Phase Pole Pole: Kilimanjaro

Well, that was the hardest walk of my life. Pole pole..."slowly" in swahili. That was the name of the game on Kilimanjaro. We went on a 7 day climb on the Lemosho route with Pristine Trails. I chose them because they were a Kilimanjaro Porter's Assistance Project (KPAP) accredited tour company, which means they met some requirements for salary and working conditions. After some preliminary concerns (lack of contact by the tour company until we arrived, miscommunication about which route we were taking, etc), things seemed to be fine. We rented some gear at a local shop and got on the road!...er, trail.

Day 1: Easy peasy. We drove half of the day and got on the trail after a short lunch. It was only about an hour and a half walk to camp along relatively flat land. We got this. I was on Diamox for altitude sickness so even though we started at around 3000m I didn't feel a thing.

Day 2: Day 2 hiking wasn't particularly hard, either. Actually, most of the days only had about 3-4 hours of hiking, and even that was only 5-6km (pole pole). The main challenge was the altitude. I was feeling a little nauseous during dinner, and yet was trying to follow my guide's recommendation to eat and drink as much as possible. Need your strength on the mountain! And then I puked. At least I made it out of the tent! I spent as much time between hikes as I could in my cocoon (sleeping bag) performing restoration processes (sleeping). 

Mt. Meru in the distance

Day 3: One of our longer days, with 10km to cover. Part of that was hiking up to lava tower at 4600m, the highest we'd been so far on the trek. I was at a level 5 nausea as we approached (level 10 is puking). To distract ourselves from feeling sick, Tim and I tried to convert 4600m to feet in our heads (starting with the conversion of 2.54 cm in an inch...long division to get meters to feet...) while having muddled altitude brains. We got to 15,800' in the end, the real answer is 15,091'. Not too bad. Felt much better as we started to descend.

Day 4: The Wall. It looks shear, but there's a path up that involves some clambering over rocks. My arm was doing much better and I could even use it some to get up and around.

Tim looking up The Wall

There were some pretty awesome views from the top of The Wall, and the rest of the day was over before lunch. Still going strong. 

Looking up at Uhuru Peak

I had the energy to do this.

Mt Meru from on top of The Wall

Nightime shot of Uhuru from Karanga camp

Day 5: Karanga camp to Barafu (base camp). Another half day of hiking across arid tundra brought us to our highest camp yet - Barafu at 4600m. We had hiked that high before, so it helped us to acclimate. Once we arrived we did a short trip up the beginning of the ascent trail because you're supposed to hike higher than you sleep (even by a little). My altitude sickness was doing pretty well, but the nerves were high for the summit day. We got to base camp around lunch, ate, and then took naps. We were leaving for the summit at 11pm, so had 4 hours to sleep between lunch and dinner, then another 4 between dinner and packing at 10pm. No problem sleeping after lunch, but after dinner I was all nerves and kind of cold so only got about an hour in.

Day 5 Night: Summit. It was 7 hours to the top (climbing 4100' from camp to summit over 4.5km). It was cold and windy, but we were pretty well equipped for the weather. But man, what a driving wind. It was sub zero Fahrenheit with the wind chill. My biggest problem was the altitude, and it hit me hard. I was level 5-6 nausea for a lot of it but couldn't make myself puke to relieve it. I spent half the time shambling like a zombie behind the guide and the other half staggering like a drunk because I was dizzy. Tim was behind me, and definitely caught me a few times as I swayed backward. The first part of the summit wasn't too bad, about 2 hours of gradual slope. The next part was sandy/loose switchbacks, lovingly called "snakes-snakes the roads". The snakes-snakes lasted for 3 hours. The next part was what the guide called "straight up". We shambled and staggered our way upwards, with evolving altitude symptoms. We finally crested a ridge after what I thought was the end of the snakes-snakes, but it turns out we had already completed the "straight up" without me noticing. Christmas surprise! From that spot, Stella Point, it was just a 45 minute walk along the crater rim to the summit. Although this was definitely the "easiest" part of the hike, oh my god. My altitude sickness was so bad. At one point I hallucinated that my guide's leg was a hot water thermos. For the last 15 minutes of the hike, Tim and I walked arm in arm (I assume so he wouldn't let me fall into the crater) to the summit. Not going to deny it, a tear or two was shed when we finally got to the Uhuru sign. After making it up there and touching base, I was in a bad way and wanted down stat. The head guide took me on the express train down the mountain, holding my arm so I wouldn't fall and nearly dragging me down the scree field. We made it down to camp in 2 hours. Wow.

Photographic evidence we made it

Mariel and Job (the guide)

Glacier at sunrise

View on the descent

Breaktime in tent after summiting

Day 6: Down. Down down down. After getting back to camp early (8am), we had an hour to rest before breakfast and heading down the mountain. Per the itinerary we had another night's camping, breaking the descent into 2 days. The guides offered the possibility that if we wanted to make it the whole way to the gate in one day, we'd get another free night in a hotel and a hot shower earlier than expected. It was enough to motivate us, and we descended more than 12000' in 7 hours of hiking time. So starting from 11pm day 5, we did over 13 hours of hiking in 16 hours. Ow.

Crew at the gate, ready to go home

Even though it was only the two of us on the trek, our guides were quite talkative and we got to learn a lot about the Tanzanian culture. Our wide ranging topics of discussion included Tanzanian politics, American politics, the Corn Lobby, moral erosion/family values, feminism, and gay rights. We had to agree to disagree on the last two topics....

Now we're back in Moshi, laundry has been done, and we had some super painful massages. On to Zanzibar!

Kilimanjaro from Tim's Perspective:

Mt. Kilimanjaro! My only other multi-day hike was a two day trip along the Alpine Trail in Colorado with my dad in the Boy Scouts, so this was quite an initiation into longer adventures. We had a large crew of eleven - two guides, a chef, and eight porters - supporting just Mariel and me since the other couple in our group lost their luggage at the airport and had their plans altered. It's luxurious hiking with just your water and some rain gear, with camp set up waiting for you and a hot meal in the mess tent at the end of the day's hiking. We learned that Kilimanjaro National Park has been taking steps to improve the porters' lives, with a minimum age of 18 and a maximum load of 20 kg, which still seems like a lot given some of terrain we covered while hiking. The porters inevitably blew by us, and it was common to step to the side to let groups of porters pass by.

A park worker weighs every porter's load before the trek begins.

Our days were generally short, with only 6-10 km hikes lasting between 4-6 hours, and our pace felt glacially slow. One of the guides would lead, and they set up a pace that was designed to help us acclimatize as we climbed to Barafu base camp at 4650 m the day before the summit. As the altitude increased (along with our days without a shower) I appreciated the easy pace that helped prevent headaches and kept us relatively sweat free. We had plenty of time to observe the scenery, which consisted of tundra for the first few days and then desert and rocks until we began our descent on day 6. The guides made fun of me for taking so many pictures.

Ice crystals form underneath the dirt and gravel at night.

The entire trek was about 50 km (31 miles), slightly shorter than the standard Lemosho route since we skipped a few km in the beginning to keep our days short and even, and we skipped a few km at the end because we were completely exhausted after the longest day of hiking I hope I ever have to experience. Our guide thought this was about 25 km (15.5 miles), with an initial 4.5 km, 1250 m ascent to the top followed by a 20 km, 3900 m descent to the exit gate. I cried a little when I finally saw the sign for the top, with all of the stress and worry melting away as the trail flattened out for the final hundred meters. After days worrying about whether altitude sickness would end the hike early or become a dangerous problem to deal with, we had finally succeeded. The summit hike was dreamlike (probably from lack of sleep) and the final stumble to the finish as I held Mariel's arm will be a memory I never forget. The 12,000 ft. descent will also stand out, as we started off in a barren, rocky wasteland, descended through desert and then tundra before ending in a warm, lush rainforest.

My first squat toilet

Guest Post by Tim Larson - Tanzania

I’m an inexperienced traveler compared to Mariel, with only a few trips out of the country prior to this. Mariel once asked me where I'd go if I could go anywhere in the world, and I flippantly replied, "I'd like to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro." At the time it felt distant and abstract, I didn't realize how quickly it would become a reality. On the plane ride over I sat next to a doctor from Savannah, Georgia, who grew up in Nigeria before immigrating to the USA in 1974 at the age of 18. He now runs a charitable organization that arranges medical missions to places in Africa and South America, with a few days of tax-free all-inclusive R&R tacked on to each trip for good measure. He was surprisingly fond of Donald Trump – I gathered he’d dealt with some harsh things during his childhood.

After landing in Kilimanjaro airport I had a brief panic when our driver failed to show and the cell numbers we had on hand seemed to be disconnected. With the help of some locals we managed to get ahold of our safari company and get a ride to our hotel. Mariel was cool and collected during all of this.

The first thing that struck me was the massive number of motorcycles on the road, most carrying multiple passengers and large cargoes. We later learned that most of these are taxis and they are the cheapest way to get around quickly – without any safety gear of our own we won’t experience  that this trip, but it looks like an adrenaline rush given the chaotic traffic.

The signs are a mix of Swahili and English, and many people speak English very well, making life easy. Our hotels have had wifi and hot water (when the power was running), and the rain has accommodated our schedule and restricted itself to times when we were driving or sitting in our hotel room. The rains bring a chill wind, contrasting with my expectations for the weather. During the safari we could see rain off in the distance and feel the cold breeze, even it stayed dry in our area.

Our guide was great – his love of the animals was obvious, as was the enjoyment he got out of successfully running some of the muddier stretches of road. Our chef was younger – 23 – and was also quite skilled, making up dishes on the fly based on our preferences. He loved American hip hop and introduced us to the latest Justin Bieber song using his smart phone. It’s apparently a big hit here in Tanzania, as we heard another group of locals playing it at a bar in our hotel in Moshi. The national parks here are all well-maintained; I was impressed with the daily cleaning of our campsite in the Serengeti. I also got a kick out of the guides and local workers chatting to friends and family on their cell phones deep in the endless plains.

More later, my time is up here at the internet café. Kilimanjaro, here we come!

A view from our hotel this morning.

Tanzania Phase 1: Safari

Tim and I got married in October, so it's high time we got to our honeymoon.  Three weeks in Tanzania. Week 1 - safari. Week 2 - climb Kilimanjaro. Week 3 - relax in Zanzibar. We have just completed phase 1, the safari. We went with Northern Circuit Adventures out of Arusha.

Day 1 took us to Tarangire National Park, the “garden of elephants”.  Tagline confirmed – a troop of elephants passed within feet of our car, which was our first close up wildlife encounter. We took too many pictures of very common animals (I just sorted through all 4000 of them) because we were newbies. Either way, Tarangire was cool. Also spotted some cheetahs up close after an off road adventure, and lots of hoofed prey. Tim became an amateur birder and stayed that way for the whole week. (He gets to sort through all the bird pictures.) We spent the night at a semi-permanent tented campsite called Haven Nature. They had hot water and beds inside the tents – roughing it!

Day 2 we went to Lake Maranyara National Park, the home of the baboon. Tagline confirmed – there were lots of monkeys. Also some elephants, hippos, flamingos (from afar), buffalo, giraffe, and a pair of African fish eagles (Tim’s contribution).  Really we saw just about all of the animals everywhere, so I’ll stop naming particular ones. We ran into a group of elephants in the forest who were using the road (and clearly had right of way). They were scuffling and knocking down trees and generally in not a good mood. One of them came so close it scared our guide into throwing the car in reverse. Apparently he’d had run ins with elephants before and is now cautious. Back to Haven Nature for the evening.

Day 3 we headed into Serengeti National Park, the “endless plain”. You guessed it, it’s a really big plain. Our favorite animal spotting was in the Serengeti, where the grasses were tall from the “short rains”. It was the classic image of safari. We stayed in one of the public campsites in and had no hot water (though there was a washroom…that you couldn’t go to at night in case you get eaten). Heard a few hyena getting into the garbage at night, but as far as we know we had no close encounters with any predators. We spent 3 nights there. On the way there we passed through the wildebeest migration. 2.5 million animals, including wildebeest, zebra, and gazelles…stretching for miles and miles. On the way out we passed by a pride of lions hanging out right next to the road. So cool. One male lion and a group of females, all within about 5 feet of the car.

Our last night we headed to the Ngorongoro Crater, one of the world’s premier wildlife preserves. The crater was formed several millions of years ago when a volcano as tall as Kilimanjaro collapsed. The rim is 600m tall and the crater floor is about 25km across. It’s a serene place of short grass and lots of hoofed prey just hanging out…and a few lions amongst them.  Circle of life. We saw 4 rhinos there, which we were told was very lucky. The rhino completed our Big 5: elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo. We shot them all…with our camera. More pictures to come, but here are the obligatory big 5 images:

Now we’re hanging in Moshi, starting our Kilimanjaro climb tomorrow. I’m nervous. I broke my arm a little over a week before leaving (sheared off my greater tuberosity on the humeral head) and have been sleeping a lot while on the mend. It’s gotten a lot better, I’m learning new tricks with it nearly every day (I can now lift it to 90 degrees – pretty good!). The pain isn’t too bad (at all, really), but I’m nervous that I’m not at peak physical condition to tackle the mountain. Ah well, we shall see!