
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| Our tents and the stars. Again, I know that this is objectively cool. I just couldn't appreciate it because it was so uncomfortable. |
Have a look here for a more in-depth explanation of the flora and fauna of the mountain, because god knows I was not ready to fully absorb the lesson.
Waking up above the clouds: Magical. And so cold.
To be fair, our amazing porters always hiked ahead of us and set up tea and coffee for when we dragged ourselves into camp for the night. Again, we were taken care of. I just didn't enjoy it on a physical level, that's all. Mentally I knew that what I was doing was awesome, and a big accomplishment, and a privilege. But it still sucked for me. I knew that I was on my own in this because the other hikers in our group would casually mention their next 20,000 foot + mountain that they intended to hike, and from DAY ONE I knew I would never put myself through anything like this again.
Almost every meal was hot, and it was incredible and somewhat guilt-inducing to realize that each meal's ingredients had been lugged up the mountain since Day 1, even including the scrambled eggs that were often served with breakfast. It's very sobering to think that every step I had taken that day had also been taken by a porter carrying 36 eggs without breaking them. So meals and guidance were top notch, but other comforts were fleeting. For example, experienced campers and climbers will correctly assume that there were to be no showers for 8 days. My beauty routine consisted of wet wipes and hand sanitizer, and it showed. By day 8 the skin on my nose was pretty much disintegrated from me trying to wipe it with a harsh toilet paper in 10 degree weather for days at a time. I just had to resign myself to the fact that no one was about to win any beauty pageants here except for Robert.
Finally it was time for summit night. We set out at around 10:30pm with our headlamps to attempt to make it to the summit for sunrise. Sunrise came and went when I was about 5/7ths of the way up. So it goes. Other hikers in our group made it "on time" with Mauru (who had quickly hiked to meet our group after dropping Boyfriend off) and GoodLuck (Tanzanians have the best names). Kikura and Robert stayed back to help me and Giselle, the Brazilian (hi Giselle!) as we s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e-d to keep going to the top. No scenery, no extrinsic motivation - just darkness and your own inner dialogue (WhyAmIDoingThisWhyAmIDoingThisWhyAmIDoingThisWhyAmIDoingThisWhyAmIDoingThis) periodically interrupted by a guide's encouraging interjection or spirit-raising song. At one point Kikura had to tell us to take slower steps so that we could preserve our strength - apparently he was not a fan of me stopping every 15 minutes, hunching over and sucking wind. He counted out the steps methodically ("one... two... one... two...") and Giselle and I were hanging on every word.
I should mention here that I was hopped up on Diamox, the altitude sickness prevention pill, and had been taking it as indicated. I STILL could not get enough air. I wasn't in pain or feeling exerted. I was just generally drained, which matches altitude issue symptoms.
Anyway, after repeatedly sinking to my knees in various nooks and crannies of the mountain and muttering under my breath that I was done and not going any higher, I was pulled up by Kikura and/or Robert and trudged to the top. Look at how put together and savvy I was:
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| The first peak was Stella Point. I did not even know which direction the camera was in. It's an absolute miracle I didn't walk off the side of the mountain. |
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| There were glaciers and stuff up there. That other peak is Mount Meru. |
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| Glaciers on the Kilimanjaro peak have been shrinking steadily; it's feared they may disappear completely by 2030. |
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| Kikura, me, and Robert at the official summit - Uhuru peak. Notice Robert carrying my pack - I had held out for the majority of the hike but with 800 feet to go he plucked it off of my back as, sobbing, I tried to take an unscheduled nap on a vertical rock. |
THE DESCENT
Given that we had 6 days to climb and only 2 scheduled for descent, I thought we would have an easy way down. No.
It is a different route to descend, but it's not easier. The guides just usher you on more quickly (since there is no altitude concern anymore). About 1/4 of it is reeeeeeally sandy and you kind of half slide half stumble down. It's one of those "your knees will hurt for days afterward" kind of setups. You will definitely want trekking poles.
Along the descent path we saw very strange looking wire carts with a single wheel. Robert let us know that these were emergency stretchers. People are far more likely to get hurt on the descent than on the way up (!!!) and those things serve as a rudimentary ambulance for emergencies but honestly they seem to be deathtraps in and of themselves. Addressing my incredulity, Kikura promptly demonstrated how they work. In hindsight this was really interesting, but at the time I was just grateful for a little break.
So we made it down to the base, and hopped in our van for the 2.5 hour drive back to the hotel.
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| The sign at the very end of the descent trail: Congratulations, Bon Voyage. |
Boyfriend was there and I was finally happy again. Then I promptly got preposterously sick myself, either with food poisoning or perhaps delayed onset altitude sickness. Thank heaven above I was at the hotel when this set in and I weathered the storm in a comfortable bed, propped up on pillows and reading my book and instructing Boyfriend on how to pack my heavy luggage. Because it was time to recover, pronto, which meant that we needed to catch a flight to Zanzibar.
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| Hikers and lead guides. If you summit you get a personalized certificate. Here we are with ours, each having lost about 10 pounds, weather beaten and ugly as sin (except for the flawless beauty of the local guides). Next and final stop for this trip: Zanzibar... |
