Tanzania - Part 1 - The Climb

In light of last year’s media frenzy Miley Cyrus caused, I am listening to “The Climb” on repeat while I write this. I feel it is fitting.

 

Last September, I took a trip to Tanzania, Africa with Patrick and our good friend from college, David. We were headed to climb the 19,341ft Mt. Kilimanjaro. When planning this adventure, I demanded there be some amount of real vacation, so we followed the climb up with a Safari – which you can read about in Tanzania – Part 2 – The Safari.

Our fearless team.

This journey really started about 3 years ago when I agreed to climb Mt. Rainier with my brother. You can check out the blogs for that experience here and here. Or for the short version, check out the video here.  Little did I know back then that I wasn’t just agreeing to climb one mountain, but rather setting myself up for a lifetime of “vacations” that revolved around doing something crazy. I don’t know what you think of when you think of a vacation, but I bet it’s not camping for 7 days, port-o-potties, malaria pills, and puking at 1 o’clock in the morning because of altitude – not alcohol. Alas, there is much to the story before we get to the puke fun.

We played a lot of cards on this trip.

Patrick, David, and I set out on a Wednesday afternoon and in just 18 short hours we landed at the Kilimanjaro Airport. We met up with our Kili guide, Fraterin; an incredibly talkative man who was very surprised at how prepared we were for our climb. I’m not sure why he is shocked that most people show up without the proper gear. When I asked for a packing list a month before the trip, I received an email listing 4 non-descript items…I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I asked them what temperature my sleeping bag needed to be and they responded with “warm”.

Feeling pretty confident about everything, we spent the rest of the day relaxing in blissful unawareness of what the future held.

Day 1 – Machame Gate to Machame Camp



The start of the climb!

Fraterin and the rest of the guides picked us up from our hotel and we promptly piled into a land cruiser for the hour drive to the Machame gate. There are 5 routes up Kilimanjaro, each offering their own unique difficulties. Ironically, our route was called the “whiskey route”; there is also one called the “coca-cola route”. When I asked what the significance of the names was, I only got chuckles.

Here's a map of our route. We hiked in from the Machame gate
and ultimately hiked to the Uhuru Peak. We descended using the
Mweka Route.

At the gate, we met the rest of the team that would be going up with us. I couldn’t understand why there were so many people – for our 3 person group, we had 2 guides, 1 cook, and 10 porters. This was quickly answered when I saw the massive pile of things that would be going up the mountain with us: tents, chairs (yes - chairs), a fold up table, a portable toilet, food, water, camp stove, piles of other gear, and then finally our own packs. Climbers typically carry just a day-pack with them while the porters carry the remaining bulk of the items.

A picture of our entire team.

The first day was entirely through dense rain forest – the surroundings were breathtaking and I truly enjoyed myself as we hiked the 5 hours to the Machame Camp. Throughout the climb, the much faster porters passed us and by the time we got to camp, our tents had been set up and dinner was being cooked.

The beautiful rainforest

All in all, the first day was pretty easy and enjoyable – I fell into a well-deserved sleep with no worries.
 

Day 2 – Machame Camp to Shira Camp


The viewpoint looking towards Kili.

After breakfast we packed up and headed out. We started to hear “pole pole” or “slowly slowly” frequently from our guides. They want you to ascend slowly so that your body has time to acclimate to the altitude. Going slow was fine by me so I took the advice very seriously.




The view looking away from Kili

We hiked out of the rain forest pretty early on and were hiking up and over rocks for the remainder of the day. We arrived at Shira camp in the early afternoon and took a short hike up to a view-point to get some pictures. The sunset that night was breathtaking. 

Sunset from Shira camp

Day 3 – Shira Camp to Lava Tower to Barranco Camp

I started to suspect something fishy was going on throughout this day. We hiked from Shira Camp to Lava Tower and then hiked DOWN to Barranco Camp. When I hike, I hate when there is any sort of downhill section. It is like doing work for nothing. If we’re going up, I only want to go up.

Barranco Camp welcome sign

On this day, the goal was to help acclimate our bodies so we hiked up to Lava Tower for lunch, and then went down (note: DOWN) to Barranco Camp which is only about 100 meters above Shira. I felt cheated. I also started to realize that we were traveling around the base of the mountain, but not making too much progress actually going up it. 

Day 4 – Barranco Camp to Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp

Breakfast before starting another day.

The morning of day 4, Fraterin came into our tent while we were having breakfast to go over our game plan for the day. Our original itinerary had us hiking only to Karanga camp to spend the night, then moving to Barafu Camp the next day. Barafu is the camp you stay at right before summiting. Fraterin started an intense sales pitch to have us only stop at Karanga for lunch and move straight to Barafu so we could summit a day early.

He was hoping to avoid sleeping at Karanga because it is a notoriously loud and windy camp. It’s also on a slope so sleeping is never very enjoyable. The other issue is that once you get to Karanga, the elevation is high enough to start causing altitude sickness. It’s never a good idea to stay at those elevations for very long so by summiting a day early, we could hopefully avoid some of the altitude sickness. Sounded good to me!


We had to sign in at every camp.

I call this day, the “Day of Lies”.

In his sales pitch, Fraterin told us we would reach Karanga in 2.5 hours. 4 hours of vertical rock climbing later, we rolled in.

A group of porters making their way to the top of the vertical
rock wall.

The one truth that was told that day was about the conditions at Karanga. When we arrived, it was already windy and my soup bowl could only be ¼ full at any one time because the slanted hill made our table at a perfect 45 degree angle.

After lunch, we started the “easy” trek to Barafu. The often frustrating part about climbing Kili is that you can see only so far ahead of you. You see the top of the hill you are climbing only to discover after you’ve reached the top that it was really just a small slope compared to the vertical climb you have in front of you. We trekked on, finally reaching our Barafu camp site.



Those rocks in the foreground had been hiding the long
journey still in front of us that you can see in the
background of this photo...joy.

At this point, I knew altitude sickness was starting to set in. I had felt this feeling a little while climbing Rainier, but it was only for the last few hours or so of the summit. Now, we hadn’t even started our summit and I already felt nauseous.

One of the lookouts on the way to Barafu

For dinner we had spaghetti, my favorite food. As I stared at my plate, I knew there was no way I could put any of it into my mouth. On our very first day, Fraterin had described what this dinner would be like. He said, “You won’t want to eat anything, but you have to PUSH. Push like a baby so that when (not if) you throw up, hopefully you still have some food that stays in your tummy.” With this in mind, I opted to stick with just plain noodles and managed a phenomenal 4 bites. Patrick, on the other hand struggled through a full plate. As I watched him eat, I knew he’d be puking in a matter of minutes. It should be noted that David had seconds and managed to make it through the entire trip without vomiting once. No, I am not upset about this…

After dinner, we headed to our tents to try and sleep. I think I was in my tent for about 10 minutes before I heard someone violently up-chucking a few feet from me. Throwing on my shoes in a panic, I emerged to find Patrick on all fours looking miserable. This would be the scene for the rest of the night.

Patrick, Pascal, Fraterin, and David in front of the ol' girl.

There is very little water available at the Barafu Camp. The last water source is at the previous camp so only enough water for drinking while summiting is brought to this camp. After a full night of puking with no water or towels to clean up with, Patrick and David’s tent was looking a little worse for wear at 11:45pm when we were woken up for summit morning.  

As I lay in my tent mentally preparing, I heard Beyonce’s “I am a survivor” playing. No, I was not hallucinating – it really was playing blasting. A large group of girls on some sort of organized school trip had been climbing behind us for the majority of the trip and they had apparently decided this was an appropriate time for Beyonce (really though, when is Beyonce not appropriate). The fact that they had chosen that song in particular was incredibly ironic. The song is what I used to play when I hit a wall during marathon training. To say I know it well is an understatement.

I took it as a sign – it was time to dominate this mountainous b**** called Kilimanjaro.

Another sunset from camp

We were all supposed to meet in one of the larger tents to get our water before heading out. David and I had a few minutes before Patrick arrived and I quickly tried to gauge from him where Patrick was at mentally. After throwing up all night, I was terrified that Patrick would be too tired and weak to make the trek. As could be expected though, Patrick had no plans to not attempt the climb.

As we got our water and made our way out of the tent, he doubled over again to puke whatever could possibly be left in his system. I went into panic mode. Fraterin and our other guide, Pascal, kept reassuring us that this was “normal.” I pulled Pascal aside and told him, not calmly, that Patrick had been throwing up ALL NIGHT – was THAT normal?? Finally, Pascal admitted it was not normal…and then he threw on his pack and said “let’s go!”

Excited to be at one of the checkpoints (note this is not
summit day...obviously)

We made it about 15 steps out of camp before I politely tapped Fraterin on the shoulder and said “excuse me, but I think I’m going to throw up now,” turned to the side and let old Mt. Kilimanjaro have it. I claim this was a sympathy puke, done to show Patrick that we were a team, puke and all. I took a sip of water and we trekked on.

This being my 2^nd summit, I knew what to expect from the next 6 hours. It would be awful, cold, and dark. I would only be able to see the back of the person’s heels in front of me and at several points, I would want to die or at the very least, turn around.

Nothing better than Kilimanjaro Tea when climbing Kili.

 

We were 2 hours in when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Patrick. He whispered, “Do you want to turn around?” Panic once again shot through my body, as it was usually me begging to turn around, never Patrick. Without even thinking, my mouth said “no.” I called for everyone to stop and get some water so I could talk this out with him. I remember I told him that it would be ok if he went down – that everyone would understand because he had gotten no sleep and had literally no fuel in his system. I also told him that if he could just shut off his brain for the next 4 hours, we’d be there. And then I remember him making that choice – to not listen to his body and not listen to the voices in his head that told him he couldn’t do this. We turned and started the climb again.

A little while later, he patted me on the shoulder and this time he said “good job.” I don’t know if he meant I was kicking ass up this mountain, or if he meant I had somehow helped him get over that hump of defeat. Either way, it was a push I needed. 

Sunrise - finally!

When summiting, once you start seeing the sunrise, you should be close to the top. At one point David yelled out, “IS THAT THE SUN?” and we all turned to take in the glory that meant we were close. In fact, it was a very bright, full moon, laughing at us. This must have been at about the 4 hour mark.

For the last 2 hours or so, Fraterin would take 10 steps and then he would stop and rest for 15-20 seconds so we could catch our breath. It becomes increasingly harder to breathe the higher you go so even just 10 steps leaves you breathless. The top part of the mountain was also mainly loose sand so it got a bit tricky to make sure we didn’t slide down while ascending. Finally, we saw the sun and were actually able to see our destination point.

Resting at the top and getting ready to hike to the
"true summit"

We made it to the “top” and promptly sat down to rest for a few minutes. We all knew we still had a little ways to go to get to the true summit. It was a 45 minute walk – with only a few rolling hills to get through. Something I can’t explain happened to me at this point. I don’t know if it was the altitude or just mental exhaustion, but I felt like I was climbing Everest. I’m not going to lie, I had felt pretty fantastic (considering) the whole way up. I was far more prepared for this climb than I was for Rainier and mentally I just could not be stopped; but that last 45 minutes. WHOO it gave me a run for my money. 

Ecstatic to be at the top.

About half way to the true summit, I looked up and yelled “where is the FUCKING sign.” Fraterin and Pascal turned to look at me and I will admit, I felt ashamed at my outburst. But seriously – WHERE WAS IT. Fraterin came to my side and he said, “I know you’re tired. I know you’re done. But it’s so close and you’re going to make it. Just a little bit more.”


Patrick, David and I

Fine. I pushed on and finally saw that giant, beautiful, green sign that marked the true summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The waterworks began and I pushed my way through the small crowd to get my picture with that damn thing. It was a proud and exuberant moment for me.

The Descent

Headed down.

The first part of the descent is back through loose sand, so it’s very similar to skiing, you’re just sliding down the mountain. Once we made it back to camp, we tried to eat something and headed straight to bed. We slept from 2-6pm, got up again for a quick bite to eat, and then went back to sleep from 7pm – 8AM. Needless to say, we were a tired bunch. We took 2 more days to descend and finally made it back to that beautiful rainforest early on the 7th day. As we hiked down, we were able to see several tree monkeys, and amazing scenery, but the best site of all was the parking lot. We had made it.  

Parking lot is in sight - so pumped!

About 10 minutes into the car ride out of the park, I asked again what the significance of the whisky and coca-cola route nicknames were. This time, I got my answer – it’s because the route we took is like taking a shot of whiskey, tough to swallow and burns the whole way down. The other route is like taking a shot of coca-cola, a little bubbly and pretty enjoyable. So, yeah, we took the hard route.