MORE THAN A WALK TO THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN  
Maria not only Kayaks. Read on to see what she did lately. (Training routine for the ascent designed and monitored by Jim Kennedy )

 

Kilimanjaro…where ordinary people come to do an extraordinary thing.  This statement rings true in my heart even though a description of the route doesn’t sound so out of the ordinary. That is perhaps because I am looking at it from the perspective of having done it and not having it ahead of me. The experience for the group that I traveled up with went way beyond the physical and affected us spiritually as well as emotionally and mentally. It was a  life changing event or, at the very least, life enhancing.                                                                                                         

I will never forget my first sight of the  mountain from the jeep en route to the starting point.  It looked impossibly huge and remote.  The summit seemed to sit on top of the rest of the mountain like a giant elongated Christmas pudding, complete with icing, glorying in its steepness. We had plenty of time to survey it as our jeep broke down and we had a 2 hour wait on the side of the road while some kind passing  cyclist  went in search of a large screwdriver.  The problem proved larger than that, and eventually we said goodbye to all the children and villagers who had gathered, and changed to a new vehicle for the remainder of the trip. At the park entrance we met up with our guides and porters who were organizing and dividing up all the gear, food, and camping equipment. Then without any speeches or fanfare we were off.                                                                                         

It was quite surreal after all the months of planning and walking and talking about it. Wilfred, one of our guides set a slow, slow pace(pole pole) and we fell in behind him.  As the days passed and we got quickly closer to Kibo summit in all its glory, it did not look any less impressive or steep, perhaps more so as it loomed above us, our final destination. Our route, the Rongai route, was very scenic as it wound gently up through pine forestry and then heathland. Little children trailed us for a while on ingenious homemade trolleys looking for chocolate. We spotted a few monkeys who refused to be photographed and after an hour or so it was just us and our four guides, with the porters passing us with a cheerful greeting of  jambo(hello), balancing impossible looking loads on their heads and shoulders.  We got to our first camp after four hours of walking and just before dark. We were thrilled to be on our way and in such beautiful surroundings.  The air was gorgeously clear, the stars magnificently close and our beds snug and cosy.  Jackson, our cook, impressed us from the start with the freshness and quality of his food, even though I, and others in the group, found it increasingly hard to eat, due to altitude. Some of us had altitude headaches from that first evening. This was a bit disconcerting considering what was ahead. But the guides pronounced us” normal” and by morning we were ready for more. In fact we were up and doing yoga stretches with the dawn.  That particular enthusiasm didn’t last too many days, as we got higher.  We gained a fair bit of height in the next mornings walk, had a lovely alfresco lunch and then a long afternoon of less steep walking, about ten hours in all.  Feeling quite nauseated and with another major headache, I hit a bit of a low that night. The next morning when it was still there, I started wondering if I would be able for the tests ahead. Lots of care and attention from my companions and some medication got me going again, and I was somewhat relieved I think that on the third day we veered away from Kibo and headed towards Kibos smaller sister crater ,Mawenzi.  Kilimanjaro boasts three extinct volcanic craters: Kibo, the mountaintop and most important family member for that reason, Mawenzi, the beauty in the family, and Shira, the most perfectly formed crater. Erosion has sculpted  Mawenzi into a magnificent cathedral, ice crystals sparkling in the sun, shadows and sun splashed peaks and faces giving it character and mystique and a personality to be reckoned with. We reached our campsite under the shelter of the beautiful Mawenzi and in a peaceful valley beside a greenish stagnant looking little lake that we hoped was not the only water source around. After lunch we scrambled up to the ridge and down again to help us to aclimatise, about an hour and a half’s walk. As the sun set the temperature plummeted instantly, making it quite a brave outing to the dining tent and back, and  a major psychological battle to venture outside for a nocturnal pee.  The incredible star show made it worthwhile but the logistics of boots and tent zips and trying not to wake up the camp and wreck the tent  only got harder as we got closer to those self same stars. Day four saw us heading back towards our beloved Kibo, a five hour walk across the saddle, scorched by a ferocious sun and battered by the wind, yet feeling the intense cold simultaneously. Once we were up on the saddle, we could see our destination, the Kibo hut, and hours later it did not look any closer. A trick of the eyel that I remembered from driving into Death valley a few years ago.  We were under orders to be ready on time that morning, as timeliness was probably not our strongest point, and ready we were, but we still didn’t arrive into Kibo until after two.  There was no ignoring the summit now as it towered above us, patiently awaiting us, and our megre and puny human attempts to conquer its greatness. A major factor in how long each leg took us was not just the slow pace set by our guide but had a lot to do with the fact that we were nine women in a group of eleven, and the peeing scene was out of control. In one individuals case a nappy would have been a great option and would have saved us an amount of time.

Kibo hut was like a day trip to the city after months in the country. There were a lot of people there, merging from different routes, buzzing around and getting ready for the summit. The thinness of the air was very noticeable, just walking to the toilet was an  effort. We rested for the afternoon and then gathered for supper, a summit goulash,,,,a stew with potatoes, pasta and veggies. It was better than it sounds and I managed a fair bit of it. Then we had a prebriefing about the night ahead of us, which made us all extremely nervous. Patsy and Aileen piled into the tent with us for a while and we chattered and fussed about trying to feign calm and readiness. I have to say that the couple of hours before we set off was fraught with fear for me. Helen too I’m sure judging by her frequent and panicked trips to the loo.  We fussed around getting our gear ready and trying to decide on our outfits…a very female occupation but in this case more to do with warmth and comfort than style! Style, apart from Patsy’s red lipstick, had pretty much gone out the window days before. The call came just before midnight and we lined up to begin our long trek up to the top. It was like a pilgrimage, especially when one looked up and saw the light of other group’s head torches snaking up the mountain. It was both comforting and disconcerting to ser them far above us in the darkness.

The guides had divided the walk into 4 sections and told us to focus on one stage at a time. It was good psychology and within 2 hours we were at the first stage…-Williams Point.  The second stage was fairly short, maybe an hour and a half…although we were warned not to pay any attention to the time and so didn’t. We were by now at the Hans Meyer cave and had some cups of hot water. Our water containers were frozen and useless so in fact we hardly drank any water at all on this most difficult part of the mountain…not good in terms of altitude and dehydration.  Our group was showing signs of the strain.  Denise, Helen, Aileen, and Jonathon appeared the strongest and I was struggling to keep my breath in rhythm almost from the start of the walk. I was feeling the cold hugely with frozen fingers and toes, and felt like a little child when Charlie, one of the guides, took off my gloves and blew on my fingers rubbing them back to life. Everybody was in their own little bit of hell I suppose…nobody was really talking too much such was the effort needed just to keep going.  The group split a bit after that, the stronger ones going ahead and the ones struggling more bringing up the rear.  Helen was behind me all the way up the summit and wouldn’t budge even though she could have gone on ahead. She was in minding mode and I was very grateful for her strength behind me.  Our chief guide was right in front of me and on the awful, interminable third section I gradually became aware that he was in difficulty himself. He was stumbling and stopping after a few steps and his breathing was laboured.  Eventually Charlie took over the lead and Chief stayed at the back, recovering and walking with Betsy towards the end. It was the coldest and longest part of the night, minus 16 degrees, zigzagging on loose scree, and feeling wretched. Cassiopia was ahead on my right and unbelievably close, and I found comfort in that big M in the sky. I thought about my family asleep and cozy in their beds, tucked the kids in and wiped away the little beads of sweat on their faces and then had a bit of a cry, feeling pretty sorry for myself. Charlie said, “Mama don’t cry”, and I quickly realized that crying is not on when you can’t breathe any way. I pulled myself together with a bit of long distance comfort from loved ones. The unending ended in the end and we got to the final section as the dawn broke.  I remember the outrageous beauty of dawn breaking on the African Plains below us,  the colours on Mawenzi and the rocky landscape all around us. But I also remember feeling like it was all at a great distance and it didn’t translate in my head to realizing that we must be approaching the top.  The last section was named Jamaican Rocks. I hope they (the Jamaicans) didn’t turn around there, so close and yet so far.  Maybe they just stopped to roll a big one …although I doubt that very much too! The greyhounds in our group were by now on the top and yelling down encouragement to us. Again, it didn’t register properly with me that the end was nigh, I just didn’t quite believe there was a top or an end at all. I think I was fairly out of it really.

 While scrambling up those rocks, an amazing glacier unfolded on our right.  Immediately a picture of my school friend Roisin came into mind, taken of her in front of the same glacier 20 years before. I mumbled of my need to take a picture for her, but of course the camera was frozen too and the person behind it unable to function.  Once again, Charlie came to the rescue, warmed up the camera for a while under his jacket and then took the pictures for me.  When we finally reached the top, the relief was huge. After that came an amazing feeling of achievement as we looked around at the spectacle on every side laid out below us. The clouds were way below us, thin enough that you could still see the country down below that again. The colours of sunrise were still painted on the mountains and in the sky all around us, and the sun was now warming up the day rapidly.  We waited at the top until all our group had made it and we could celebrate properly. There was no champagne, and no one would have touched it if there was, which is a statement in itself, considering the group that was there, and our fondness for champagne and such like. Nor did Gerry take a golf shot off the top, in fact we had to keep waking her up for pictures. Betsy did bring a Castlehaven flag to the top and that may well have been the first flag of its kind up there. I hope so! Gilmans Point is at 5681metres. We were too late at that point to carry on to Uhuru Peak, an extra three hours round trip. Our group as a whole would not have been able to get there, me for one, and thankfully we decided that we had done what we set out to do and were satisfied to be on the roof of Africa without having to climb on the chimney! The descent was a tough slog.  We were feeling the tiredness now and the only good thing was that it was easier to breathe and no longer freezing cold.  Running down the scree was an option we didn’t take, not wanting to end up injured at this point. In fact it took three hours to descend to Kibo where we recovered for an hour or two, and ate some lunch. My feet were ready to explode and we plastered frozen baby wipes from Helens daypack all over them…heaven. We then had to walk another four hours to Horombo camp where we spent the night. We slept for 12 hours without one single trip to the loo. The next day we had a ceremony where we gave all the porters and helpers their tips and they sang the Kilimanjaro song for us. It was quite moving and we were thrilled with them. We walked out the final 6 hours to the Park entrance on the Tourist or Marangu route, also called the Coco cola route. The last section of that route was lovely rainforest , lush and jungley. Otherwise the route we went up was far more interesting and remote. We all had a well earned and most delicious beer and basked in our own glory for a while Pretty soon we were on our way back to the hotel for our first proper wash in a week…eek!  Naturally the hot water ran out after the first bath was drawn, so it wasn’t total luxury or anything.  We had one hell of a party that night with our guides and received our certificates. We cancelled our safari for the next day once we realized we were going to have to rise very early to see any animals….and  just as well. It would have been the cruelest form of torture to bounce around all day in a jeep looking for animals that were probably tucked up in their lairs.  Instead there was an all day lounge in Aileen and Helens room and Betsy and I and a couple of others went for a walk to the village. We had a huge lunch and left for the airport where we sadly said goodbye to Aileen and Patsy and moved on to Arusha from where we flew to our next weeks adventure in Zanzibar, which is a whole other story!

Did I enjoy it?   …..It went far beyond enjoyment, and into the realm of childbirth in its hugeness and unforgettable nature.  Would I do it again?  ….Probably not, in the same way that I wouldn’t go through labour a second time for the same baby!

That does not mean I will be found on Everest instead!

But I dearly hope to return to Africa someday with Jim and the boys and go on safari in style!