Hiking in African mountains has its own specifics. First of all, every mountain worth climbing has been declared a national park. That's not so much because Africans want to protect nature, but so they can charge 80 – 100$ per person per day. On top of that you're not allowed in without a guide (doesn't speak English) and a ranger (carries a rifle). The guide also brings along a cook, an assistant cook, an assistant guide and 2 – 3 porters per person. So we ended up walking in a whole procession.
The first day started by crossing a valley where giraffes, buffalo, zebras and some local pigs were grazing freely. One giraffe even blocked our path. Then we climbed to 2500 m above sea level along a beautiful little trail through dense tropical rainforest, where you can sometimes spot monkeys and supposedly even buffalo or a leopard. Luckily we only came across the results of buffalo metabolism 🙂. To our surprise we ended up in what was almost a little village, with huts for accommodation, concrete paths, a big dining room and flush toilets! For dinner they first made us tea and popcorn as a starter, excellent soup with bread, goulash, pancakes, honey, peanut butter, jam, tea, cocoa, just unbelievable pampering and a total grease-fest. We went to sleep at 8, it was about 17 degrees in the hut and since we'd brought sleeping bags rated to -30, I didn't sleep much.
28.12.2009 – Mt Meru Base Camp 3500m a.s.l.
In the morning we took a bit longer to get going, so the Slovak Australians spent another half hour grumbling about how those Americans are holding them up. Then Jeff set his Minařík pace and ran up to the next camp about an hour ahead of the others. The trail looked much the same as yesterday, maybe just a bit steeper and with a lot of steps built out of wood. Because we walked pretty slowly, it was actually a nice stroll and we learned in Swahili pole - pole = slowly. You climb this slowly on purpose, because it helps you cope with altitude sickness. The higher you go, the less oxygen there is and you get out of breath easily. Basically we're climbing Mt Meru so the body gets used to it. By spending time and sleeping at altitude the body starts producing more red blood cells, so it carries oxygen from the lungs faster and compensates for the thinner air. We got up there just before the rain, had tea as a snack and rested a bit, I think even inside the sleeping bag with my eyes shut. The guide promised he'd tell us in time before we set off (we were still supposed to climb Little Meru as part of the acclimatisation, that's a side peak at 3800 m a.s.l.). The guide kept his promise about as well as the tea in bed in the morning, so by the time we crawled out, the Slovak Australians were already gone. What would show itself fully tomorrow was starting to show.
Since the rain stopped, the climb up Little Meru was actually a breeze. Also because, thanks to the fog, I left my 12kg backpack down in the hut, where Don was guarding it. In his case the combination of age (64 years) and altitude was already showing and he slept like a baby. He'd never been in the mountains, so for a three-day trek up to 4.5 km, where temperatures start at + 25 and end at -5, he brought one pair of ordinary sneakers and one, in words ONE, pair of socks. So today he was walking in wet sneakers barefoot!
When we got up onto Little Meru, the clouds miraculously melted away and the sun started burning so much that my black trousers were unbelievably hot. On the way down a gorgeous view of Kilimanjaro appeared, which of course never repeated itself again, and my tripod, Canon ESO 50D and three lenses were absolutely fuck all use to me. I sprinted to the hut jumping over bushes, but I didn't make it in time and clouds covered Kili again. After the opulent dinner we went to sleep around half past six, because the following summit day was supposed to start at midnight.
29.12.2009 – Mt Meru Summit 4500m a.s.l.
At midnight nobody woke us up again and the Slovaks looked surprised when we turned up in the dining room for breakfast at 00:30. By about 01:20 everyone was already wrapped up in waterproofs and so, like on the first day, in the words of the classic: "And it's pissing down and pissing down." We walked in single file in the downpour with headlamps on. In front of me walked Don, who of course had no headlamp and held his borrowed poles just tucked under his armpits. He staggered through the rough terrain like a drunk and I walked right behind him to light up the ground under his feet. He rewarded me with several attempts to poke my eyes out with the poles and with constant farting. When he fell over, I gave him my spare headlamp and since he wanted to rest, I left him under the guide's supervision and set off after the rest of the group. Already the previous evening the Slovaks made no secret of the fact that they wouldn't wait for anyone, and since Jeff and Hana were up front with them, I wanted to catch up with them. After about 1.5 hours of stumbling we reached Rhino point (3800m) and had our first drink. It turned out we'd left behind not only Don and the two Austrians, but Jeff too! In that darkness and rain I didn't much fancy waiting for him, plus the guide didn't want to leave me there on my own. So we shouldered the packs again and off we went. This section started to get seriously interesting. Temperature just above zero, pitch dark and we started descending over smooth rock. You couldn't see at all where it led (luckily), if someone slipped. The Slovaks walked in front and occasionally stopped, and then set off again without a word, so we always had our packs half off, about to get some food out, and they'd already be running away from us again. Our questions about how long the stop was and whether we'd have time to take a pee were ignored in total silence. Then we started climbing steeply, first on fine gravel and then on rock, sometimes on all fours. The Slovaks were constantly worried about making it in time for sunrise, so at a snail's pace but without a break they went and went and went. Radek Zelenka, who had already been to Nepal with the Slovaks and is 66 years old, was walking right behind me and slowly started falling behind. Since I grew up on team sports, I immediately called out to the Slovaks that Radek was dropping back. The fact that they'd left Don, the Austrians and Jeff behind, and that they didn't give a damn about our needs at the stops, I understood as an expression of us simply not belonging to them and just having tagged along. But surely they wouldn't leave one of their own? And there I was wrong. They didn't even stop, didn't look back, didn't ask if he was OK, they just walked on saying the guide was there with him. Sure, the guide was there. He weighed about 40 kg, had no torch, no water, no poles, no food, he had enough trouble looking after himself. He'd be about as much use to Radek as a winter coat to a corpse or a scooter to a fish.
Anyway, Hana was somewhere up front, so I couldn't leave her alone with the Slovaks. When we were at about 4200m, it was around 4:30 in the morning, it started freezing hard and the already slippery rock got iced over too. I still felt like I had plenty of strength and that if I wanted to, I'd go faster than all the Slovaks put together. Then again, apart from Braňo and Katka they're all about 20 – 25 years older. At one point I absolutely had to stop to take photos, because the sky cleared completely and there was a full moon. Clouds below us, the silhouette of the volcano above us, absolutely gorgeous. It was the kind of thing to unpack the tripod for, try out all the lenses and take stunning night shots of the clouds lit from above by the moon. But the Slovaks couldn't care less. So at least I took a few handheld shots, leaning against the rock. But that meant they got away from me anyway and on one particularly hard, almost mountaineering section, I was catching up with them. Lack of sleep, a 12 kg pack (the others just had a daypack with a drink) and of course the altitude finally got me. About 200 m below the summit, an altitude sickness crisis hit me. Head spinning, weakness, stomach turning. It looked bad and everybody climbed over some cliff and disappeared from my sight. I lay down on the frozen rock and closed my eyes. So I'm not getting up there. I lay like that for about a minute and then said to myself: "Bollocks, I'll get up there even if I have to puke." I got up and briskly set off after the Slovaks who walk over dead bodies. To my great surprise, the sickness went away completely! I had my strength back and soon caught up with them. It looked like I'd even overtake them. I was walking with the group again, but Petr started dropping off. (Next to Radek, the second Czech among the Australians from Slovakia.) Since there was no spare guide left and since the ruthlessness of the Slovak crew was seriously getting on my nerves, I stayed behind with Petr. We'd sit down for a while, I'd encourage him, then we'd move on a bit, and like that, together, we slowly conquered the summit. It was slowly starting to get light. So there we are sitting together on a rock, I'm just saying how good I feel and suddenly in the middle of a sentence bleeeeegh… Absolutely without warning and out of nowhere I puked up about 2 litres of water. I'd been trying really hard to drink the whole time and had already drunk about 4 litres. Well, and I guess there was just too much of it in my belly. Oddly enough I still felt fine, so Petr and I made it to the summit together without me getting out of breath anywhere along the way. Up top it was beautifully sunny and clear, so I unpacked my gear, the tripod, I was changing lenses and hunting for a National Geographic shot 🙂. But before I managed to get out the longest lens, the Slovaks were already storming off downhill! I wanted to wait in the sun for Jeff, but the guide didn't want to leave me there. So I had to quickly pack up again with numb hands and rush down, until I lost a glove (then it miraculously turned up in the hut).
The descent was damn rough, because in all that hurry going up I'd completely forgotten to eat! At the summit, instead of food, hectic photographing (you could even see Kilimanjaro) and on the way down I got a brutal attack of hypoglycaemia. Even the few biscuits I'd eaten in the morning I'd puked up, and now my legs were shaking. So I walked extra slowly and stuffed muesli bars into myself. In the end we crawled into the hut, about 200m below the summit we still met Jeff lying on a rock. He looked wretched, but he definitely had enough enthusiasm to make it up (and he did). At the camp I shoved down a bit of soup and had a little nap. The way up took about 5 hours and the way down about 3 hours.
We still had the whole descent ahead of us. Because we had a BBB inclusive programme, what we'd been climbing up for 2.5 days we were supposed to run down in half a day (from 4500m all the way to 1600m). The Slovaks were in a hurry again and the fact that Jeff hadn't come back yet didn't interest them. Thank God we'll be climbing Kilimanjaro without them!
So we let them go ahead and waited another three hours for Jeff's return. I was seriously worried by then, so I set off to meet him and after about 1km I found him surrounded by 5 porters and guides 🙂. He was totally fine, he ate something and then at a slow pace we descended from the second high camp (3300m) to the first (2300m). There, because of the late hour, they arranged a ride for us in an off-road jeep, which the Slovaks happily made use of too.
Riding on the back of the truck was a fantastic experience. I rode standing up, holding on to the metal frame and enjoying not only the terrain and the views of the mountains and the rainforest, but also the animals. We came across buffalo, giraffes, antelopes, zebras, a neaterbuch????? antelope, which is bigger than a cow and weighs 300kg, warthogs, African deer (about 15 of them) and even monkeys.
Down below we got dinner (chicken again, but excellent), got into the minibus and drove back. Since Jeff didn't want to sleep in the Catholic church any more, we only left Don there and went to a hotel.
The fact that we won't see the Australian Slovaks again doesn't bother me, but I'm sorry we won't see Braňo and Katka again, because we get on with those two. But tomorrow they're off on safari and the day after tomorrow we're climbing Kili. We checked into a better hotel with a hot shower and went straight to sleep. For the first time in 6 days we might actually get a normal night's sleep.
ASIDE:
When we had a driver hired in Nairobi for a tour of the city, I grilled him a bit over lunch. I asked him how many children he had and then, as a joke, how many wives. With a serious face he answered that so far he can only afford one wife, but his dad has 4 wives and 18 children. So I asked how that works. Apparently dad has a central house and around it 4 houses of his wives and children. Every day each wife cooks and brings it to him. Then he picks which food is the best and eats that one 🙂.
