We made it! Wow. What a surreal experience. But first let me
start off with a quick disclaimer: the guides, cooks, and porters do 99% of the
work, I only had to put one foot in front of the other.
We started off by travelling in our own personal dala dala
called “Fort Jesus.” Definitely brought us good luck. After a relatively smooth journey, besides
getting hit by a motorcycle, we made it to Marangu gate. Our crew was
incredible. We had 3 guides, 2 cooks, and
7 porters, and they are forever my heroes. The guides were able to sing while
climbing, while I could not say 3 words.
The porters carry the luggage and supplies on their backs, backs of
their necks, and heads, and go twice our pace.
Superhuman strength. I would not have made it to the first hut without
them.
We were extremely lucky and had fantastic weather, including
summit night. I felt so well taken care
of…the meals were amazing, and we even had tea/coffee time everyday with
snacks. The first few days were
relatively easy: the distances each day were short and the elevation wasn’t
killer yet. We travelled to Mandara hut the first day, Horombo hut the second,
stayed here an extra day to acclimate, then hiked to Kibo hut which was over
15,000 feet high. Horombo hut was where
I first realized we were literally above the clouds. So surreal.
The vegetation and temperature changed so quickly as we
climbed up. We started off in a tropical rainforest (and saw blue monkeys) and
ended in 15 degree weather surrounded by glaciers and snow.
All 6 days were amazing, beautiful, and worth every step,
but I’m going to skip to the summit climb because it was the most challenging,
memorable, and beautiful.
After dinner the night of the summit climb, we slept for a
few hours and then were awoken around 10:30pm.
We started climbing at 11:30 from Kibo hut. We had our headlamps and I
had on as much clothing as possible since I’ve never been in weather colder
than probably 30 or 40 degrees.
Starting from day 1 our guides made us go pole pole
(slowly), and I’m so glad they did.
Summit night our pace was about 1 step every 5 seconds, so slow, yet we
were breathing heavily the whole time (except for the guides). We would break every hour or so for about 5-7
minutes. One of my favorite memories is when our head guide Obadiah pulled out
his phone and started playing Bob Marley Three Little Birds during one of the
breaks. We were freezing, tired, and not
even half way up, but all three guides Obadiah, BQ, Imani, and our friend and
chef Okuly started singing and dancing. I couldn’t have asked for better
motivation.
The climb to the top was definitely challenging and o so
cold, but o so worth it. We had just
past Gilman’s Point and Stella’s Point when the sun began to rise. Again so
surreal since we were above the clouds.
Yellow light seemed to spill out over the blanket of clouds.
The last few meters
seemed to take forever as we walked across the snowy top, but reaching the
green sign felt so good. You literally are on the roof of Africa., but it felt
like I was on the highest point in the world.
Looking around, you see a vastness of clouds and above you is a clear
blue sky and extremely bright sun.
We didn’t spend too much time at Uhuru Peak (19,341 feet)
since it was so cold, probably between 15-20 degrees. I was completely bundled,
yet still freezing and my fingers refused to work, so I can’t even imagine how
the guides felt in about half the clothing I had on. Our guide was extremely
eager to begin our descent, probably because his fingers were about to fall off
since he didn’t have gloves on.
Now the descent was the most challenging part for me. At this point it was about 7:15am, and we
were pretty exhausted. During each break on the descent I would nearly fall
asleep. Nevertheless we eventually made
it to Kibo hut, mostly due to our guides’ encouragement, and convinced our
guide to let us nap for 2 hours instead of 1 before we hiked to Horombo
hut. In total that final climb and descent
took nearly 12 hours and on a few hours of sleep, so needless to say that was
the happiest nap I’ve ever had in my life.
We stayed the night at Horombo, then descended all the way
down to the gate the following day.
Before beginning our final descent though, our crew sang us a song about
Kili (I think they secretly liked us more than other climbers because we knew a
little Kiswahili).
Just outside the gate our guide Obadiah organized an amazing
feast for us at a local restaurant consisting of: pilau, rice, beans, mchicha,
bananas, avocado, cucumbers, and tomatoes. So goooood. Then the four of us and
our crew got back into “Fort Jesus” daladala and were off.
It was the absolute perfect finish to this amazing
experience in Tanzania.
I never never imagined I would learn so much from the people
here. The people’s perseverance, strength, and liveliness make Tanzania an
incredible country. I hope to return
after graduation. Asante sana Tanzania! I will miss you so much and already
can’t wait to return.
P.s. I love talking about Tanzania and just talking in
general so feel free to email me: coreym.wood@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment