avelog

I was going to call it ‘Kili: the untold story’, but then 48 hours’ wait doesn’t really warrant the title. I arrived back in Moshi, Tanzania yesterday afternoon, having summited Uhuru Peak on Mount Kilimanjaro at 6:00am on March 22nd, 2007. It was a tough slog, but worth it in the end, I think.

Day 1 (1490m to 2980m, five hours)

My five climbing partners and I arrived at Machame gate around 11:00am, raring to go. Unfortunately, the guides and porters weren’t well organised at that point, so we only actually set off at 12:30pm. I was matched with two Dutch girls, two Dutch guys, and Portuguese guy. Day 1 was a fairly easy trek up a wide path at relatively low altitude through montane forest (quite similar in superficial appearance to many places in Canada). We started the day at 1490m and camped at 2980m. Pedro (the Portuguese guy) had an altimeter on his watch that consistently read about 135m less than the official measurement, but we never really figured out whether that was because it was miscalibrated. Kilimanjaro is almost always climbed with porters, guides, and cook, and so for the six of us, we had 15 porters, 2 guides, and a cook! I therefore only had to carry a small backpack with a few essentials (raingear, water, camera, lunch). The light load made the slow pace necessary for acclimatization even more excruciating.

Machame route is locally referred to as the ‘Whiskey route’, as opposed to Marangu route, the ‘Coca-Cola route’. Apparently this is both because Machame has no huts (tenting only), and because it’s considered more rugged and perhaps more physically demanding.

I nearly gave myself hypothermia by neglecting to put on my fleece upon arrival at Machame camp, as I had a bit of a wait for the others and the porters had yet to boil water for tea (which they did about five times a day!). Supper every night was some kind of cucumber soup with white bread, followed by starch (pasta or rice) and a vegetable sauce, often accompanied by fried chicken, and finished with fruit (usually papaya or watermelon). The amount of food and equipment that the porters carried up the mountain was fairly astounding. Our kit included a table for eating on, camp chairs, lots of food, a kitchen tent, four tents for the tourists, and a couple of the porters and guides, and an assortment of kit for the porters. I had booked through a different tour company than the others and had a significantly bigger tent to myself, so I traded with the Dutch guys and slid into my sleeping bag for a fitful sleep.

Day 2 (2980m to 3840m, through moorland)

Day 2 was quite similar to Day 1, although at higher altitude. We emerged from the last vestiges of forest and out into what they classify as alpine desert. This consisted of a few trees (mostly dead) among scrub and brush, with a fair number of wildflowers in yellow, red, and pink. We climbed from 2980m at Machame camp to 3840m at Shira camp. Some 750 years ago, Shira Peak, previously higher than Uhuru, collapsed to form a plateau on which we camped. The altitude was definitely starting to show, and although we were all going very slowly, plodding, one foot in front of the other, we were definitely short of breath. We stopped for lunch halfway, eating the usual boiled egg, mango juice, greasy sandwich (butter or deep-fried French toast), green orange, and stale muffin. At this point I witnessed what was to be a common sight: blatant littering on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. One of the porters from another group downslope walked up to the edge of a cliff, glanced up at me as I watched him, and then tossed an empty plastic bottle casually over the edge. Considering that the mountain is their livelihood, some of the porters had shockingly little respect for its pristine state.

Day 3 (3840m to 4630m to 3950m)

Day 3 was the real reason that a higher proportion of climbers from Machame route make it to the summit than from Marangu route. We climbed up to the Lava Tower (hilariously mislabeled the ‘lover tower’ in our itinerary) at 4630m before descending along a valley to camp at 3950m. The extra acclimatization afforded by this temporary ascent provide the body much better odds of surviving the final ascent. Scrub turned to barren rock with lichen and the occasional tuft of hardy grass. No trees whatsoever.

Around midday, just before reaching the Lava Tower, we passed an enormous camp, with a flag labeled ‘Tusker Trail’, about twenty two-person tents, a couple of mess tents, a couple of kitchen tents, portable toilets, and dozens of porters. Awed by the size of the operation and a little bit jealous of the luxury, we continued trudging up the barren rocky slope, stopping for lunch in the shadow of the Lava Tower. The tower is a jumble of lava rock jutting up from the side of the mountain about 40m in diameter and 50m high. By this time I had a pretty solid headache and some nausea from the altitude.

After one of the other guides took his charge climbing up the side of the tower, I asked the same of one of our guides. He gave me a bit of a dirty look, but consented, and we scrambled up the the side for a disappointingly misty view. Somehow, the exertion from the climb cleared my headache and nausea. By the time we had descended to discover that the others had left to get a head start on us, I was ready to bound down the mountain to camp, uninhibited by the slow precautionary pace required when ascending.

After passing the others and temporarily losing my way in the never-ending cloud, I paused for a few minutes, sitting on the top of a huge rock overlooking the valley through which we were descending, and contemplating the meaning of life. With the descent, we were again surrounded by scrub and brush, with some pretty interesting looking plants (I’ll post photos of the giant lobelia later!). By the time we got into camp after six hours of hiking, everyone was quite exhausted, and all one of the others retired to their tents for some rest. The Barranco Wall loomed over us, a steep cliff face up which we would be climbing for the first hour and a half the next morning.

Somehow, the Tusker Trail crew had managed to uproot their entire camp and move it to Barranco in the time it had taken us to descend from the Lava Tower. Noticing that a number of Canadians were listed in that group in the registration book, I wandered over after snacking on the usual post-climb burnt popcorn and freshly roasted peanuts.

Tusker Trail turned out to be an climbing outfit owned by a South African man who had married a Canadian woman (at one time a client). They had been hired to run a charity climb for a group of Canadians, sponsoring CARE Canada. I chatted with a dozen or so of the climbers, an assortment of men and women mostly in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, from a variety of professions. They were taking ten days to climb, with maximal acclimatization, and would be camping inside the crater in between afternoon and morning summit attempts. They also had a number of side activities planned, including an introduction to technical climbing on the Barranco Wall the following morning.

After another dinner of soup, pasta, sauce, and fruit, we headed for bed for another fitful sleep at high altitude, some sickness of different sorts affecting each of us.

Day 4 (3950m to 4550m)

Day 4 dawned crisp and clear, frost covering the tents and the cold air nipping at our toes and fingers. After tea, coffee, white bread, fried eggs, and sausages, huddled around the table, we set off again for our climb up the Barranco Wall. We spent the entire time playing a trivia game among the six of us, shouting things out to eachother up and down the cliff, which definitely helped to pass the difficult slog more quickly. We also passed some of the guides from the Tusker Trail who were setting up the ropes for the morning’s lesson.

The day was all up and down, winding across rocky ridges and steep-sided valleys. After pausing for lunch on a rocky slope dotted with long-drop toilets, we finally made a steady ascent through shale and scree. Emerging into bright sunlight above the cloud cover, we climbed one last rust-coloured cliff face, exhausted and sick, to pause at our last camp before the summit attempt. Strong wind swept across the mountainside, ripping at our tents which were huddled in the lee of a short cliff.

Dazed and exhausted, we crawled into our sleeping bags for a few short hours of rest, interrupted by dinner, before awaking at 11:00pm to prepare for the midnight summit attempt. The first of our group vomited after dinner, and nobody could stomach much food. None of us could sleep, and we lay in our tents in a stupor. I took a few minutes to make a short journal entry about my physical state in case something went wrong, chronicling my nausea, headache, earache, shortness of breath, resting heart rate of 90bpm (normally down around 60bpm), dizziness, confusion, fever, and various aches.

I dozed off a couple of times, waking up suddenly in a cold sweat, feeling like I was suffocating because I had begun hyperventilating in my sleep. Visiting the toilet (four times in a few hours!) was like trying to piss in a hurricane, as the gale force winds whipped up through cracks in the rock-and-concrete walls of the cisterns.

Day 5 (4550m to 5895m to 3100m, summit night)

We awoke at 11:00pm, hot water brought to our tent doors by a couple of porters. We had been given some coca leaf tea, bought over Ebay from South America by a London trio of climbers, and apparently the perfect thing to ward off altitude sickness, although potentially illegal.

I put on nearly all the clothes that I had brought travelling, layering two pairs of underwear beneath hiking pants, shorts, and rainpants on my lower body, and thermal underwear, two t-shirts, light sweater, fleece, and raincoat on my upper body. I had borrowed a Windstopper ski mask and an extra pair of gloves from the guides and pulled the hood of my raincoat over my head to block out some of the wind.

Trekking poles in hand, our head torches the only thing to light the way, we set off through the darkness, up along a rocky ridge, following one guide (no light for him!!) and followed by a second guide and a porter who was substituting as a third. Passing a lonely stretcher lying in wait on the side of the mountain, we started climbing an endless scree slope, loose rock treacherous underfoot, uncertain of what lay beyond the short reach of our torches. One foot in front of the other for hours on end, grey rock or gaping darkness in every direction. I fell in behind one of the Dutch girls, who was showing signs of serious dizziness and exhaustion. Every few steps her leg would hesitate and she would teeter to one side, sometimes slipping, sometimes stumbling. A couple of times, I reached out to steady her so that she wouldn’t fall down the mountain. Concentrating on her struggles, I was able to put my own severe nausea out of my mind.

After three hours, it seemed touch-and-go whether some of the group would make it to the summit, altitude sickness and exhaustion slowing us down. The lead guide split us into two groups, taking Pedro and I ahead and leaving the other four to more slowly make their way up. The three of us set off again, determined to make it to the summit to witness a glorious sunrise from the top. Two more hours climbing and Pedro and I were near collapse. Pedro struggled ahead of me as I concentrated on planting my hiking poles solidly in the loose rock and driving my body upwards. I felt like vomiting, worse when we rested, and concentrated on keeping my mostly-empty stomach in check. Up, up, and up, one foot and then the next, poles striking the rock, push with the arms, next foot, push, again, again.

Out of the darkness a cliff of ice appeared suddenly, the edge of a glacier, heralding the last stretch before reaching Stella Point (5685m). Our guide pushed relentlessly onwards and we saw distant points of light swaying up the mountain from Marangu route, intersecting with ours at Stella Point. Ice and snow replaced rock underfoot, and we kept trudging, less steep, but seemingly endless, towards the unseen peak. Every time that we thought we could make out our destination through the darkness, it turned into yet another small ridge masquerading as a peak.

A red glow appeared in the eastern horizon, illuminating a landscape of cloud, rock, and snow stretching out to the horizon. Finally, through the dim pre-dawn light, the welcome sight of camera flashes marked the peak, where exhilerated, frozen climbers were busy capturing their moment of triumph in front of the Uhuru Peak sign.

We had finally arrived, waiting our turn in the freezing wind to take our obligatory sign photos. My fingers were close to frostbite and I took some time to warm them up after fumbling my camera out of the relative safety of my fleece pocket. Pedro and I were elated, hugging and exchanging high-fives, taking photos of everything, etc. We witnessed a brilliant sunrise, fields of billowing, changing cloud stretching out below us; orange, red and yellow reflecting off the ice and snow around us. Kilimanjaro’s glaciers spread around us, sculpted by the wind.

The cold becoming too much, we started back down through the snow, passing some of the other climbers from Machame route who were still struggling up towards the peak, encouraging them, assuring them that it wasn’t much farther. The rest of our group was valiantly struggling up, having dealt with vomiting, severe headache, and dizziness. They arrived at the summit only an hour behind us, managing six for six. On our way back down the scree slope, it seems impossible that we had climbed it, and certainly beneficial to have done so in the dark so that we had no idea how long it really was.

Slipping and sliding down for three hours, my knees ached, and my feet were really hurting by the time I got back to camp and collapsed into my tent, nine and a half hours after having left. I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing, and fell into another fitful sleep for a couple of hours. The porters again woke us at 11:00am for some lunch, before we had to pack up and head down the mountain for another three hours to Mweka camp. The descent was extremely slow, the guide telling me that I looked like a disabled drunk (or something like that) because of the extent to which I was relying on my hiking poles rather than my tired legs.

We finally arrived at camp, feeling a tiny bit energized in the denser air, had dinner, chatted with other climbers about the challenges of the previous 36 hours, and retired for a much more restful sleep than we’d had in four days.

Day 6 (3100m to 1980m)

Day 6 was a walk in the park, quite literally. We were back down on Kili’s forested slopes and the path was wide and well-maintained. After taking some group photos with all the guides and porters, announcing their tips, and enjoying the ensuing song and dance, we rapidly made our way down for two hours to Mweka gate, where our certificates of accomplishment awaited. While all six of our group had made it to the summit, only 8 of 12 in a UK charity group and 0 of 3 in the London coca-leaf-tea group had summited.

I discovered yesterday that, tragically, a 65-year old member of the CARE Canada/Tusker Trail climbing group succumbed to altitude sickness and died while being evacuated during the summit attempt. The group leaders and guides from that venture seemed very capable and professional, but despite the use of emergency oxygen, he could not be saved. This is a stark reminder, if one were needed, that Kili is a challenging, dangerous and potentially fatal beast; one which should not be taken lightly. Climbers of all ages and fitness levels need to be very careful, and make sure not to push themselves beyond their limits, especially with respect to altitude.

Next

Now I rest for a couple of days in Moshi before taking a bus to Uganda.

I just got back from my Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater, and Lake Manyara safari, successfulling completing my goal of seeing leopards and cheetahs in Africa. The group I joined up with for the safari was comprised of 12 medical students doing electives at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. They were very warm and welcoming, even though 8 were German and didn’t speak English very frequently.

We stopped at Lake Manyara first, and vast lake on the edge of the Rift Valley, with lush forest bordering it, and making up 60% of a National Park filled with zebras, giraffes, hippos, elephants, etc. After camping for the night, we made the long drive to the Serengeti, passing along the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater, the largest caldera (volcanic crater) in the world. In the Serengeti, we saw massive herds of wildebeest and zebras, paused in their annual migration to care for newborns and for the new mothers to recover their strength. We camped in the middle of the Serengeti, at a small wooded campsite, lions roaring in the night.

After sleeping, we went on a dawn game drive without much luck, although we did stop at a massive hippo pool in a stream, where at least a hundred hippos were submerged and crocodiles were sunning themselves on the rocks in the background. On the way out of the Serengeti, our drivers (in three jeeps) got a call about a leopard spotting, and we took a detour to check out the gorgeous creature resting in a tree, looking absolutely relaxed, its front legs dangling down from the branch and swaying in time to its breathing.

We spent the night camping on the rim of the crater, and three of us were up having late night beers and chatting under the stars when a buffalo wandered up through the darkness, munching away and staring at us. Considering that the buffalo is the second most aggressive animal apart from the hippo, we decided to back away slowly and observe it at a dashable distance from the concrete eating enclosure. The following morning we descended steeply into the crater and drove around for several hours observing the amazing volume of life in the crater: cheetahs, lions, rhinos, hippos, elephants, plenty of gazelles, wildebeest, buffalos, etc. Having met my twin goals of seeing a leopard and a cheetah in the wild, we drove back to Moshi, which lies in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Tomorrow I will join two Dutch people to climb Kili in six days, hoping that I don’t get altitude sickness. I’ve heard widely varying accounts about the proportion of people that successfully summit the mountain. Some say as little as 40% of climbers make it to the top. I’ll let you know in six days’ time!

I’ve tried to write a few things down here, but due to a combination of slow internet and power failures, it has been a bit of a mishap.

The important thing is that I am safe and healthy. I’m currently in Moshi, Tanzania, near to Mount Kilimanjaro. I’ve had pretty crazy few days! Having had to vacate my first night’s room, I headed blindly south, with only the name ‘Kipepeo Beach’ to guide me and randomly met three different guys that I thought at first were trying to scam me, and each eventually ended up helping me quite a bit. I stayed one night at the beach accomodation, and was introduced (by one of the above-mentioned guys) to a fellow named Mwasi, a self-employed tour consultant who ran four jeeps on safaris. Despite the fact that I hadn’t planned to do any safaris yet, if at all, I ended up agreeing to a three-day trip to the Mikumi National Park and Udzungwa Mountain National Park (one of the biodiversity hotspots of Africa, in the Eastern Arc Mountains). I joined three German girls and a guide in a Land Rover and we cruised around Mikumi for one and a half days looking at animals, and then I did a four hour hike with a local guide in the mountain park, looking at monkeys and a huge variety of plants. It had been pouring down rain all night and only eased a little in the morning, so the girls didn’t end up coming on the trek. I got to climb up to three waterfalls and took some nice photos that I’ll post eventually.

The night I got back to Dar es Salaam, the same tour consultant SMSed me saying that there was a group doing the Serengeti/Ngorongoro Crater/Lake Manyara safari followed by a climb of Kilimanjaro, and did I want to go. The catch was that I’d have to leave for Moshi early the next morning and it was already 9pm. I delayed insisting that I speak first with a friend of a friend who was to meet me for a beer, but after some thought and conversation, I decided to spend the money and get it over with (I’ll have little left, so wandering aimlessly once I’m done these too things had better be fairly cheap!). This morning, Mwasi put me on a bus to Moshi, and I’ve only just arrived, greeted by his cousin Phillip (another tour operator) who is running these two tours.

Although Phillip’s story and Mwasi’s story don’t perfectly align (there are now 12 in the group for the safari, in three jeeps, and nobody yet for Kilimanjaro), it looks like it still might work out. Mwasi told me that I’d be with two Germans and an American for both the safari and the climb, but I might very well be completely alone for the climb (except of course for porters, cook, and guide?!). Apparently it’s much easier to find people for Kili, so Phillip thought it would be a good idea to stick me on the safari while there’s a group going. It’s low season (rainy), so I’m told that it’s often tough to find groups at this time of year.

And of course, I’ll write all about it when I’m done! There are so many details that I wish I could write about, but that I’m sure would sound very very boring in print.

Still safe and happy!

Well, Internet Explorer at this internet place in Dar es Salaam messed up my blog entry from last night, and deleted all but the first sentence.

I arrived in Dar today and was happily surprised to be greeted by two complete strangers holding a sign with my name on it. Apparently, the inquiries that my Rob-replacement short-term roommate, Marcus, had made with his friends in Tanzania had finally panned out, and a friend of a friend of a friend came to meet me with his friend. They drove me around to a bank and got me a SIM card and all they wanted was a cola in return, which I happily provided. The backpackers where I’m staying is full tomorrow night, so I’ll probably head south to a smaller town outside of Dar. I’m told it’s lovely, cheap, right on the ocean, and easy to get to.

First impressions of Tanzania: We flew in through low cloud, billowing and spiraling upward in mountains of grey and white. Low grass fires dotted the landscape, presumably set by farmers to burn off stubble, creating a faint haze that melted into the grey-blue ocean horizon to the east. The land around Dar was mostly small, planted fields, interspersed with patches of bush and low trees.

After passing through customs and meeting two new friends, Mohamed and Frank, both in their second-to-last years of electronic engineering, they took me past a bank (thankfully the atm took MC), and got me a SIM card before dropping me at the Q-Bar (slash hotel and backpackers) and promising to call me on Saturday to go out on the town if I’m still around.

Dar is dusty and at first glance seems half-built. We did not pass through the city centre, so I’ll be able to give impressions of that in the coming days, but the part that we did come through was lively; ten times more lively than South Africa! It sounded like it was market day of sorts, and there were people and bicycle carts crossing to and fro through the snaking, dusty traffic, drivers all too pleased to stop and let someone in.

So far, I have my four-bedroom dorm at the Q-Bar all to myself. I’m hoping some others move in tonight to help with meeting people, but I’ve already started making friends over beers.

I have a new cell number in Tanzania: +255 784 459 115, just in case anyone really really needs to get ahold of me.

To make up for two months with no photos, I’m going to flood you with them! Now these aren’t the Christmas trip, but they’re a necessary prelude, and I’ll be posting the Christmas stuff as soon as possible!

I know that none of us wants a long and boring narrative about this pre-Christmas stuff, so I’ll just generally say that November included a trip down to the coast near Durban, plus lots of work in the office. Early December played host to a cricket match between India and South Africa, a trip out to an NGO called Ecolink in Mpumalanga, and again, lots and lots of work (many nights I left the office past midnight, and came in again at seven!).

Photos!!

CSIR’s East Gate, by our building; sunset as seen from my office window; an old broken-down bakery converted into a haphazard machinery yard and offices for one of the mainstays of the fight against minewater pollution

The aquarium/tourist trap in Durban (we didn’t pay to enter); Rob enjoying a snack during his birthday dinner out on the coast; our swimming beach at Southport, south of Durban

The solid wood (highly unusual here) coastal house kindly lent to us for the weekend by my supervisor; Nikki’s car (sweet ride!) from the deck; the ocean view; the suburbs north of Durban (un-African?); bizarre highway sighting at 120 kph: man with a motorcycle helmet riding what can only be described as the frame of a truck (I don’t know enough about trucks to know what was missing under the hood, or lack thereof)

The Rosebank market in Johannesburg on Sunday morning. Lots of crafts, curios, art, food, Christmas shopping.

To give you an idea of my normal day, this series is of my walk to work. Although I usually take my bike (an easy cruise down the hill in the morning, a bit tougher coming back), I had gotten a ride home the day before for some long-forgotten reason. Although I technically live on campus, I actually go out and around and come in a different gate to get to my building (walking is about half an hour). The highway running parallel to the closer road is the N1 to Johannesburg and is packed solid at rush hour. The petrol station in the second-to-last photo is very handy for junky refreshments at midnight while trying to finish research proposals.

Two of our co-workers took us to a cricket match between India and South Africa. It was extremely hot and we sat in the sun from 9am to 5pm, so plenty of sunscreen and hats were a necessity. The icecream was just for kicks.

We had a visitor from UBC in Canada arrive in early December to inspect the internship organisations and talk to the supervisors, so Rob and I accompanied her out to White River in Mpumalanga to meet with Rob’s supervisor at the NGO that she runs in her spare time. Ecolink runs all sorts of community projects, from HIV/AIDS awareness to water harvesting. These photos are from the Ecolink property near White River.

On our second day at Ecolink, we were taken out to a water project, where a European funder had provided a water pump and storage bins to provide water for irrigation, chickens, and drinking. The source was a tiny little stream originating at a murky little spring not far off, and it had been dammed with sandbags at some point, providing a water hole less than a foot deep. The pump kept clogging with mud, so the hole had to be dug deeper, and the dam was dismantled to allow more water to flow down to the pumping area.

Our day was capped off with a walk down through the Ecolink property, the mountains of Swaziland (or so we were told) in the background, accompanied by a couple of dogs owned by Sue Hart, founder of Ecolink, veterinary doctor, and children’s writer.

If you’re confused and have a question, that’s what comments are for!

Christmas trip stories and photos will come soon!! Very soon! Just busy at work is all.