Part 2: Kilimanjaro

Let me just say that climbing Kilimanjaro was definitely one of the coolest things we have ever done. I will try not to bore anyone with all the nitty-gritty details, but I want to share the whole experience.

We are climbing the Machame Route with the plan to complete the climb in 7 days. This route is supposed to be prettier and less populated than the Coca Cola route. The minimum number of days required is 6 but we added an extra day to give us more time to acclimate. Our first big shock of the climb was to learn how many people would be climbing with us; I do not mean other climbers, but porters. All told there were 14 people in our party: Aaron and myself, our guide, assistant guide, cook, and 9 porters (one of whom was to serve as the waiter at meal times). We had an entourage!! Even now, I cannot write about this without feeling a little humiliated that so many people were going to be involved in getting just 2 of us up the mountain. Talk about high maintenance!

Day 1: We were picked up from our hotel at 7:30 (18 hours after arriving in TZ) the next morning. It turns out that the guy who organized our trip is kind of famous. If you've seen the IMAX movie on Kilimanjaro, he's the lead guide. The drive to the park entrance was a bit surreal for a few reasons: 1. I couldn't believe we were about to start climbing, and 2. we were listening to this bizarre mix of American songs that someone had on an MP3 player (my favorite was "Grandma got ranover by a reindeer").

Our first day was a 10km climb from the Machame Gate (1950m) to Machame Camp (3300m). The hike was really beautiful. We started in the rain forest and ended in moorland - this may not be the correct term, but it's what our guide used. It was really cool to see the terrain and vegetation change as we changed climactic zones. Overall the first day wasn't too bad. What you'll hear everyday on the mountain is "pole pole" which means "slowly slowly", so that's what we did. We were told that it's important to eat while you can because most people lose their appetites from the altitude so we ended our first day by pigging out.

Day 2: Every morning on the mountain starts with "wake up tea" at 6:30, which is brought to our tent (at this point, we still haven't realized that we have a waiter). After tea, we are given a bowl of warm water to wash with before packing up our bags and eating breakfast. Today's hike was 8km to the Shira Plateau (3810m). The hike was pretty steep so we walked slow and arrived at Shira in time for lunch. After lunch our guide, Richard, took us another 200m up to the Shira Hut to get a good view of the plateau and acclimate a little more before going back down to sleep. Every night, Richard measures our pulse and oxygen levels to make sure we are doing okay with the altitude. He says at the base, our oxygen levels are around 100 and at the summit they will be in the 70s. So far we've been in the low 90s, so we're doing really well.

Day 3: It's the third day and I can't believe I'm still feeling good and I'm not even sore! I start today's hike like I have the last two by thinking, "today's going to be the really tough day". Today we are going 7km up to the Lava Tower (4400m) for lunch and then descending for 3km to the Barranco campsite (3910m). There are about 20 hikers that started the climb the same day we did, so we've been making some friends on the trail. I'm starting to feel a little less ashamed as I realize that the other hikers also have their own army of porters. It looks like we've been some of the few not to get sick from the altitude or the food yet. I would say our only biggest health problem right now is sunburn; even the backs of our hands are getting burnt!

We crossed into our third climate zone, desert, at lava tower (picture on the right). After living in Arizona and Burkina, I've seen my fair share of desert so I was happy to descend back down to moorland after lunch. The descent after lunch was probably the hardest hike we've done so far. It was steep and really hard on our legs. I'm going to be upset if my first day of sore muscles is because of 3km of downhill! The Barranco camp is set in a canyon filled with these funny cactus-like plants and is pretty chilly so we mostly hang out in our tent to keep warm. We're slowly learning more about Richard. He used to work for the park service and says he's climbed Kili 3000 times (we think he means 300) and his fastest time is 24 hours - pretty impressive. Today we got our first good glimpse at the summit. It still seems much too big and far away.

Day 4: Today is another 10km to camp. We are hiking 7km to lunch and then 3km to Barafu camp (4600m). On the trail map, the first 7k look pretty flat, this is very deceiving. It is actually 7k of climbing up and over steep ridges. I know that going up and back down helps you acclimate but when your goal is to reach the summit, there is something very unsatisfying about climbing 2000 ft only to descend 1900 immediately.

After talking with Richard, we've decided to do the climb in 6 days instead of 7. This means we'll be attempting the summit tomorrow and if we don't make it, we'll have another day to try again. He also says that it would be easier if we start the climb around 5am instead of midnight, which is what most people do. Since we seem to be the only people not getting sick from the altitude, I think he's been doing a good job so we decide to take his advice and sleep in a few hours before the summit tomorrow. (We'll take some altitude sickness medicine just in case- don't want to press our luck.) The picture above is Aaron fixing my trekking pole during our lunch break.

Day 5- Summit Day!! Today we attempt the summit. We ate a quick breakfast of tea, pourridge, and muffins (no eggs today because they might make us vomit) and were off a little after 5. The porters are going to wait for us at camp, so it's just the two of us, Richard, and our assistant guide, in case someone gets sick. We put on all of our clothes for the climb - it's really cold up there! The ascent is 5km to Uhuru Peak (5896m) of steep uphill. The first 4k took us over 4 1/2 hours...pole pole. It was steep switchbacks with blizzard-like wind blowing and fogging up my glasses. One thing I learned from summit day was that Richard is not to be trusted to give an honest description of the trail. He told us the trail to the summit was an even mixture of really steep, kind of steep, and flat. Untrue. It was about 90% really steep, 9% slightly steep, and 1% flat. He also has a tendency to tell us we are almost to certain points when really we have another hour of climbing. But looking back, I think it's better he lied; the truth would have been too depressing. The other climbers we had been hiking with started the ascent at midnight so a few of them passed us on their way down which gave us some encouragement.
Finally, around 10am, we saw the sign announcing the peak through the clouds. We were told that when you reach the peak, you are so tired and feel so ill that you just want to get back down. Luckily for us this was not the case. Aaron had a headache and my stomach was doing something weird, but overall we were feeling really good. We took some pictures, danced a little and then I was hit with the feeling of "so what now?". Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see the crater or more than a few minutes of the glaciers so after about 20 or 30 minutes we headed back down. The descent was fast - 2 hours to get back to camp. It turns out that I'm not very good at walking downhill; my total number of falls: 4. When we reached camp, all of the porters congratulated us, which was really nice, and we had a hot lunch before continuing another 2 hours down to a lower camp for the night. We finally realized on our last night that the same porter was always bringing our food and tea...we had a waiter!

Day 6: This is our last day on the mountain and also the day I was finally feeling really tired and just wanted to get down, pretty convenient. Our legs were pretty sore from the summit and descent yesterday (I never knew downhill could be so hard on your legs!). On the Machame route, you take a different, more direct path down so we only had about 11 or 12 km to the park gate. We realized yesterday that we never lost our appetites and that eating enormous amounts of food was no longer justified (especially since we're going to the beach next week) so we cut back a little on our meals, which really confused Richard. After about 4 hours, we reached the bottom where we received certificates with the date and time of our summit and gave all of the porters their tips before saying goodbye. By the time we reached the bottom I was really tired and, I think, more than a little grumpy and sore so I don't have many recollections from that morning. The picture above is our whole group minus 3 porters. We had a group of 3 brothers whose grandfather died so they left yesterday morning to attend the funeral.

I apologize if this was too long; you'd be surprised what I left out. If there is anyone thinking of doing the climb and wants more info on routes, guides, etc. feel free to write us. The next day we started our safari so watch for another entry with some cool animals...

Tanzania: Part 1

Jambo from Tanzania! We have been really busy and having an amazing time in Tanzania so far. There's a lot to talk about so I think we'll do this in installments. Let me start by saying that I cannot think about this trip without a flood of superlatives coming to mind so prepare yourself to read about things that are the most, best, greatest, etc.

First, the flight to TZ. We got a good first-hand look at the security of the Burkina airport as we were leaving. We watched as every member of the flight crew set off the metal detector and kept walking without anyone so much as raising an eye. Then, all of the passengers are subjected to a very public patdown. When it was my turn, the lady grabs my money belt under my clothes and announces in two languages (in case anyone was confused) "money, ok": very discreet.

We had an overnight layover in Ethiopia and were pleasantly surprised to find that the airline had booked us at a local 4-star hotel where the employees were very eager to please and even more eager to apologize for anything. At one point, I had someone apologize to me as I was walking up the stairs. I am not sure what that was supposed to mean, perhaps it was "I am sorry that you are walking up these stairs instead of me carrying you." At any rate, it was more attention that we are used to or comfortable with.

We flew straight to Kilimanjaro airport, which was amazing because we got to fly right next to the summit on our way in. I was pretty intimidated by how huge it was; excited, but really intimidated. Our trekking company picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel in Moshi. It was pretty unbelievable that we were going to be picked up at 7am the next morning to start the climb. It felt like it was coming too fast. We spent the few hours left of the afternoon walking around Moshi, buying altitude sickness medicine, and staring at the mountain towering over us. Our first impressions of Tanzania, it is beautiful. It is so green here I can't believe it. I got really jealous walking through their fruit and vegetable market. It's been hard for us to adjust to everyone speaking English here. We keep answering people in French out of habit.

Coming up...the climb

Kilimanjaro. Check.

Only have 4 minutes to write this. We just hiked Mount Kilimanjaro. It was awesome. Tomorrow we leave to go on a safari for 2 days. Then to Zanzibar. We'll write more and add pictures later. Hope all is well.