Mt. Kilimanjaro - to the summit!

(This is the second post on Kili, and pictures will come in a later post!)

Day 4 was the toughest day yet. We hiked the morning with Shaun and Lea, pretty much rock climbing and scaling the side of the Barranco Wall, a pretty impressive rock face. It was great fun, but definitely not something we'd be able to do without helmets and ropes in the States I think. Yet another theme: here in Africa, they'll pretty much let you do anything you want to, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's safe. Climbing the Barranco wall was safe I think, but probably not the way we were doing it. Nagabona is a bit of an alpha male I think, so he would lead us ahead of other hikers, passing them, but there isn't room really to do this because the path is so narrow and so steep. So we're sort of rock climbing around other hikers in not a very safe way ... we survived though! The view from the Barranco Wall was gorgeous - just a floor clouds everywhere! And an amazing view of Kili's peak, which I continued to insist that we could not possibly get to the top in only another day. It just looked impossible. So we had lunch and set off again for our afternoon hike up to the Barafu Camp at 4600m elevation. Shaun & Lea's lunch took longer, so Ryan and I set off on our own with Nagabona for the hike. I think we hiked it too fast - we made it in less than 2 hours and we should have stopped for more water breaks and rest because at the higher altitude we started to feel the effects. By the time we got to the camp, Ryan and I both felt terrible - worst headache of my life for sure. Our tents weren't set up yet when we got there, so we just hung around until they were set up. The campsite here was very cold and windy, and super rocky - I couldn't believe that tents could be set up here. It didn't look like there was anywhere to put them really. But the rocks were dotted with tents and somehow everyone managed to find a spot.

We finally got into our tent and tried to go to sleep to hopefully get rid of the headaches. Naga and Emanuel woke us up around 5 for dinner and we still felt awful, so Naga gave us some Diamox - altitude sickness medicine - and it helped a little bit. But at this point we had absolutely no appetite, especially because we were so sick of the same food that no longer tasted good at all, so we ate hardly anything. Not a good thing, since we needed energy for the summit hike, but what can you do? We tried to eat a snickers, at least that would be something. It was strange that we both felt the altitude sickness at the same time, but again I think maybe we hiked up the last bit too fast. So we laid back down again to try to get a few more hours of sleep and sleep off those headaches, but we didn't get much sleep.

Up again at midnight for our summit hike!! We had some tea and biscuits (cookies) and then set off probably around 12:45am for the summit. We were the last people to leave the camp for the summit hike. It was pitch black and all that we could see were the little flashes from the head lamps that everyone uses to hike up this last day. We could just see dots of light far above us, where people had set out earlier to start the hike. So we followed Nagabona, and also had Eric, one of the porters, with us - in case one of us couldn't make it, there was an extra person to return to base camp with whoever couldn't make it. Thankfully, we both made it to the summit! The summit hike was very steep, and what I didn't know when we were hiking it is that we were hiking on scree - which is just loose rock debris, tiny little rocks and almost sand - so it is such slow hiking and quite difficult. We'd just put one foot in front of the other so slowly that it was almost painfully slow, but you can't really go faster - we were so tired, and it was quite hard to breathe at that altitude. Also it was SOOO cold - far below freezing and close to 0 degrees fahrenheit right before sunrise. We couldn't stop for more than a couple minutes for a rest because it was too cold to stop. So we trudged on slowly but surely up the trail towards the summit.

We passed quite a few people being led down the trail from altitude sickness or just exhaustion. At least 6 or 7 people passed us, going down towards the camp, and we passed a lot of people along the trail that were stopped and I think eventually couldn't make it to the top. Our SA friends, Shaun and Lea, said that they passed by several people throwing up and looking just miserable, but I didn't see that. I probably just didn't notice because I was in my own world trying to make it up to the top. The sun rose when we were about 30 minutes below Stellar Point, the edge of the crater of Kilimanjaro. So we stopped to take a picture and watch the beautiful sun rise over another mountain that sits next to Kilimanjaro. And then we continued up to Stellar Point, and stopped for a short break. At this point, my toes were so cold and freezing that they'd started to burn terribly, and I almost couldn't stand it. Despite 2 pairs of wool socks and thick boots, my toes were not happy. The water in our nalgenes had frozen, that's how cold it was! So we didn't stop for too long, but kept walking to get my toes warmer - and it took about 45 minutes to climb another 200m or so to the summit - Uhuru Peak. It's a bit cruel because all of the guides tell you that once you get to Stellar Point, it's an easy walk to the summit. Wrong - it is quite a struggle to get to the summit, but we had to make it to the top. If they didn't tell people it was easy, too many people would just stop at the crater and not at the very top I think. So we slowly trudged up to Uhuru Peak, passing some pretty miserable-looking people along the way. At least the sun was up, and it was such a beautiful, blue-skied, sunny day, so it's hard not to be happy even on such a hard hike. We hiked by the huge glaciers - the snows of Kilimanjaro - and took some pictures. They were so pretty, huge walls of snow and ice, and it's hard to believe that they are melting and probably won't be there in 15 years! While climbing to Uhuru Peak, we passed Shaun and Lea, who made it a few minutes before us, and who also had a difficult time with the hike. It is a much harder hike than anyone leads you to believe.

Finally - we made it to the summit - Uhuru Peak!! The elevation is 5,895 meters, or 19,340 feet! It's higher than the Mt. Everest base camp. We rested for a bit and waited our turn to take pictures with the sign at the summit. We also took some pictures of the glaciers, had some water and biscuits, and prepared ourselves for the hike down. It's quite a relief to make it to the top, but kind of sad that you work so hard to get to the top, and then you only stay for 15 minutes or so! But the guides want to get the hikers back down fairly quickly to get out of the high altitudes and the problems it can cause. By this time, our headaches were not as bad, but we were just so exhausted and pretty ready to get off that mountain. Also my toes were my main concern, haha. I would be very sad if they fell off from frostbite. So we started back down towards Stella Point and then back down the mountain to the Barafu Camp where we spent the night just 8 hours before.

It's a misnomer to say that we climbed or hiked down the mountain. It is more like sliding down the mountain - with all of the scree, and how steep it is, you have to take huge footsteps and your feet sort of slide on the sand and rocks, and it's a very quick way to get down. Where it took us 7-8 hours to get to the top, it only took us 3 hours to get back down to the basecamp. I kept wishing I had a sled, it would have been so fun and far less difficult on the knees to get down from the peak ... minus the huge boulders everywhere, so it probably wouldn't have been a good way to get down, actually. The sun had come out in full force, also, so it was quite warm and sunny, and a much happier experience getting down than climbing up. Poor Ryan must have been dying - his knee that he had surgery on must have been killing him - but he is a trooper :) We both unfortunately got crazy wind burn and sunburn on our noses - and still, almost 3 weeks later, my nose was very pink and not happy. Finally we made it back to the base camp and immediately fell asleep, still feeling a bit nauseous and bad in general. We slept for a couple hours and then were woken up again to continue to the camp where we would sleep that night. Always on the move!! The last thing I wanted to do after the crazy summit hike up and then the hike back to the base camp was to climb down another couple hours, but we had to do it. It also meant one step closer to the bottom of the mountain, so that was a plus. We climbed down to about 3100 meters for the Mweka campsite where we slept very hard, though not very well, that night. Our headaches from the altitude were gone thankfully, but I really just wanted to get down from the mountain for a hot shower at this point! So in just one day, we hiked from 4600meters up to 5895meters, back down to 3100meters - so we were exhausted.

The next (and last) day we woke up to a wet, rainforest morning and hiked the rest of the way down to the Mweka gate with our friends Shaun and Lea. It was an easier hike because we were in vegetation and a lower altitude again, but it was very muddy from the rain. Kilimanjaro wouldn't give up that easily and so we had one final difficult hike down in the mud, but that was a bit fun, so long as nobody fell in the mud. We made it after a few hours to the gate and triumphantly signed the guestbook saying that we had hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro and made it all the way to the summit. We were awarded a certificate of course - they love their certificates in East Africa - and happily hopped back in the minibus to head back to Arusha for a hot shower ...

But then there was no electricity at our hotel in Arusha and so the hot shower had to wait several hours until the electricity came back on in the evening. I was a bit frustrated to put it mildly, haha. We survived though, and we met up with Aryan and Lauren, who were there to join us for our safari the next day! Ryan and I were both happy to see friendly and new faces and to have some new people to chat with and to bring some news from home. Unfortunately for Aryan and Lauren, they had to endure our gripes about the ride back from Kilimanjaro to Arusha. We had tipped our porters, cook,and guide at the last campsite on the morning of the last day of hiking. Tipping is always a tough call when traveling because it's hard to know how much to tip and there are always conflicting opinions on it. Generally, I will rely on a guide book and also ask around. So the Lonely Planet suggested tipping 10% of the total price that we paid for the hiking, and splitting that between the guides and porters. We also confirmed this with several other people who were having the same conundrum about what to tip. So we got out our money and split it up between all of the people who helped us along the hike. However, at the last minute, our guide brought in two extra people that we'd never seen before and claimed that they were our porters also, which is a bit ridiculous because A) we'd never seen them before and B) there were only two of us, so that many porters were totally unnecessary - we didn't even have a mess tent. But there isn't much you can do and we didn't want to argue, so we split up the tip amongst all of them. It is unfortunate because by doing this, the guide hurt himself and our real porters because we were going to tip the same amount regardless, they now just had to split it with two extra people.

So the car ride from Kilimanjaro to Arusha was where our guide decided to hassle Ryan about how much we tipped them. He asked what they did wrong, why we tipped so little, and suggested that we give them much more than what we gave. Ryan is such a good sport and a people-pleaser so he actually sat through this discussion with our guide about tipping and he tried to explain why we'd given as much as we did, and even suggested that he'd be happy to talk to Nelson, the owner of the tour company. I, on the other hand, was so not happy listening to him try to get more money out of us and it's a good thing he wasn't trying to talk to me. I am a much less patient person than Ryan. In the end, he wasn't going to get anything else out of us and now we sent an email to the tour company telling them what a terrible ending that made for the whole hike. I just couldn't believe that he had the nerve to ask for more money when we had been quite generous in the first place. I think that because the other people in our group had missed their flights and canceled, that he received a smaller tip than he otherwise would have, but that had nothing to do with Ryan and me.

So, when we met Lauren & Aryan a few hours later, this is what we dwelled on ... until we said forget it - we're going on safari tomorrow!! Overall, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was an amazing experience. It was much more difficult than I anticipated, and more difficult than anyone leads you to believe. But it was definitely doable and I'm so happy to be able to cross that off of my bucket list. It was unfortunate that our guide hassled us on the last day and tainted the experience a bit, but in the end it was a memorable and enjoyable experience and we made some good new friends along the way. I have a new-found respect for mountain climbers and I can't wait to tackle my next mountain!