*****
Monday, March 4, 2013
The morning that we were to start our Kilimanjaro trek, I was still frustrated that my luggage had not yet arrived. Thirty minutes before the driver was to arrive to transport us to the mountain, a representative from the airport stopped by our hotel. He had my lost baggage! What a huge relief! We frantically repacked all of our equipment and clothes. In the process we discovered that my HD camcorder, canon flash speedlite, and cell phone were missing from the bag. Hmmm...luggage is missing for more than a day, and the most expensive items are missing. I had a TSA compliant lock on the suitcase. It looks like I was the victim of the old "open-the-zipper-up-with-a-pen" trick. The bottom line: don't pack anything valuable in a checked bag.
After a two hour journey on a nice paved road to Moshi, we turned off onto a bumpy, dirt road leading to the west side of the mountain. Since we were now inside the National Park, we were surprised to see numerous people toiling hard to grow potatoes. Our driver informed us that the government allows these farmers to plant vegetables on the land in return for them maintaining the trees in the park. We were also surprised to see several black and white colobus monkeys yards away from these folks digging up and eating their potatoes. As we neared our drop-off point, a white station wagon came peeling around the corner passing us in the other direction. Our driver pointed out that it was an ambulance transporting a climber down to Moshi's hospital. Not a good sign, I thought.
We were introduced to our team. Our head guide was Tosha, a 30 year veteran of the mountain, who has been up Kilimanjaro over 300 times. Our assistant guide was 34 year-old Eli. Unlike the rest of the team who were loud and lean, he was pudgy and reticent. Plus, he looked like Darius Rucker's doppelganger.
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| Tosha was smooth, confident, and in complete command of his team of porters |
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| Hootie without the Blowfish |
We also had a cook whose name was Godlisten, but he went by the name of "Doctor." I guess the nickname of "Cookie" was already taken. We also had nine regular porters to carry the equipment, and three helping porters who had more responsibilities in addition to their load. Two of them were named Frank. Frank #1, who was responsible for serving our meals, spoke pretty good English, but had no real interest communicating with us. Frank #2, who was responsible for our campsite, spoke almost no English but kept trying to talk to us. Personally, I thought he was trying to be nice, but The Wife thought it was creepy. The third helping porter was, surprisingly, a woman named Stella. She had the unenviable job of taking care of our shit...literally. She had to carry our chemical toilet, set it up in its special tent, and empty it daily. Plus, she also carried the same weight load as the male porters. Like our Inca Trail trek where we had a 60 year-old porter, the oldest person on our team was a youthful 56 years of age.
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| Each porter carried up to 25 kg (55 lbs) |
Kilimanjaro is actually three volcanoes--Shira, Mawenzi, and Kibo (the only active one). The Shira volcano erupted long ago leaving a caldera. The Kibo volcano went off afterwards. The resulting lava flowed down into the Shira crater flattening it out to create the plateau. The first day would be an easy two hour stroll across the Shira plateau to the Shira One camp.
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| A high ridge remaining from the extinct Shira volcano overlooks the plateau. |
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| The flat terrain was occasionally broken up by a gorge with a small stream trickling through it. |
We hiked through the rocky, black soil kicking up tons of dust and dirt at each step. Although we were only at an altitude of 3,550 meters, I was already starting to feel some stomach cramping. As we neared our campsite, we noticed another group of hikers from the Lemosho route. One of them was a fat girl (I live in the Deep South, I know fat). We joked that if she could make it to the top, then so could we.
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| The Shira One campsite |
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| By early afternoon, cloud cover had all but obscured the mountain. |
With a whole afternoon to kill, I was able to catch up on some sleep that eluded me the night before.
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| Once the sun when down, it got really cold really fast. One minute I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and the next minute, I was throwing on my down coat. |
Dinner was served in a small tent meant for two. The guides and porters did not dine with us as they ate their own local food. Months ago, we had requested a gluten-free diet (mainly for The Wife). The food was actually pretty good but way too plentiful for the two of us.
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| Zucchini soup |
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| Fried tilapia, fried potatoes, bread, pakoras, and sauteed greens |
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| "vegetable sauce" of eggplants, peppers, carrots, and onions |
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| Fruit salad |
A private toilet may sound like a silly luxury when you are roughing it on the mountain. However, after experiencing the disgusting bathrooms on the Inca Trail, we would beg to differ. In Peru, the walls of some of the stalls were literally smeared with fecal matter. It was as if someone had stabbed Mr. Hanky to death in there. We weren't going to take a chance on that happening again in Tanzania, so we considered a private toilet a necessity for our Kilimanjaro trek. And we did not regret it.
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| The bathroom tent is waterproof, windproof, but not noise proof. |
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| The alternative was the campsite's permanent latrines, a hole in the ground. |
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| A reservoir of the chemical toilet is filled with water for flushing. The waste is deposited into a compartment below that can then be closed off with a handle. |
One of the worst things about camping is having to leave the warmth of your tent in the middle of a freezing night. We had come prepared for the effects of the Diamox we were taking. I had brought a couple of empty plastic bottles, and The Wife had packed something called a Travel-John. However, neither one of us was prepared for what was an attack of The Shits. There is no plastic bottle big enough for that problem.
I don't know whether it was the altitude, something we ate, or the effects of so much travelling. I do know that both of us spent the night running back and forth from our tent to the toilet tent. We got eight days use of that private toilet that night alone. By morning, we had exhausted the whole roll of toilet paper that Stella had provided.
"Crap! I hope that roll wasn't supposed to last us the whole trip!" I exclaimed to the equally concerned Wife.
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| One benefit of having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night are the breath-taking views of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the night sky. |
*****
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
At 6:30 AM the next morning, Frank #1 brought us our wake-up tea. As we unzipped the door of the tent, we were treated to a gorgeous sight--the sun rising over Mt. Kilimanjaro. The mountain was absolutely clear with not a cloud in the sky. The new sun bathed the mountain with the warmth of its orange light. We just sat there, snug in our sleeping bags enjoying our tea and the view. [note: In retrospect, I wish I had taken a photograph of that sunrise. It would turn out to be the most impressive sight that I would see on the mountain].
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| Although the orange glow behind the mountain had dissipated, the remainder of the sunrise was still beautiful. |
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| Millet porridge would be a staple of every breakfast on the trek. |
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| A hearty meal of eggs, bacon, and fruit. |
After breakfast, we would have another fairly leisurely hike for the next 4-5 hours. While our porters would be going straight to the Shira Hut campsite, we took the scenic route via the Shira Cathedral. We passed several trees that were toppled over, their bases seemingly charred. We both wondered whether they were felled by lightning--not a good sign as the trees were barely taller than us.
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| The low bushes and trees allows for good visibility for miles around. |
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| Tosha reassured us that the large bags the porters carry are light and filled with sleeping bags and mattresses. To carry it on one's head up the mountain is still pretty impressive. |
Although some mammals reportedly live on the Shira plateau, we didn't see any wildlife. Tosha said that he used to see gazelles occasionally, but none in the past five years.
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| Dried up jackal feces |
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| A dead mouse was the only animal we saw that day |
At mid morning, we made a quick climb up the Shira Cathedral (I have no idea where it got its name) but couldn't see much because the mist and clouds had already started to roll in.
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| The view from atop of the Shira Cathedral. We could see for miles in the direction we traveled from, but mist up ahead completely obscured our vision. |
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| Someone took the time to build a cairn at the top of the Shira Cathedral. |
We proceeded to hike another two hours to our campsite at the Shira Hut (3,840 meter elevation). Along the way we passed a road and helipad, the highest place that modern machines could get to evacuate any sick climbers.
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| The helipad is really just a clearing marked with white stones. |
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| A wheeled stretcher facilitates the evacuation of sick climbers. |
As we approached the campsite, we passed the fat girl that we saw the day before, heading back down the mountain. Apparently, the route ahead wasn't going to be that easy after all.
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| Lunch was once again an overwhelming amount of food for the two of us: carrot soup, pakoras, boiled eggs, toast, mangoes, watermelon, and a salad of avocados, tomatoes, peppers and onions. |
That afternoon, we huddled in our tent for what would soon be a daily ritual. A light rain came down, so all we could do was stay in our tent and keep warm in our sleeping bags.
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| A light rain and mist covered the campsite in the afternoon. |
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| It was a bit cozy, but we spent most of the non-hiking time in our tent. |
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| Now THIS is cozy. Our porters and guides also sought refuge in their tents. |
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| I suggest that they turn the heater on. |
I passed the time that afternoon by working on my journal. The Wife read the romance novels that she had brought along. Eli stopped by at 3:30 PM and asked if we wanted to do an hour-long acclimation hike in the hills above camp. Since it was still raining outside, we both declined. We eventually surfaced for dinner.
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| Cucumber soup |
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| Grilled chicken and rice |
Unfortunately, the gastrointestinal issues were not any better today compared with yesterday. I don't know if Stella was conscientious of our "issues" or not, but she did setup the bathroom tent much closer to us at this campsite. And there was a new roll of toilet paper! While we did miss having other hikers to meet and pass the time with, we were glad that we didn't have to share our little commode with anybody else. Nothing would have been worse than having to wait outside in the freezing rain for somebody else to finish their business.
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The campsite's bathrooms were 75 yards away from our tent (our commode tent was only 15 feet away).
The building on the left was for tourists, and the one on the right was for the guides and porters.
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| The only difference between the porter stalls vs the tourist bathrooms is that the latter had nicer tiles surrounding the hole in the ground. |
One of the downsides of being at a large campsite being used by multiple groups is the ridiculous amount of noise at night. We had looked at multiple recommendations for a packing list for Kilimanjaro and not one had recommended ear plugs. Porters from some of the lesser reputable agencies blasted their radios the ENTIRE night. Maybe I'm just getting too old and un-cool; but I'm just not a fan of listening to Madonna or African drums at three in the morning.
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| There was no shortage of different trekking groups at the Shira Hut campsite. |
*****
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
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| Sunrise over the Shira Hut campsite. |
"Sometimes I REALLY hate you." said The Wife as she glared at me coldly.
"Trust me. I'm not a big fan of myself right now either." I replied.
"The next time you have a stupid idea like climbing a mountain, keep it to yourself." The Wife retorted.
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| Breakfast in that small tent with the two of us was awkward to say the least. |
We were freezing cold and tired from our inability to sleep. Our backs were aching from not being accustomed to carrying packs and using sleeping bags. We were also both fretting about the toilet paper issue as we completely used up that replacement roll (in fairness, they were pretty small to start with). We ended up having to break out the emergency roll we had stuffed away in our bag. But the biggest problem we were having was that we were not having fun. After all, this was our vacation and we were paying good money to be miserable. And we had six more days to go.
There was not much we could do about this, so we packed up and began the steep hike up the hill overlooking the Shira camp.
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| Since we were around an altitude of 4,000 meters, the climbs up these hills got a bit tougher. |
Eventually the trail forked. We went left towards the Moir Hut campsite.
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| These porters on the Lemosho route took the pathway on the right which led to Lava Camp. |
Our path eventually took us to an altitude of about 4,400 meters, but we then hiked down 100-200 meters into the shallow canyon where the campsite was located. It was still only 11 AM in the morning when we arrived, so we elected to go ahead with our acclimation climb up Lent Hill.
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| From the Moir Hut campsite, Lent Hill looked so far and so high. |
The first 45 minutes of the walk were pretty tough. The hill is pretty steep and we were already tired, not having taken a rest. Eli led us up at a deliberate pace with Frank #2 following behind. The sun was bearing down on us actually making it very hot. But once the outer layers of clothes came off, the clouds would obscure the sun making it incredibly cold. The trekking poles were very helpful especially since my legs were already fatigued. I did glance back at one point, and Frank #2 was walking around with his hands behind his back as if he was just taking a leisurely stroll through the park.
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| The ground was littered with large shards of rocks. |
The terrain was like a moonscape with barely any plants around. The Wife and I kept ourselves preoccupied during this tedious walk by looking for nice pieces of obsidian rock. The Boy is a big Minecraft fanatic so he wanted some pieces of obsidian (he kept jabbering about building a portal to the Netherworld or something). Finally, we got to the base of the large rock at the top of the hill. We ditched the trekking poles as the climb required using our hands to pull us up. Having gloves on was very helpful as some of those rocks were pretty sharp. We eventually made it to the top which was at an altitude of 4,700 meters. I felt rejuvenated. We were only 1,100 meters below the summit of Kilimanjaro. We were already higher than the last camp we would stay at, and we were both feeling great.
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| The top of Lent Hill was very cold and windy so we snapped a few quick pictures and headed back down. |
The journey back to camp was much quicker. We arrived just as the daily afternoon rainstorm started to come down, so we sheltered in our mess tent and had lunch.
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| Lunch was comprised of leek soup, french fries, salad, fruit, and toast. We avoided the baked beans since we were already gassy enough). |
There was only one other group besides us at this campsite. Some folks with Nature Discovery (Thomson) had arrived hours after us. The wife experienced some tent envy as they had significantly larger ones than we had. Of course they also came at a much higher priced tag. Once again, we stayed holed up in our tent to avoid the afternoon-long rain. I was finally tired of the gastrointestinal issues, so turned to an old friend--Immodium (loperamide). It helped immensely. Also to our relief, Stella had provided a third roll of toilet paper in our bathroom tent. How many of these was she lugging around?!
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| Dinner was rice and cabbage and another "vegetable sauce." |
Thankfully, the porters for our group and those of Nature Discovery were all very professional. There was no noise during the night. There were several less trips to the bathroom as well. Altogether, we finally got a much better night's sleep. By the next morning, we were high-fiving each other out of excitement. We were ecstatic to see that there was still half a roll of toilet paper remaining. It's these small victories that mean so much on the mountain.
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