Christmas Tunes on Top of Africa

This is the first posting in a series on our trip and will be about our trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro, which I’ll shorten to “Kili” for brevity.

The Basics: At 19,300 feet, Kili is the highest point in Africa and is in Northern Tanzania near the border w/ Kenya. It has 3 main peaks, Shira (now collapsed), Mawenzi and Kibo (the one most people clilmb). You have to use a licensed guide, and usually you have porters in your party to carry your things up the mountain. Your fee includes park fees ($30-40 per person per day), salaries for your party and food & incidentals. There are several routes up the mountain varying in length, scenery & difficulty, most of which are non-technical in nature. We chose the non-technical Machame route, aka the “Whiskey” route. It is supposed to be relatively popular, strenuous and one of the most scenic routes, and it lived up to each of these traits. Many trekkers use the base city of Moshi as a base before setting out on their trip, which is what we did, though there are other options like Arusha (a large city) and the mountain villages of Machame, Marangu and others.

Day 1: We meet our guide and head to the village of Machame passing coffee plantations along the way. Towards the end of the half-hour journey, the dirt road gets steep and almost impassable. We make it to Machame Gate, the entrance to the park, where our guide registers our party with the Parks Dep’t. After completing the formalities, we take off up the trail with our guide, Tobias, while our porters pack the equipment up and bring up the rear.

Approaching From the West

The theme for the trek is “Pole Pole” (pronounced “pole-ay pole-ay”), which means “Slowly Slowly” in Kiswahili. All guides know that it’s best to go as slowly as possible to allow your body to acclimatize to the altitude and give yourself the best chance to get to the top. We would hear Pole Pole A LOT during the trip!

We hike for about 4 hours through rainforest at one point hearing Colubus monkeys crashing about in the foliage and stopping for lunch along the way. The trail is steep at times. There’s was an Aussie brother and sister we meet who were staying at our hotel in Moshi. The sister was not doing so well, and it’s only day 1. We feel good though and make it through the tree line of the jungle and a short while later get to Machame Hut (aka Camp). All this time Kili has yet to show her face, preferring instead to shroud herself in clouds. Finally, just before night falls, the clouds part and we see the summit with the setting sun reflecting off it. It looks far and high.

Days 2 - 5: I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow description of these days. Generally they were spent hiking 2 - 4 hours each day before getting to camp. We’d be served dinner and then bundle up for the nights, which would be FRIGID. Beautiful scenery - scrub brush, then it starts thinning out, giant senesia and lobelia plants, then rocks, like a lunar landscape. All the while the summit loomed larger each day. At one point we had to ’scale’ the Barranco wall, which looks very intimidating but is over after about 1 hours of clambering and climbing.

Under the Great Barranco

Day 6 — Summit Day: This is by far the hardest day of the trek and we’d been preparing ourselves for it all week. Summit Day actually begins the night before where we were woken up at 11:30 pm for tea and biscuits with the departure set for midnight. Dara and I were so keyed up that, combined with the altitude, we didn’t get a lick of sleep in. So we’re enjoying our tea and biscuits in the tent and doing last minute preparation for the climb, like wearing the last of our 6-7 top layers (yes it was that cold!), when all of a sudden the tea thermos gets knocked over and there’s tea all over our tent and my 3 layers of wool socks. The culprit of the spill is still in dispute I should note. Anyway, we’re trying to clean it up and get ready, and I’m kind of upset when I head outside the tent, look up at the starry, moon-less sky and see a shooting star. That’s when I knew everything would be okay, and that we’d make it to the top. After further wrangling, including a last minute headlamp emergency, we set off on the trail. There were 4 of us - Thobias, our guide, Dara, myself and Yassin our cook and assistant guide.

It was an incredible scene. We could see the lights of Moshi down below, the stars twinkling above, and faint blips of light on the dark mountain representing other trekkers above and below us on the trail. Poor Yassin had to carry a pack and had no headlamp and so was stumbling a bit in bringing up the rear. Going up to the summit is all about pole-pole. Because you can hardly see, your neck is craned downward focusing on the person in front of you and their footsteps (which was literally a pain in the neck). Thobias, our guide, was in great spirits and was whistling and singing. One of the more surreal moments was when we heard him whistling the tune to Christmas carols like Silent Night — who would think I’d be hearing that atop Kilimanjaro in July?

I Thought Africa Was Hot?

I had a very dull headache that got worse as we ascended. Dara was doing okay but felt drowsy due to lack of sleep. I took some Advil to tide me over but the real problem was that I was continually out of breath. Despite this and our late 12:30 am start, we made good, steady progress, passing several parties along the way, some of whom I was sure would not make it to the top — we passed one person early on who was in tears, while another was retching mid-way up. I kept a clock in my pocket to mark our time and progress.

Dara mentioned her sleepiness to Thobias and he told her that there’d be a hut at the top that she could take a nap in for 20 minutes, which kept her going. It was bitterly cold even though we were huffing and puffing our way up. The wind would whip through and leave our digits numb. Our 6 top layers and 3 bottom layers kept us fairly warm otherwise.

Step by step we climbed, our eyes searching for rocks or solid scree (gravel) on which to take the next step. After 15 minutes of agony, we came to a flat area and Thobias informed us that we were at Stella Poi