The one where I'm piqued

Er...I mean I peaked.


Helen (Allen's second cousin, my new favorite elephant, travel companion and pillow) and I climbed to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro last week. Yeah.

I've got some travelogue for you, some random thoughts, some whatever, but I'll just throw it all in here and let you deal. Grab some popcorn, it's pretty long...

The trip:
I didn't sleep that well the night before we started, and I had some stomach issues. So I didn't eat any breakfast, but the first day should be easy. They picked me up at 8am. We go to the company offices to drop off some of my stuff and pick up stuff they're gonna lend me--a coat, gloves, boots. Tour company woman never asked my size, and they just had two pairs for me to try, but she'd done a decent job estimating and thankfully one of the pairs fit okay.

As we left the guide gave me the day's schedule. I asked when we'd meet up with the other hikers in our group. "It's just you." "But Joanne said there were two others." Blank looks. "Oh, yeah, they cancelled." Or, I'm thinking, maybe "didn't exist". So it's just me, a guide, a cook, and two porters.

It takes 'til about 1pm before we've gotten to the park and everything's organized for us to start. We start out at Marangu gate at 1970m (6500 ft). The first day's walk is only about 8km (5 miles) and takes you up to the Mandara Huts at 2700m (8900 ft), about 3 hours total. A nice easy walk through rain forest. It's just the guide and me--the porters and cook walk separately, and on the first day they even have a road to walk up while we take the "tourist" route.

By the end of the first day, even though it was easy I was tired and sore, especially my left knee and right ankle. And my right elbow, which I'd SMASHED in the shower that morning...

The only book I brought with me was David Copperfield--lotsa pages, small print, I figured I could make it last for several days. At dinner I got about 25 pages in...not so promising. I would read no more over the rest of my trip. Does anyone actually enjoy Dickens?

Dinner was pretty good--cucumber soup and beef and potatoes with a vegetable sauce. I was asleep about 7:30.

Day 2 we walked about 5 more hours up to Horombo Huts at 3700m (12000 ft), and that's when the altitude hit me pretty hard. I had mild Acute Mountain Sickness. Thankfully, even though the 'A' in "Acute" is capitalized the "mild" is more important. I had a headache, no appetite, nausea, and lotsa trouble breathing.

I started taking the pills I'd brought (Acetazolamide) to help with the altitude. I'd have started before we ever started climbing, but some people recommend you don't take them if you don't need to as if you react poorly you're not really near any medical help. In retrospect, what I should have done is taken a couple of doses back while I was in the States to see if I had a problem and started taking them before I climbed anywhere. In any case, I was a bit off kilter for most of the rest of trip, and my contemporaneous notes stopped.

Luckily, my itinerary called for an extra day for acclimatization then. Day 3 I woke up and it still really hurt to breathe, but my headache was better so I had hope. We left around 10am to walk up to Zebra Rocks at 4000m, just an hour and a half or so. Hung out there for I'm not how long--I took a nap--and headed back to Horombo Hut about 1:00.

Day 4 we walked from Horombo up to Kibo Hut at 4700m (15,400 ft). I spent much of my time daydreaming about marrying Julie née Holland's kid sister. I went to college with Julie, and we weren't exactly close--we maybe took a class or two together but I probably haven't seen her or had any contact since graduation, and I have no idea if she has any siblings. Well, guess I'll email her now...

Kibo was, well, cold. The best part: the 7 kids from UNC-Chapel Hill. Philip and six women, all seven of them attractive, came to Tanzania to spend several weeks doing environmental work and then climb Kili. One was named Zina (I'm spelling it like Garrison instead of Warrior Princess but I'm not sure...), the other 5 names, not sure. I heard them but couldn't keep track. Not sure why I liked them so much...

• all were cheerful and bright and bubbly, not just cute
  
• they're maybe who I wish I'd been at that age (if not today)
• Philip is maybe in training to become a Sethicist. And if he's hetero and all the women are in serious relationships with others, he's already there
  

We spent the day resting at Kibo Hut. I had that gawdawful Together Forever song (Rick Astley, from the bus in Nairobi) going through my head all afternoon while trying to sleep and at dinner. A Chapel Hillie suggested Alanis Morissette instead, and I spent much of the evening trying to sleep but instead thinking about the meta-irony of her song about things that suck.

We left Kibo at midnight on Day 5. The walk goes pretty much straight up a hill to Gilman's Point at 5685m (18,650 ft). We stopped twice for water, for less than two minutes each, and got to Gilman's at about 4:15. Our pace totally reminds me of walking my grandmother down the hall at her nursing home when she was in her late 90's. To Gilman's is supposed to take 5 hours, then another 1 1/2 to Uhuru Peak, so we kept going really slowly to get to the peak just before sunrise so we wouldn't have to stand around for too long.

We did, reaching the peak (5895m, 19,340 ft) at 6:15. It was clear. Maybe 5-10°F. We hung out for a bit. Took some pictures of me and Helen at the peak. Then we left.

Ah, Sensei, the master becomes the student. I could see where I was going, and there was no longer any need to go slowly. But Rafael, my guide, has only been on snow the 10-15 times he's brought people to the peak. Hello, I live in Minnesota! I give him my walking poles, told him a few tips, and took off, looking back every once in a while to make sure he wasn't falling too far behind.

We got back to Gilman's Point and take our first real break. We look down: "Hey, that's Kibo." Sure doesn't look like a 4-5 hour walk... The hill was scree so we took our time, stopped to chat once or twice, and maybe two hours later get back to Kibo to take a nap.

After climbing, some people leave equipment behind for their guides and such. I wasn't exactly in position to do that--Rafael had been worried that I'd be too cold so I'd borrowed wind pants from one of my porters. Maybe he would have been right in worse weather, maybe he was even right here. But...they didn't breathe. I took off the wind pants in the hut and found that my long johns, and my (only!) pants, were SOAKED with sweat. Same for both of my long sleeved shirts and my sweatshirt. Yuck, and brr.

I ran into a Chapel Hillie--I think six of the NC7 made it. One of the women got really sick, threw up 4 times at 5300m or some such thing. I felt really bad for her, but she didn't seem too depressed or was covering it pretty well.

We walk down to Horombo. Very slowly--my knee is almost useless by now. My guide kinda wanted to head all the way down to Mandara so it'd be a shorter walk out the next day, but Horombo it was.

We get in about 2:30. I head to sleep. They try to wake me for tea, but I sent them away. I think that's when they sing the Kilimanjaro song to you. Shit, missed it.

I looked for Chapel Hill at dinner but didn't see them so I went to sleep early. Day 6, didn't see them at breakfast, either. We left at about 8:30.

At 8:40 we passed CH--they'd been there after all. Back to Mandara at about 10:45, back to park HQ just before 1pm. They gave me a certificate, a garland, a bottle of champagne and a nice lunch. Then we headed back to Arusha.

Tips:
I've seen recommendations ranging from 10-15% of the trip fees for tips. But I paid $1000 for my trip, and of that

$360 park fees
$250 camping fees
$ 20 rescue fee
$ 3 some fee
= $663 went to the park.

That leaves $367 for salaries for the guide, the cook, and two porters, transportation to and from Arusha (about 80km), food for all of us, equipment rental, champagne, overhead, other expenses...

It wasn't my fault I was alone, but I felt really bad about these guys waiting on me for a week for peanuts. And they haven't worked in a coupla months as it was the rainy season and they had no bookings. And I'd have paid another $100 for my trip without batting an eye. And I didn't have the right mix of change with me as I thought I'd be in a group and had planned to give them less.

So I maybe overtipped. Or maybe I undertipped...who knows what's right but here's what I gave them, which was almost what they'd asked for:

• Albert, a porter, who I'd seen only when Rafael introduced me after bringing up the subject of tipping on day 3 and again on the evening of day 5 when he came to say goodbye and get his money (he had to leave really early on day 6) got $30.
• Elisante, the porter and waiter who brought me water to wash each morning and after each hike, woke me up every day, gave me a hug when I'd finished and lent me his pants, got $40.
• Emanuel, the cook/porter, who spoke good English and had a sense of humor, got $70.
• And guide Rafael got $100.

Almost 25%.

General comments:
It's really funny to see the porters, like lots of other people in Africa, balancing stuff on their heads. Some are really large or bulky packages, but some are standard(-western)-issue internal frame packs with support straps, hip belts and the like, and they probably weigh almost 30 pounds.

I really felt like crap on day 2. I had continuing stomach issues at night, and no-to-not much appetite during the day the whole time. I thought I might have lost some weight. And I probably did--both Rona and Nushin commented on it when I got back. Andre didn't seem to notice.

Final Thoughts:
(On my way up) I heard a bunch of people (on their way down) talking at Horombo about how the climb had been "mentally challenging beyond what we could have ever imagined." For me, the peak was a bit anticlimactic. I almost felt cheated--was my route too easy, the weather too perfect for me to get the full experience?

I'm maybe more equipped than many for long hours of trudging on, alone, just footstep following footstep with only my own thoughts to keep me company. But it didn't seem that hard.

Don't get me wrong--the altitude is hard to deal with, and something over which we have no control. If I had been on a 5-day itinerary instead of a 6-day I would surely not have made it. The Chapel Hillie who failed was totally sick, puking her guts out at 5300m. But the walk itself, I just kept going. Once I wasn't sick there was no doubt in my mind that I'd make it.

And the peak isn't the standard cartoon mountain where you get to the top and look down around you. It's just the highest point on a large plane--the views from there aren't that spectacular (and it was fairly clear and we got there at the perfect time). And we'd gone from gaining 1000 meters in just over 4 hours to gaining 200 meters over the final 2 hours, so the last while of the walk wasn't challenging, it was just finding our way (and, thanks to our perfect weather that just meant following a well worn path--we didn't even need our lights to walk it in the dark) over to the right spot.

Still, I'm definitely glad I did it and, while it maybe wasn't the hardest thing I've done this trip it was definitely one of the highlights. And I can now use the phrase "back in ought seven, when I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro..."

Okay, if you've made it this far, pictures are up.

Next up: safari.
sg