Climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, 5895 m a.s.l.

Climbing the highest mountain in Africa may seem like a great idea, until you actually try it for yourself. After that you just keep wondering whether it's normal to spend your holiday money on something so sadomasochistic...

In the morning we packed and an hour late a jeep with a guide showed up for us. After a few hours of formalities and driving around the shops in Arusha (including a giant supermarket where I had another row because their card payments didn't work) we arrived at the Kilimanjaro Gate. The hunt for porters began, we'd already brought a cook and a guide with us. Since it's New Year's Eve and it's chucking it down, there weren't many porters around, so after about an hour of waiting we set off with only part of our stuff. If we'd had any idea that because of the four of us another 13, in words thirteen, people would end up climbing up there!, we'd probably have taken more interest in what they were carrying. I felt good about having taken only the bare essentials and that the backpack I carry myself weighs just 12 kg, and I gave the porters only 6 – 7 kg. Except up at the top it turned out that they were carrying for us 2 giant sleeping tents (for 2x 5 people), a tent as a dining room, a metal table, 4 chairs, a complete set of dishes, melons, bananas, frying pans, pots, a 10 kg gas cylinder and tonnes of other useless stuff that I don't take to the mountains even when we go by car with the kids! It's really disgustingly over the top. The only consolation is that we're giving 13 poor people a job and that some other tourists are even more spoilt, because they get not fishing stools but proper armchairs carried for them, plus a special plastic toilet in its own tent!

Because after all the hold-ups we didn't set off until three, a proper tropical downpour broke over our heads as a reward. The path through the rainforest was very well kept, you could almost do it in a wheelchair. But we needed to gain about 1400 vertical metres, so we walked the last 2 hours in the dark. Don and Jeff were going pretty slowly, I stayed at the back with Jeff so he wouldn't be walking alone again. Then it was a problem to find each other at Machame camp at 3000 m a.s.l., because apart from 52 tourists from all over the world (according to the visitors' book) there were another 150 porters and other support staff here! Our tents were already pitched and dinner was opulent again!

In the evening I photographed the full moon with Patrik's 630 mm lens (for the connoisseurs 2x200m*1.6) and then we quite calmly slept right through New Year's Eve. Probably for the first time in 25 years:-) According to the evening briefing from our guide Erik, they were supposed to bring us tea in bed at exactly 6:30, washing water at 6:45, breakfast at 7 and departure at 7:30. We already knew how it goes from Mt Meru, so we got up at eight at our leisure, made our own tea outside on the table and set off sometime after nine.

The path wasn't as touristy as yesterday. It started with a pretty decent wet rock face, nicely lit by the sun, so I took loads of pictures of porters with giant tents, chairs and tables, baskets with food and so on. They carry it all on their heads and on top of that they've got the tourists' backpacks on their backs. I already felt sorry for them yesterday, so I took one white sack, the kind potatoes come in, off a porter resting by the trail. To my horror there really were potatoes in it! Well, nothing to be done, so I heroically carried the sack for roughly the last third of the way to the camp.

Once we'd got over that first rock face today and basically left the rainforest and entered an equally green but slightly sparser landscape, there was a bit of a flat stretch. Our cook Alfa was walking next to me, carrying some sack on his head again. When I asked him how he was doing, he complained that it was heavy. So I offered to help him again. This time the potatoes only filled half the sack. The rest was cast-iron cookware:--) But by now I'd got the knack of carrying it on my neck, so it was fine.

Jeff had just caught his second wind (yesterday he was trundling along like a steamroller) and decided we'd show those slow tourists. So we picked up the pace and started overtaking them all. There were surprised comments about our speed, especially after the flat bit turned into a hill and the hill then turned into rock again. It wasn't exactly rope-and-carabiner rock, but rock all the same. I could see I'd loaded myself up more than enough, but I wanted to try the life of a Tanzanian porter. At least I'd confirm that there really are worse jobs than management at EON. The high point came when Jeff and I climbed over the last crag of that rock face and up top sat 4 Dutchmen who yesterday had nicked our bench under the roof when it started raining. There they sat, obviously pleased with themselves at how nicely they'd climbed it, whereupon we swept past them with two rucksacks and a sack on our heads on top of that :-).

The rest of the way was pretty easy, since I gave the sack back. Porters kept overtaking us along the way, so we struck up conversations in Swahili. Jambo – hello, polie-polie – slowly, abariyako – how are you, poa poa – good (fresh), iala salama – that one's especially handy during the day on the trek, because it means "good night" and it reliably cracked the porters up:-)

Sometime in the afternoon we reached Shira Cave camp at 3800 m a.s.l. and our tents were up again. This time, because of the rain, the dining tent was already standing there with a table with a tablecloth and 4 stools inside. Monstrous. Still, we very much enjoyed the big dinner. Usually there's soup and bread, pasta or rice and a sauce with vegetables and meat. And fresh vegetables and fruit at the end.
When the rain stopped, Kili appeared and even Meru, so I ran around with the tripod. Erik also dragged us into Shira cave, i.e. the cave the camp is named after. As late as the 1960s people used to sleep in this cave on the way to Kili. Supposedly up to 36 people fitted in there, but I don't know, I really don't. It was about the size of our garage. In the end they banned sleeping there, because people heated with wood and wood started getting very scarce on the plains.

In the morning we set off late as usual, but now all the fun is over. Straight out of the camp we headed up a steep hill and at 4 km there isn't much oxygen left. Already fairly worn out, we reached the junction where the porters turn right and skirt around Lava Tower, a tower-shaped rock created by volcanic activity, which
is at 4600 m a.s.l.

So for acclimatisation purposes we carried straight on, right up to Lava Tower. We had lunch up top and those of us who aren't taking any dope against altitude sickness started feeling it. The interesting thing is that altitude sickness has the same symptoms as a hangover. A headache, no appetite, a queasy stomach and above all the body's unwillingness to move. Luckily we then descended from Lava Tower through a botanically very interesting valley to Barranco camp, which is "only" 3900 m a.s.l. What was interesting about that valley is that although it goes from 4600 m down to 3900 m, it's all overgrown with greenery with waterfalls popping up in between. Besides flowering plants similar to hogweed or St John's wort, there's a very common and gorgeous plant here called the Kilimanjaro girl. It starts out as a ground-level plant that looks like an artichoke, but every year another layer grows, until they end up as sort of palm trees several metres tall.

I was the very last one to get to Barranco camp, mainly because I'm honestly sick and tired of it all. Nothing special really happened, as usual we were all in our sleeping bags by about eight. The temperature is still bearable, in the tent I don't think it dropped below 8 degrees.

In the morning we were expecting a tougher day, so we got up at 6:30 as planned. That, however, took the crew by surprise, so we had to wake them up. Most of them sleep in the dining room (150 x 150 cm). As usual you could see the snowy summit of Kili for a moment in the morning, but I still couldn't see which way we'd be going. Between us and Kili there were nothing but snowy vertical rock walls.

As the more responsible crews started packing up and leaving, by watching the colourful snake of sacks, tables, chairs and baskets that formed, I worked out which way we'd go. Straight up vertically along one of those rock walls. And they'd told us no climbing awaited us. In places this would call for ropes, but when you see how a 45 kg, 160 cm porter in flip-flops with a 40 kg basket on his head hops up that rock, you don't ask about a rope. BTW – I know that basket weighs 40 kg because I once ill-advisedly helped throw one up onto someone's head!

That whole wall was about 200 m high and basically fun climbing combined with photographing porters. The rest of the way wasn't so hard, even though we still had another 400 vertical metres to gain.

Aside:
When we were in Nairobi, it was 22 degrees. The local driver said it's such terrible cold that anyone who's rich and doesn't have to go to work doesn't go out at all. The others really were wearing woolly hats and warm jackets :-).

Barafu camp already looks like a seriously high-mountain affair. A bare plain strewn with clinking chunks of slate, a 20m cliff 2 m from the tent, a snowstorm right after we arrived, around zero inside the tent, -15 degrees outside in the morning, and above us nothing but the menacingly towering snow-capped summit of Kili.

They woke us before midnight and this time they really did bring hot tea and biscuits to the tent (they'd been promising it for 8 days). We put on every piece of clothing we had with us, waited for Don to pull on his jeans and shell pants and set off in total darkness and frost, heading up. Because about another 100 people had the same idea that day (two routes meet here), we mostly walked in a column. Since we set off almost last, we kept running into very slow snakes of people. At first we tried to overtake them, but at this altitude, speeding up from a snail to a tortoise for 10 steps exhausts you so terribly that after 10 min you're standing there getting your breath back so you don't croak (and the snake overtakes you again).

The terrain was cruel. The steepest possible climb that you still don't do on all fours, either zig-zag over frozen gravel or scrambling up rocks. Frost, darkness, lack of sleep and above all no oxygen turned us into complete wrecks! The length of a step in the column was, absolutely without exaggeration, exactly half a foot. You simply couldn't lift your leg any further. The closer to dawn, the harder the frost, the less oxygen and consequently the less strength. In the end it got to the point where I had to stop every 20 steps or so and sit down on a rock. As soon as I sat down, I leaned my forehead on my poles and instantly fell asleep!!! On the way up the guide had to wake me like 15 times – good thing I wasn't there on my own, because falling asleep at -15 on a rock would probably have meant a beautiful and painless death :--).
The climb to the summit was supposed to take about 5 hours according to the plan. When it started getting light at half past six (i.e. 6.5 hours from the start of the march), only then did we see how high (and how steep) we still had to go to the Stella Point saddle. From then on we walked purely on inertia and moral strength (or rather stubbornness). We crawled over the edge of the saddle sometime after seven. At that moment I was hoping they wouldn't even let us go to the summit, because rumours were going round that there'd be ice up there. Up top we ate something in the sun and gathered a bit of strength lying down. To Uhuru Peak (the highest point) it was supposed to be only about 40 min, almost flat (haha, another Tanzanian definition of flat). So I scraped together the remains of my morale and set off. I told myself that I damn well ought to be the first of our squad to reach the summit, and it wasn't looking good, because 64-year-old Don, who drinks a bottle of whisky a day, had arrived at Stella Point about half an hour before us. Here, though, he was popping a whole bottle of vitamins every day (he mixes them himself, he's got a doctorate in three fields and two more university degrees on top of that) and he was also taking something specifically for altitude sickness. But mainly he probably has enormous willpower.

So I too made it, on pure willpower alone, over snow and ice to the summit, and about 30 m ahead of Don :-). Then I unpacked my gear (tripod, camera, lenses) and photographed everything there was to photograph, i.e. the summit sign, the glaciers around, Mt Meru in the distance, the view down into the valley etc. We actually had hellish luck with the weather, because although it was freezing, it didn't rain, snow or blow all night, and right at the summit we had clear skies, which is pretty exceptional.

The way back was a continuation of hell after ten minutes of euphoria from conquering the summit. Suddenly the sun started blazing like crazy, it must have gone from the original -15 to about +25 in the sun, we all got sweaty and sunburnt, and had to carry all those warm rags hanging off our backpacks.

On the way to the saddle the melting ice was slippery, on the way down from the saddle the eastern route had thawed again and the cinder slid under our feet like a pile of sand. Just as the way up had been endless, the way down was absolutely endless. The descent is probably even harder for me than the ascent, mainly because it only comes after the ascent :-). On the way down I only fell asleep about 10 times, the sun was replaced by fog and cold again. Just when we thought we could hear the noise of the high camp, we met a bunch of porters who told us the camp was about 10 min away. Unfortunately those were 10 Tanzanian minutes, i.e. another 45 European ones.

In camp I just collapsed into the tent and crawled into my sleeping bag, trying not to think about the fact that a descent of another 1500 vertical metres was still waiting for us that same day. The trip to the summit and back took us 12.5 hours! In all that time we got nothing to eat, apart from dried pears and plums from Čermná and a few muesli bars. And I still had no idea that because of our late return they wanted to deny us lunch! Luckily Jeff bawled them out, so at about three in the afternoon there was soup and something to eat. I couldn't manage much, but I forced something down and went to lie down again.

At around half past three we dragged ourselves out and started the second part of the agonising descent. Partly thanks to the food, partly to the sleep and mainly to the drop in altitude, my strength came fully back, and although the way down was supposed to take 4 hours, we were in camp in 3.24 hours. What was interesting was that although we practically ran the whole way, our tents were already pitched down there – the same tents we'd left standing up top. There's simply no beating the speed of the porters. The last part of the route before camp was very interesting, because the path there was badly washed out in the rock, full of big stones and mud. That's probably why Jeff and Don arrived more than an hour after us, and because they walked the worst part in the dark, they looked pretty tired. At least Jeff got over his urge to finish the whole mountain and walk all the way down so he could finally meet Mistery, who was supposed to be flying in.

Because we were already sleeping low (everything is relative…, it was 3000 m above sea level) there was plenty of oxygen and it was very warm (18 degrees), so we slept brilliantly. And no wonder, when yesterday we climbed 1300 m, dropped 2800 m and marched a total of 17h!

Because we wanted that lousy mountain off our backs, we got up early, packed quickly and legged it downhill. Towards the end (according to the altimeter) a lovely gravelled little path started again, back through dense tropical rainforest. Unfortunately the information that the park gate was only 1000m lower was in Tanzanian metres, so it was more like 1200m. And the last 200 vertical metres were really something. They'd dug a roughly 4 m wide and 2 m deep trench into the clay soil for a future road. But oops – TIA = This is Africa – the road from intention to realisation is a long one! A ditch dug in clay soil plus the rainy season, and the ditch turns into a decent mudbath, where the soaked clay is knee-deep in places. It's all right for us white mugs with a small backpack and poles, but the poor porters with those loads on their heads! Not until I tried carrying that sack of potatoes on my head did it dawn on me that you actually can't see where you're stepping. So the poor porters were dropping like flies, pots and backpacks were rolling around in the mud, but they all still ran just as fast. Because this is the last stretch, so they have to make an effort to get a big tip. They're still supposed to cook for us down there. Since J+H had disappeared into the jungle for a toilet stop, I had time to photograph the falling porters. Then I wanted to take a few close-up portraits of the porters, so I got out the 135mm. I shouldn't have done that. The transition from dry frost to 100% humidity and 25 degrees fogged up the mirror and the lenses so badly that the few photos I have are completely misted over. Including the proof that American women are stupid cows, because one of the poor porters was carrying a huge bright red suitcase with a handle and wheels on his head (see the very foggy photo). By the time we'd waded through to the gate and fed a few barefoot, dirty kids the leftovers of our chocolate and muesli bars, we were caked in mud up to the waist. At the gate sellers of trinkets and T-shirts and boot washers with brushes swarmed all over us :-). We signed the climbers' book again, like in every camp before, and carried on on foot another 2km or so to the first village. It was an interesting and pleasant change. A stream flows down from Kili, so they let it run through the maize fields and around the houses, and the maize obviously does well here, because it was about 3m tall. Little houses of the classic wooden construction made of branches plastered with a mix of cow dung and mud. The roof a thick layer of banana leaves. The shape either round, or modern square. Mostly without windows, dimensions about 3x4x2m. In the village we sat down in a similar-looking pub with a little terrace, had a Kilimandjaro beer and Kilimandjaro water and chicken paprikash with rice. Now we felt good. Kili was wrapped in clouds again, as it is 95% of the time.

After lunch we just piled into our familiar safari truck from Shidolya Tours and set off to get hold of money for tips for the porters, the cook and the guide. There was a bit of drama with Mistery, who was supposed to fly in last night and Godfrey from Shidolya Tours was supposed to pick her up, but she didn't arrive and nobody knew what had happened. After about three hours of phoning, desperately hunting for a KLM office, hanging around in the Shidolya office and searching the internet, we found her in a bathrobe with freshly washed hair at the hotel.

On the way we still managed to have a beer with the gang of porters and hand over the tip. They looked pleased, they got about 20% of the original price of the trip. Considering that the average wage here is about $100 a month, they earned decently. But then they also worked like hell.

Because we'd had to put off the Kili climb by a day due to climbing Meru, Jeff originally had a guilty conscience that he wouldn't pick Mistery up from the airport himself and would leave her on her own in Tanzania for one night. To make up for it, he booked the presidential suite at the East African hotel. It's basically a three-bedroom flat, so we went straight from freezing in a tent to a luxury hotel. When we marched in there dirty and stinking, we probably looked a bit out of place. On the other hand, all the white mugs who make it all the way here are either on safari or on Kili. An interesting discovery (TIA) was that even in the best hotel in town a hot shower doesn't necessarily work. At first only lukewarm (more like cold) water ran, then they did something with it and only boiling water started coming out. So the long yearned-for clean-up in the shower wasn't nearly as amazing. The dinner, though, was excellent and, considering where we were, not even that expensive.