(Pictures coming soon, I promise.)
So we survived Kilimanjaro! Not a verb of conquest, you may note. But we climbed up 5,895 meters of that mountain and all the way back down, and without a single blister.
It is a much pleasanter accomplishment to consider after the fact. Standing on top of Africa, watching the rising sun, taking in the white-lit glaciers—now that I’m back down in warm and oxygenated Salima, with feeling in my toes, my mental camera takes time to appreciate the awesome occasion. In the moment, however, numb with cold and over-medicated with altitude pills, on a third day without sleep, and my face encased in a frozen sheet of snot, I barely had the presence of mind to take a photo. In fact, it was our guide, Issa, who unzipped the pocket of my anorak (my eighth layer), unhooked my fingers from my second pair of gloves and helped me turn on my camera, just as he had assisted me for the last six hours, when I was unable to perform basic functions like putting sugar candy in my mouth or unscrewing my water bottle. If anyone is to be congratulated for our summit success, it is more likely Issa and Stanley, our guides, or possibly the 12 porters who were required to accompany us on the 6-day journey, schlepping our packs like sherpas as we ambled along with daypacks of water and snack bars.
Our group (Elisabeth and Ashley from the Peace Corps, and Jeff and Catherine, A’s friends from home) started off from Arusha on a Tuesday, passing through Moshi town and the green coffee fields at the feet of Kilimanjaro. The first day of climbing, a few hours through tangled rainforest, was brief and entirely lovely. I noticed with mild concern that no one else seemed to be cringing with chest pains as we started up, but armed with altitude medication and a grim desire not to prove the weakest link in our group of five, I gritted my teeth, slowed my pace, and willed my heart rate to slacken.
The two days that followed were incredible: we camped above the clouds in the looming shadow of snow-tipped peaks, hiked past the tree line through arid desert and craggy rocks, up to Lava Tower at 4000 meters on an acclimatization day, then wandered back down through a dreamy mist to Barranco Camp on the third afternoon. In the evenings we sipped tea and cocoa in the green kitchen tent, played Bananagrams, ate soup and matoke, and swapped stories with Trevor and Laurie, a Canadian couple on the same path (Machame Route). I got up on the third morning exhausted after a miserable night of altitude insomnia and congested with a head cold. It was another beautiful day of climbing, up and over the Barranco Wall, though at this point you can begin to trace the fade of my smile in everyone’s photos. I started taking fewer pictures, popping more Diamox, and talking less, to save my breath and because I didn’t have anything cheerful to contribute. We clamored up to Barrafa Hut in the late afternoon; at that point I was sitting every few minutes as my chest squeezed my heart like a bellows. We collapsed in our tents, hoping for a few hours of rest before the summit push, but sleep wouldn’t come. Around 11, we emerged with pounding headaches, mummied in every stitch of warm clothing we brought with us.
And then, in darkness, for six hours, at the snail’s pace set by Stanley, we slogged up, headlamps illuminating only the boots in front of us. There were seven of us climbing, and in the cold and quiet darkness, we took very separate journeys to get us through those awful hours; Ashley had mental conversations with her friends and family, Elisabeth traveled around the world, but it never occurred to me to leave the moment. I thought only about making the next step and managing not to vomit. Six hours was plenty of time to consider the relative merits of mountain climbing, as well as the number of other ways I might have invested my time and money. Here I was, frozen and leaning into gale winds, willing my lungs to open, all to reach the top of a mountain that plenty of other people had summited—and most of them were smart enough to take the easier way up. What exactly was I accomplishing? I thought about childbirth, and going to war, our tenuous grasp of mortality, people I know and love demonstrating strength and determination in ways that life throws at them. Climbing Kilimanjaro was a Disney experience; others seemed more worthy. Or maybe it was just the Diamox talking.
Occasionally we would stop to suck at frozen water from our bottles, only briefly because of the cold. No one could talk much, except maybe to say the time. And then we were almost there. Without vomiting or turning into jelly, we had all made it, and the realization of success took me by surprise. Piece of cake, I told myself. It wasn’t that bad. The sun appeared as we walked the last snowy stretch from Stella Point to Uhuru Peak. We snapped photos and high-fived, savoring the summit for only what seemed like a minute; then, groggy and airless, we turned and headed down, barreling toward oxygen, warmth, and sanity.
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Zanzibar
As due reward for our hard work and stupidity, we headed on to the spice island of Zanzibar, famous formerly for its central role in slave trade, and now for long white sandy beaches and green-blue waters.
Unfortunately getting to that paradise involved another hellish day of African public transportation. Though I wasn’t sitting next to a vomiting child on the 10-hour bus ride (as I had been, for 20 hours, en route from Mbeya to Arusha), we still managed to lose our brakes and spend a sweltering hour sitting by the side of road during repair, arriving too late to catch the last ferry from Dar es Salaam. At the suggestion of our friendly swindling cab driver, we caught a flight instead, bartering the price down from 75 to 45USD (yes, in Africa you can haggle for plane tix) to his dismay. Smelling, exhausted, hungry, and in short tempers, we arrived finally at Dude’s (pronounced Du-day, we discovered after a frustrating hour wandering lost in a cab) Guesthouse and fell into the welcoming arms of a whole glorious contingent of Peace Corps Malawi volunteers.
For a few days we swam and snorkeled, sunbathed, and feasted on prawns and lobster and coconut fish. At its ebb, the tide recedes more than a kilometer, and we wandered in the shell-strewn wasteland of starfish and kelp, watching local women gather seaweed farmed in underwater rows and sent to Japan. It was a brief respite, then a quick morning in Stone Town, a nauseous ferry ride back to Dar, a dusty afternoon circling the city searching unsuccessfully for bus rides straight to Lilongwe, a joyful discovery of a real Subway (evidence, we decided, of Tanzania’s successful development), and then, this time with Jesi and Ashley (Elisabeth smart enough to opt for a flight back), we began the journey home.
As it happened, I spent eight of twenty days of vacation on a bus. I don’t recommend this to anyone considering a trip anywhere, ever. Returning, our first bus was delayed by city traffic, and we arrived in Mbeya five hours later than expected. On this pass through the border town, we opted not to room again in the brothel next to the bus depot. Though the 2 dollar price was tempting, beds were available this time at a more respectable establishment next door, with running water and toilets to boot. (During our visit through two weeks before, everything was booked because of the school Easter holiday and because, we were informed, at this time of year people head to the mountains for a baboon cure. Whatever that means.)
Three days of buses later, I arrived in sunny Salima, and I intend to stay put for a while.
Most impressed and proud
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