Kilimanjaro - Machame route, in February 2006. The full story
Wanderings about Kilimanjaro in February 2006
Travel
Flights, transit hotel and the trip itself were all booked on the Internet. As part of costing out the trip I started looking for flight prices many months in advance and noticed the prices varied every time I looked, going up mainly, perhaps due to the level of bookings? I suspect the earlier you book the cheaper the fare
Of several flight options the best seemed to be the KLM direct flight from Amsterdam. With no connecting flights to catch, it should minimise travel weariness and stress, all good things with a mountain to climb the morning after arriving. Also, KLM had/have a reputation for losing baggage and one flight reduces the risk of this. Went from Leeds Bradford to Amsterdam the night before, as neither KLM nor Jet2 has a morning flight that connects with the Kilimanjaro flight.
There are £35 a night bed and breakfast airport hotels at Amsterdam, and free shuttle buses to them. I checked in too late to eat, and could not sleep with excitement, finally giving up about 4 am and spent the rest of the night packing and re-packing my kit. Then breakfast and the shuttle bus back to the airport
You can check in at Amsterdam airport for the Kilimanjaro flight the night before then just hand in your baggage on the day, which I did. I had a very large North Face expedition bag containing my rucksack and all my kit, plus a regulation size piece of hand baggage, (See the packing list, - sad, but much of the fun of this trip is in the planning!)
At Amsterdam I was advised to get my big bag ‘cling filmed’ because of all the straps and buckles. This cost 7€, and guess who was the only pillock at Kilimanjaro airport with a cling filmed bag, and there were many other very large North Face expedition bags on the carousel. Also, surprisingly, many rucksacks with their straps and bits, and many people had been allowed to take some quite big rucksacks on the plane as hand baggage too.
Arrived at the airport and got butterflies when I saw the name Kilimanjaro on the flight destinations screen. I flew in climbing boots, as did many others, and had my fleece and marmot with me in the cabin, partly to save checked in weight but also because if my luggage went astray I could still start the climb on time.
At take off they turn on a cute screen which in between in-flight TV programmes has a map and an aeroplane cursor that shows you flight time, time to go, local time and altitude, I relate the altitude shown to the height of Kilimanjaro. As we climb through 3000m everything below is tiny. Look down as we approach 6000m, which is the same as the top of our hill, and I start realising how very high I have to get.
It is a long flight. The backbone of Italy was snow covered. If you sit on the left you could see Mt Etna in Sicily. Then the Mediterranean, and over the Sahara, for several hours. It is a big desert.
I was reading The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. She is in Botswana, and a paragraph describes the view to the horizon in Africa, that where the sky meets the desert there is a strip of deep blue, like seeing the sea. I look out the window, and there it is!
Arrival
Landed about 9.30pm,it is night. It is the tiniest international airport I’ve ever seen. We are the only big aeroplane in. In fact, we are the only aeroplane of any size in. Outside there is a very strong wind although here at ground level it is a hot wind. Gulp, what must it be like on the top? I was glad I had got my visa by post in England, as there is a big queue at the visa window. When our party was assembled we went to the minibus. Very African, very old. Luggage chucked on the roof rack, tootled off at 20mph, flat out.
It’s a 50-minute drive to Moshi, the town where we are based, along one long straight road. It was very warm and humid; the bus had no air conditioning. When you reach the roundabout you are nearly there.
Springlands Hotel is in a walled and gated complex, and is quite old. Check-in is easy and you are portered to your room, which is a bit of a dump, but has a fan, mosquito nets and a shower. There are no cash transactions at Springlands. If you want water from the shop, or food or drink, a chit goes in your pigeonhole and you pay on departure, cash only, no cards accepted. I shower and go straight to bed.
Day one Machame Trail
I couldn’t sleep again last night, being too excited. Up at 6.am, packing and re-packing my kitbag and rucksack yet again. I have decided not to take a change of shoes on the trip to reduce the weight of my portered bag, which I calculate is at the 15kg limit. Put my ‘leave behind’ stuff in my hand luggage bag and it goes into store for the duration. As they stow my bag I look forward to recovering it. I have no idea about what is really in store for me in the days before I see that bag again, and feel genuinely aware that there is a real chance, albeit tiny, that I might not be coming back!
Breakfast is a buffet, and as a swarm of bees have taken over the juice dispenser I opt for the worst cup of coffee ever to go with my eggs, sausage and fruit, and then nip out of the complex to stand in the dusty road and look at Kilimanjaro for the first time. I had read that the summit is often cloud free for a short time in the early morning. It is today. The view is not what I expected, very dome shaped; it is not like you see in the many pictures. I realise I am looking at the biggest of the three peaks that make up Kilimanjaro, three volcanic spouts, and this one is Kibo, which is the highest. On the climb we will pass or see the other two, which are Shira and Mawenzi.
Kibo looks to be covered in snow. Oh heck! What to wear? Time to go to the pre-trip meeting in the courtyard. There is a lot of milling around with various parties setting off for trips and safaris.
My guide is Daniel Douglas. Later I ask him if he is related to the Douglas clan of Argyle. He replies by asking if they are different to him, I say yes, they have Scottish accents.
I am climbing with a German called Andreas Eberle from near the Swiss border who works for Johnson & Johnson in Germany. He is here alone planning to summit on the dawn of his 40th birthday. He foolishly thinks Germany will win the world cup.
Overall, there are 7 of us in our bus, split between three guides and teams of porters, which seems unnecessary, but I eventually figure out that it is for job creation reasons, after all, we are here to provide work for the local people.
There are two other groups; first a Swiss couple, Geraldine, and Christina who is her mum; Geraldine is ‘daktari’ (in Kiswahili). Christina is old but fit, and no, I do not use that word in the sense that I would normally use it. Also there is a threesome made up of an Irish insurance salesman and his buy-it-now Ukrainian bride, Anthony and Lina, and a Hungarian physician called Zol who now lives and works in Boston USA He is a dead ringer for Kenneth Williams, he even laughs the same on the intake of breath like a donkey, it is uncanny. Although we are separately guided and staffed, we do much of the trip together, meeting often on the trail or at camp.
The pre-trip meeting was crap. Daniel is more interested in his mates and the girls working in the hotel. There was no kit inspection. All Daniel did was to ask ‘if we had everything’. I am not impressed.
The drive to Machame gate was fine. A more modern bus, everyone excited, we stopped at a pharmacy to let someone buy the altitude sickness preventative drug Diamox, ($7) then again at a store to buy bottled water. Already I am drinking loads, three litres so far today. I wish a) that I had bought more water, and b) that I had kept another plastic bottle. More on that later.
During the drive someone points out that many of the roadside dwellings, shacks really, are made from concrete block as opposed to timber and palm branches. They explain that this is a sign of wealth. We may think the area is poor, but those that work on the mountain are relatively wealthy. Outside a lot of these homes are small tables or trays bearing perhaps a few tomatoes or a few bananas or other fruit, presumably surplus and put there in the hope of a sale.
Machame gate is impressive. The touts are out, selling walking poles, sunhats emblazoned with the mountain’s name and picture, and waterproof covers for your rucksack, the latter items sending me mixed messages. They are kept below the gate by the mountain rangers. A porter approaches asking us to change a 10€ note into dollars for him. Obviously some nit has not come prepared and has tipped him in euros. I do the exchange taking a chance to use my Swahili. I wonder if he has just finished one trip and is going straight back up? He certainly smells like that could be the case.
We all have to sign in. Registration takes a while because of the number of climbers and support teams. You register at every camp, and each time need your passport number. I ended up making one up as I couldn’t be fagged getting my passport out of my money belt every time. Others, the smart asses, had the number written on their rucksack.
I read a web log that described day one as a nice 11½ mile hike. Cobblers. This is an 11½ mile hike climbing 1090metres, although both Andreas and I made it a little bit higher with our altimeters. The track is now in excellent condition, fully metalled and edged, with provision for drainage down the sides, but there are excruciatingly steep bits, think 5 or 6 runs of Whitby Abbey steps, but with 15 – 20” high rises. We climbed as a foursome with the Swiss girls. Geraldine, the Doctor was quite concerned about the amount I was sweating (Temperature topped at 34c so I was due to sweat!) I was wearing a heart rate monitor as I often do on the moor at home, and planned not to exert myself over 140 bpm for safety reasons (Being old and fat!). Geraldine seemed to be less concerned when I showed her this.
We saw no fauna, not even a bird, and there were no ‘rainforest noises’ either, just mainly dense high forest either side with the tree canopy covering the path, so not much direct sun. For flora, I saw two types of impatiens and one, yes one Kniphophia Kilimanjaro. (A red hot poker to you, one of my favourites). Daniel’s contribution, when prompted by one of the girls, was to give us a lecture on the history, uses and superstitions surrounding the Camphor tree. I have forgotten them.
We took no breaks before lunch, which we had when we arrived at a bit of a clearing that is apparently known as a place for the lunch stop. It would have been nice to have been told about this plan. We were given a packed lunch at the hotel which was when I realised my rucksack was too small as I had no room to pack it.
Lunch was a boiled egg, juice, chicken, bread, a vegetable pasty and chocolate. The juice was the best bit. I wonder when we will see juice again? I gave my chocolate to a porter as he walked by. We ate sat on fallen tree trunks and rested only for a short while. Between lunch and arrival at the campsite the path steepens and becomes more rocky. Stops for rest and water become more frequent and they were needed by all of us. I was a bit concerned we were going too slowly or that I was holding people back, but Andreas says we set a clever pace. I have been teaching my fellow travellers Kiswahili as we walk. Daniel seems not to like this and is quite derogatory of my knowledge. Is this an authority thing? I don’t know.
You are near camp when you pass through the burnt area; there are still very evident signs of the forest fire that swept this part of the mountain in 1996. On arrival at camp my pedometer says we did 68,822 steps.
Machame camp. 2980m 9,834 feet high
We find we have a tent each. A shared tent would have been adequate for sleeping space, but a tent each is much better for packing and sorting your kit out in. The problem is that everything in the bag is secondary packed in plastic bags in case of rain. I used several sizes of Zip-lock bags because I had read they were good. Incorrect, they don’t stay zipped. I had daily underwear and thermals in separate bags, a bag for sweets & biscuits, a bag for my diary, a bag for the head torch and cassette player, (my language tape is all I brought to play on it) and a bag for hats and gloves. I even had a bag for loo rolls, and by the way, you don’t need two big loo rolls. All of this means a lot of clutter making it difficult when you want to find something. As Andreas said, the problem is having to plan for bad weather, i.e. rain, so you need double everything that you need if it was sure to be dry. It has not rained today. Daniel says it sometimes rains solid for 36 hours. Imagine walking, stopping for meals, making camp, going to the loo, in permanent heavy rain!
You go to the Warden’s hut to sign in, and give your passport number. There is a large hanging weighing scale. We are told the wardens weigh the supplies the porters have for us, the idea being they can check that they are carrying all that they bring onto the mountain back down and not leaving any rubbish behind. I reckon the scale is to figure out how much weight fat gits like me burn off each day.
By the way, I heard that it is now illegal to either pee or crap anywhere other than in a long drop toilet, although the trip will prove that this law is flouted. The eponymous toilet was originally a borehole covered with a deck in which a hole had been cut, about which a small open hut was built for privacy, and on some sites this is still the case, however higher up the climb, and on rockier ground, they are often over a disturbingly shallow pit. Most now have vent pipes from below the deck up above the hut roof. There is evidence that they are disinfected from time to time, but expect no prizes in the loo of the year show.
Another ecological improvement is the banning of the use of firewood; all cooking is on propane now. Previously the porters were stripping vast areas of woodland for fuel to supply cooking and campfires. God help the poor sod carrying the gas bottle up.
The itinerary says refreshments on arrival at camp. After one hour of no Guide Daniel, of not knowing what was happening and having not been introduced to our porters, not knowing who to ask, we are brought shallow bowls of a little warm water and tiny bars of Imperial Leather soap and we are told to wash because tea is ready, We wash and Andreas and I assemble in the tiny plastic eating tent that will double as the cook and waiter’s sleeping tent. There are biscuits; there is popcorn, and a flask of hot water, teabags, disgusting instant coffee, sugar and powdered milk. Enjoy. Bring Nescafe. Bring cuppa-soups.
After this snack, guess what, we decide to go for a walk. I have no problems with not having a change of footwear, as although every pore above the ankles sweats like a river, my feet have never been sweaty and are comfortable, with no trace of blistering. We walk round the camp and meet our Swiss friends and the party of three and share the day’s experiences. The cloud clears, and there is Kibo, in the early evening sun. It seems massive, and a very, very long way away.
We retire to our tents to await the evening meal. I write my journal notes. It gets dark. The evening meal is ready. The tent is inefficiently lit with one candle. We get our first taste of ‘white soup’ and that is followed by beef, cabbage, potatoes a ratatouille-like sauce, and a mini banana. We are to call this ratatouille like substance ‘mountain sauce’. It is to re-appear in slightly different guise again and again. We hand in our water bottles for filling including the now empty plastic 1 litre mineral water bottle we bought on the road, and both Andreas and I wish we had kept another one. Daniel joins us at the end of the meal to enquire after our well being, which finishes with a brief rundown of tomorrow’s itinerary, advice on clothing for the next day, and his hopes that we have a good night.
There is nothing to do after the meal but read before sleep and plan for tomorrow. I am concerned about a lack of shirts and trousers, Thank god it has been dry, but even so I have not brought enough kit. My treck shirt is soaked with sweat and things don’t dry on the mountain, and I need it. I sleep with it inside my sleeping bag and hope it dries. I have drunk at least six litres of liquid today. I have my pee bottle,
There was a wide range of clothes being worn today, more varied than I could imagine. Some trekkers are in shorts and T-shirts, I have even seen trainers instead of boots. Some are in full clobber, windproof jacket, waterproof trousers, and gaiters. Our seven were more or less normal, trousers and long sleeved shirt, mainly to keep the sun off, it would be terrible to suffer sunburn and make the trip harder, but the path is shady, and I feel I would have been better in lighter gear and sunscreen.
Day two Machame to Shira Camp
It is 6am. Why do I feel slightly aggrieved at being up so early on ‘holiday’? My thermo/altimeter tells me it is 9 degrees in the tent, there is frost outside and the sun is about to rise. Slept well last night, and neither too hot nor too cold in my –50 degree c rated sleeping bag. Filled the pee bottle plus had to get up once to go pee. I was looking forward to seeing the stars in a clear un-polluted night sky, but was too sleepy to really notice. Winga, our waiter, brings tea and a washbowl at 6.30.
Andreas complained about the ‘rain’ in his tent last night, which we established was condensation, I advised him to leave the tent vents open. Breakfast at 7.00, omelette, crap sausage, bread, fruit and the awful coffee. I really do mean bring Nescafe. Another tip, which I ignored, was to bring marmite, which is good for taste, but we felt bread smeared with peanut butter and honey was good for supplying energy. After breakfast we are straight off.
The day starts with a hike up a long ridge. I am wearing yesterday’s shirt, which is almost dry. It stinks. Daniel says to wear one layer today, with another in your bag, along with your waterproofs. I have my fleece tied around my waist. One quite dumpy girl passes us in shorts, tee shirt and trainers, - and at a very quick pace. (Two days later, at Barranco camp, we heard she was so ill with altitude sickness that they nearly called the helicopter).
We are faced with 6 miles and an 840m increase in elevation today. There is a sign at the camp exit saying Shira hut: 3½ hours. We shall see.
This is mountaineering, i.e. mountains are high and have steep bits, and no one cuts a nice zig-zag path to make it easy. A steep path is OK, but what really hurts is the long runs of high steps that kill your legs like running the 22nd mile of a marathon does. Our Guide says Machame is the hardest route of all of them. Why did I not find that out before now? The weather is warm and fine until you enter the mists, yes, we are in clouds, and it gets chilly. There is wildlife! We see some very large scavengers, called white necked ravens. I think they are circling vultures.
After the ridge the treck goes like this, you crest a hill, to see another hill about a zillion miles away, and despair, all along a path running towards it you can see little dots of climbers and porters, we must be going that way then.
Eventually Danny says ‘lunch is over that hill’. He omits the fact that at the end of the path is a scary and hard vertical climb to a small plateau, at about 3,200m, where our table is set out for lunch.
I don’t want the fried chicken and fried potatoes we are served. I ate the fruit and drank a bottle of fruit juice, which I was surprised and grateful to be given. My pee is dark and very little, I am dehydrated as I pant like a dog and sweat so much. I drink ½ l straight down, making 2 litres so far today.
A real mountaineer told me your body absorbs water better if there is an additive in it, like sugar. I am using iodine tablets, and iodine taste removing tablet, and my additive is orange flavoured vitamin c tablets. I get asked why I am carrying a bottle of pee. We cross two dry riverbeds, one approached by a scary cliff edge path.
Some porters going back down pass us. Apparently an American party has jacked in at Shira and had to be evacuated. Probably because they realised there were no hot showers and no satellite television.
The porters stop behind to hopefully wash the cooking pots and plates and to break camp when we set off. I say hopefully, as I’ve seen Winga rubbing stuff off our cutlery with a cloth. I optimistically imagine this is simply to make the cutlery easier to wash.
As usual our porters pass us quite quickly after leaving, and the poor lad carrying my bag, which is at the 15kg allowed limit, has a folding table and several other bags tied to it! We now recognise our own team, and have also got to know other porters. Some are happy and make a joke. A few are sullen and unfriendly. Nearly all great you with ‘Jambo’ as they pass. Many quote the mantra ‘pole pole’ while they jog past in shorts and flip-flops. I’m glad I can throw them a line of encouragement or praise rather than just say ‘hello’ back.
It surprise me the variety of what the porters carry. Does anyone really need folding toilet tents? One man passes with several trays of eggs tied together on his head. He must be with a very large party, and although the load is not heavy in weight, the responsibility for many many breakfasts is definitely with him.
As for 3½ hours from Machame camp, yes right. If you are the prodigy of Daly Thompson and Paula Radcliffe and had been brought up in Nepal then you might do it in that.
Shira camp 3840m 12,595 feet high
We took 8 hours including breaks and arrived at camp after 3pm, and after walking alone we are camped next to the Swiss girls. We are in cloud, almost like a fine drizzle, but no real rain again. The boys put my tent up wrong twice. In the end I show them how. At this camp I count 70 tents and there are three long drop toilets, which even though they are vented, stink to retching point. Hoping for seven days constipation I take an immodium.
Over tea and popcorn we study our guidebooks Andreas also has a large-scale tourist map. It is easier to visualise maps now we are here. We are to spend the next three days walking around the mountain!
It is 5pm and a bit cold. I am writing in my tent, with the flaps open to let out the farts, you fart more at altitude for some reason. That is the only adverse effect of altitude that I have so far. Andreas has a headache but the Swiss doctor says it’s due to the sun. My full round floppy sunhat is more effective than a baseball cap like Andreas was wearing.
Many people on the trail today were saying they couldn’t believe they were in Africa. I know what they mean and think it’s because we arrive at night and are on the mountain the next morning with no time to ‘settle in’. I tell one couple that we are not, and that this is actually Walt Disney Africa.
Over the evening meal we discuss porter’s tips. Andreas wants to hand them individually to the porters, I feel this may make Daniel lose face, so we decide to give him them in individual named ‘pay packets’. Andreas hadn’t realised the porters expect to be tipped at the trail end, and has not many dollars with him. Traveller’s cheques are really useful on a mountain. The twit.
The tent is on a slope. Why does that surprise me? It was on a slope last night too, but I didn’t notice. It is; doze off, slide down the slope, wake up, crawl back up, - all night long.
I try out the recommended earplugs. I have read they are needed if you want to avoid having your sleep disturbed by snoring and other noises. They are orange and spongy and shaped like beans. They don’t stay in. I give up on them.
I awoke at 2.20am for the second time and as my bottle is full this time and after the usual period of ‘camper’s denial’ I eventually admit that I must get up and go out of the tent for a pee. This is not hard, and is more than compensated for by the starry, frosty moonlit views of both Kilimanjaro, and in the distance Mt Meru, you can also see light of Moshi twinkling in the distance far below. It is frosty, but I'mnot cold, and the long drop hardly smelled at all thank god.
It is strange to see the Plough the wrong way up and pointing to a star way below our horizon here. From all around the camp there are the intermittent sounds of coughs and farts. I go back to bed.
I am awake at 6am. It will soon be dawn. My tent door faces Mt Meru rising above the cloud. I wait for more light to take a picture. It is really frosty
My 25-litre rucksack really is too small. I went for one with a zip around opening, which is not necessary. I also wanted one with mesh airflow back to keep me cool. This is not necessary either. Everything inside is packed in plastic again. I have 4l of camelback water system that takes up a lot of space, and remember, water weighs a kilo a litre! A 35 – 40 litre bag would have been better, and one with loops and belts on to tie things to would have helped.
Day three, Shira to Barranco
Breakfast as yesterday, is eggs and sausage, but this time with cucumber (??) Plus the usual foul coffee or tea. Andreas has resorted to drinking sugared water. At this altitude water boils at a lower temperature and does not get hot enough to kill all the nasties in it. Why am I iodising my drinking water and then drinking low-temperature boiled water and eating fruit and vegetables washed in untreated water?
We get something resembling toast. It has been a cold night. We discover that margarine does freeze, peanut butter only gets really stiff, but jam remains quite viscous.
We are off by 8.30, up a steep ridge. Depending on what guide you read we are crossing the heather zone, or the moorland zone, but as the ridge peters out we transfer to what is definitely a Martian landscape, remember the photos sent back from that little buggy on Mars? – Flat desert with lots of boulders, well it’s like that only tilted, not level. This is alpine desert. We climb to well over 4200m where we have lunch and descend again, the old ‘walk high sleep low’ acclimatisation trick. The descent is very severe, for those that know, it is like coming down to White Wells from Ilkley Crags. Only miles of it.
Lunch was poor, more fried food, - deep fried bread in batter, battered bananas and chicken. That’s chicken three days up a mountain. I have seen no deep freezer, I have seen no clucking birds. I don’t eat the chicken. It is cold at lunch and we don a second layer. I am now wearing a thermal top and a fleece, treck pants (without a layer below) and we have waterproofs in our bag. During the afternoon the cloud we are in seems to be trying to precipitate and we all put on our pack ponchos for about half an hour as a precaution
As we drop back down into the vegetation we come across the giant lobelias, and I mean giant. These I have seen pictures of and read about. They may be only plants to others, but to me they mean I am on Kilimanjaro. They are fantastic. I have to touch one. I get my picture taken with them. Danny says they will only grow on certain parts of the mountain, in areas protected from the wind.
At one point I look back and see a recognisable feature. Danny confirms it is the Shira needle, sometimes called the tower or the shark’s tooth. Our prat of a guide hasn’t offered us the chance to divert to it and climb it. We find out later that the Swiss girls diverted and climbed it. Danny is not a good guide for us. Often he will say ‘you go ahead’ then we won’t see him for an hour or so, - although he does catch us up.
You actually do not need a guide in terms of route finding, it is clearly obvious which way to go, not the least because of the number of other trekkers and porters around. That is not to say we are walking in convoy, it is not at all a nose-to-tail experience, the mountain is big enough and the trail is long enough to find solitude.
We meet up with Samuel, a mate of Danny’s apparently. He is a park ranger and he wants to be a mountain guide as the money is better, so he is along for the experience. Danny and he walk behind us all afternoon and all we can hear is Danny’s voice droning on in complaint about something. Samuel is very Masai warrior–ish, and has the red wrap-around shawl of the Masai, which he wears at rest stops to keep warm. He looks very African, very dignified. He and I talk in Kiswahili, it turns out he is a language teacher too.
Barranco Camp 3950m 12,959 feet high
On the last push towards camp I realise that my 7 day constipation plan was not working and that I would soon have to squat in a long drop. As we reach the camp I chuck my bag in my tent and have to go, urgently. I packed throwaway dust masks because I read that the descent from the summit can be really dusty, but now I find a better use, perfume them with whatever you have, clag one over your nose and mouth, and off you go. Thank god I hit the hole! Thank god for baby wipes.
Geraldine has been vomiting today and Andreas admits to feeling queasy. I have no ill effects apart from a shortage of breath. I had read that Ginkgo Biloba was good for altitude, (although some reports say it is not), and I had been taking it for two weeks before leaving. I am also on ½ an aspirin and Diamox, which I bought through the Internet, but I can’t tell whether I am acclimatising, or if it’s the drugs! I find out later that the Hungarian Doctor, Zol, was self injecting steroids and taking Diamox, and after the climb he told me it would have been OK to take 1500mg of Diamox a day, as that was the US army issue for combatants going in at high altitude. His attitude was that he had paid a lot of money for this experience and was prescribing himself the best chance of success.
Three days no proper wash, and no shave. Bet I look a scruffy git. My hands, and especially my fingernails are black with mountain dust, mainly from tying my boots, which are obviously covered in dust. I have a blocked nose and feel a bit of a cold coming on.
We are camped below what is obviously the Great Barranco Wall, a very intimidating cliff face. This is a very big camp as three of the routes up the mountain combine here, on the South Circuit route. Winga our waiter came by and we asked him where the route for tomorrow was. He pointed out a trail up the cliff. I wish I had packed my Spiderman suit.
Day four, Barranco to Karranga Valley
The porters are awake at 4.30am and therefore so am I. I guess it is because they don’t have –50 rated sleeping bags. Tea and washbowl at 7, breakfast at 8.
Get this; I hear a mobile phone ring! Assuming no signal, I left mine at Springlands, but apparently they work right to the top. The word is that Africa decided not to go for the landline technology at all, but has excellent mobile network coverage instead. Tonight Andreass surprises his girlfriend with a phone call.
A frosty morning, and whereas the frost vanishes very rapidly when the sun falls on it, the Barranco Wall is in the shade and will still be icy. I wear a wicking T shirt, a fleece top and my oldest throw away-able trekking trousers. Also, I have swapped from’ light hiking’ to ‘trekking’ weight socks, (but don’t notice any difference.) The trousers bit is part of my plan to lessen the load in my rucksack for the climb up the wall. I have read reports that it is virtually technical climbing in places and I want as light a sack as possible. I leave out my waterproofs, first aid kit, sweets and nibbles and 1 bottle of water. Should we get rain today I am without waterproofs but am not bothered if my old trousers get wet. Unfairly, the less I carry means the more the porters carry.
We are ready for the off about 9.00. There are people on the wall already. I can here porters chanting and singing - which I have not heard before, they must think it serious. The path to the wall crosses an area that stinks badly of human waste and proves that not everyone uses the long drops. Disgusting
Neither Andreas nor myself set our altimeters so we don’t know how high the wall was. I guess 150 – 200m tops, a long haul but made bearable by the frequent stops caused by traffic jams. The porters are amazing, swinging up one handed with big loads on their heads. Near the top we are asked to let a girl through who is not stopping at Karranga, but going straight thru to Barafu to summit tonight. We now have a feel for what an enormous task that is. The path up Barranco is not as bad as I feared, there is only one small traverse over thin air, but there were adequate and easy hand and footholds. We make it to the top.
The rest of the day’s trek, I am ashamed to say, became tedious on several counts. We treck over hill and dale, cloudy damp at low levels, moonscape at high levels, and no-one to say where you are or how far it is to go. There is little in the way of views, we have seen the terrain and the plants before, and we are tired. There is a massive 200m climb out of a Valley, steeper than a staircase, you go 1-2-3 breaths with 1-2-3 steps, the ‘Kilimanjaro shuffle’ but then we are at somewhere around 4000m high. I am learning to climb mountains. We crest this hill, and we are at camp, we have just climbed out of Karranga Valley.
Trekking Poles or not?
I never used two poles before this adventure, and for Baranco I had them in my pack and didn’t use them the rest of the day. Even after the wall the day contained several periods of rock scrambling and I liked the hand contact. Plus you notice the rocks and tree branches that form handholds and see that they are polished by the passing of innumerable climbers. I enjoyed today without poles.
Pole-Pole
Is the prescribed mountain pace, and is hailed at you by every passing porter, but how fast or slow is it? Here is an explanation: You are going pole-pole. Anyone who overtakes you is an idiot to attempt that pace and they will crash and burn before the summit. Anyone you pass however, is a slow useless wimp who should be escorted off the mountain because they are so crap. Easy really.
Karranga Camp 3963m 13,001 feet high
We arrived at camp at 1.15pm without a break for lunch after a treck of less than 4½ hours. I swore not to eat fried food again, but for lunch we are served cabbage, juliennes of tinned ham in a ratatouille like sauce (standard mountain sauce) - and chips. Oh go on then. Plus avocado for god’s sake!
The plan for after lunch is that there is no plan. I daren’t sleep for fear of not sleeping tonight. I do not want to go for a walk. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Danny the guide has disappeared again, we figure he must have gone to the pub.
There is nothing to do and it suddenly occurs to me to relax, sit back and enjoy the mountain. Look around, take it all in, fix it in my memory. I now feel safe on this mountain, it will not hurt me. I don’t quite now why I am here, but I know I wont be up here for much longer and that I must never forget this moment. The clouds clear and you can see Moshi, such a long way down below. I have nearly finished my book, and am glad I brought some crosswords cut from the papers. The porters are kicking a football about bless them.
3.53pm, at 4200m altitude now, according to our inaccurate altimeters, ‘cos we haven’t moved. Tomorrow dawns the day of summit night. My tent is on a 1 in 4 slope, my self inflating thermarest doesn’t, I have to, and when you roll off it the floor is bloody freezing even through my thick bag, so even if you have to blow it up, the thermarest is a good bit of kit
After the evening meal, including the fourth day of white soup, we look down on the plains of Africa. There is a fairly large lake in the distance. We watch the progress of a thunderstorm. From our height we can see the big thunderhead rising above the flat base of cloud that is all that those on the ground below it can see. We watch the lightening, but it is far too far away to hear the thunder.
Day five Karranga to Barafu
It is 2 degrees in the tent when I wake up. Today we are told to add a layer as it might get windy. I don’t, I am in a thermal wicking vest under a fleece top and just trekking pants. I have a zip-up fleece in my sack. There is no hoar frost this morning; the air must be dry up here. The view of Kilimanjaro from the tent is stunning, you can almost touch the top in this light. Today we will continue to walk round the mountain to our approach point.
The climb from Karranga starts off gentle and steady, and that’s my gentle and steady, so think ‘easy’. We adopt a steady rhythmic pace, I am reciting poetry and singing songs in my head, the climb becomes automatic. We pass several parties, including some French speakers, maybe a dozen or so, who make no attempt to let us through, ignorant gits, and also pass a bunch of loud Yanks who have kept the whole camp awake for several nights as they party in their large communal tent.
Today proves the point that the ridge you can see and are walking towards is never the top, except when it is. Endless plateaus to cross and ridges to go over.
On the trek from Machame gate to the camp, out of exuberance, I kicked a pebble on the path and was reprimanded by Daniel for wasting energy, which I thought was daft. Today I learn. We cross a boulder strewn plateau at 4300m following a distinct track made by earlier day’s climbers, and at one section a cricket ball sized lump of rock has found its way onto the middle of the path. A new path has been formed making a large sweeping diversion around this section; the new path is because it would be too much effort to lift your foot high enough to step over this obstacle. I think briefly about photographing this phenomenon, but haven’t the energy to stop and get out my camera.
We cross a stream, come to a ridge with a long descent in front of us, and can see on the next ridge the outline of long drop toilets, camp is in site. It is a steep climb up to camp through slate and shale fields, the seabed on the roof of Africa! We stop for a break and I look for fossils, without success sadly.
We crest the ridge and there are tents pitched. Camp, and time to rest. Except it’s not. Tents stretch for almost a kilometre. This is a steeply sloping boulder and shale field with the occasional spot to pitch a tent. One group are pitching camp between a cliff face and a large boulder that has obviously been used as a toilet. I retch with the smell as we walk past, how can they camp there?
Barafu camp 4600m 15,091 feet high
It is 12.15 pm. Danny insists we do an acclimatisation walk before lunch and sends us off with Winga towards the summit trail. This is no joke. Crossing the boulder field that is the campsite is hard and dangerous in daylight, god help us tonight. As you finish the boulder field you start to climb, put it is not a trail, it is steep scree-covered solidified smooth lava rock. We gain 200m in altitude. Nightmare. I have also developed an urgent need to make use of the toilet facilities again and am not a happy climber.
Lunch: white bloody soup, pancakes (I ask you!) and fresh pineapple - which was gorgeous. I am gasping for air and have a very blocked nose and am snuffly. Mainly dust, but I think maybe I picked up a cold bug on the flight here.
I spend the afternoon staying awake, planning my kit and clothes. Everything takes an inordinate length of time which I don’t notice at the time, but look back and realise it, and that it was because of the lack of oxygen.
This is my kit, from the bottom up: Liner socks, ‘Summit’ grade socks, boots and gaiters. High wicking long johns, thick brushed cotton jogging pants, treck pants. A Berghaus high wicking T shirt, high wicking long sleeve vest, fleecy top and the second thing I bought for this trip, my trusty Marmot wind and rainproof mountain jacket. In reserve, in my pack I have waterproof trousers and the thick zipped fleece jacket
I have a thin warm hat to wear under my headlight, a balaclava just in case, liner gloves and mits. My pockets are stuffed with sesame seed bars and oat bars, my digital camera and the battery pack to my headlamp are tucked into my trousers under several layers, I have a disposable camera in reserve, recommended in case of camera battery failure. My sack also contains sun cream, my sunhat and sunglasses and a dusk mask for the dusty descent. And my Union Jack hat for summit pictures. I plan camelbacks for water, and a bottle tied on a string inside my coat, but this is not working out.
I read somewhere that it was wise to dress to stand still at –10 degrees. I think I have.
My tent door faces Mawenzi peak. I wait for the clouds to clear to get a good picture. There are big gaps between the clouds blowing by, but as they reach the peak they seem to ‘hang on’ to the top, so the following clouds catch up, and I cannot get a clear view.
Winga calls us for dinner, it is 4pm Afterwards I fall asleep quickly, but still not able to keep the earplugs in place, I am soon woken by chattering porters outside my tent. It is 6pm, I’ve slept about an hour. From then on, no more real sleep although I might have dozed occasionally. Winga calls us for tea and biscuits at 11.30pm
Day six Barafu to Mweke (via the roof of Africa)
It is between 11.30pm and midnight, I’m not exactly sure. We are preparing to leave. I cannot get my gaiters on, even simple tasks have become difficult and I eventually give up. I leave them in the eating tent and never see them again. We are instructed to leave our kit fully packed for travelling, except for our sleeping bags which have to be rolled out ready for use in case they carry us back down and need to stuff us into them. Gulp.
(What follows is almost exactly as I wrote in my journal at 9.00am back at Barafu)
We meet Joseph for the first time. Apparently he is our assistant guide on the trip and an expert on the summit route. Hmm. The four of us, Danny, Andreass Joseph and I set off. I dislike going over ground we covered yesterday. I need to get past the boulder field and off the scree covered smooth rock to somewhere I can get a rhythm going. Compared to yesterday when I felt like a lion, today I have little to give, and am panting at every step. My progress is thus: Reach forward with the poles move one foot forward half a step, four times ‘til you come up to where the pole is, stop and gasp for air, repeat.
I wanted to summit by a full moon and expected a big orange friendly giant. Instead we have a car headlight, small, white, and so bright you cannot look at it, and it is above the summit and in our faces.
The moonlit rocks make strange shapes. At one point it looks like a stretch of plywood hoarding has been set up next to the path. Further on there is a single tent. What is it doing here? It isn’t.
I was not hallucinating, not ill, had no dizziness, and had clear speech and thought. It’s just my legs wouldn’t work. It became obvious that we were to split up, I was holding them back. Andreass and Joseph went off, I was with my mate Danny. He was not encouraging.
There is a stream of ‘victims’ as Danny calls them, coming down with their guides supporting them and carrying their rucksacks. Danny keeps pushing me for a decision as to whether to go back down or not, which is crap as I am still going forward. He is not keen on rests and drink stops, which I need. My camelback is useless because I have to breath through my mouth, gasping for air, and if I stop to suck on my drinking pipe I cannot breath.
We are now on a 1 in 1 scree slope, made 1 in 2 by switchbacks, and are just under halfway after three hours. It is endless. I am slowing down. I tell Danny I want to get to the ridge coming up, to see if there is some terrain after that on which I can establish a rhythm, I need a rhythm and I’ll be O.K. Danny says that is where the last person we passed coming down decided to turn back. Not helpful. He has given up on me, and with his experience, he may well be right.
We stop, maybe 100m from the ridge I am aiming at. I need a rest and a proper amount of water from a bottle. I need to go into my rucksack. I am hoping to recover. Danny points out that we are less than halfway, that this is the easy bit, and it has taken more than three hours. What will the rest take? Another three hours? X 2? I am afraid of getting there and having nothing left in me to get back with, and of nearly getting there and having nothing to get back with, and thirdly, of wasting any more energy when I feel this bad. I now feel nauseous, have a headache, am dizzy and when I close my eyes I have stars in front of them like you see on Startreck when they go into warp drive.
I elect to try again, determined to complete two sets of ten-step shuffles to see how I feel. It doesn’t happen, I say lets get down. Danny offers to carry my pack, I refuse, saying I am not a victim. I must walk off the mountain myself.
We ski down the scree, crossing the zigzag paths and buggering them up for the next night’s people, but this happens from the top down. It is bad for the mountain, but it is the way. Going down is as hard as going up. Danny takes a pole and we link arms and set off at a run-ski through the scree, but I am panting so much my breath comes out and condenses in a cloud in front of my eyes and I cannot see, so we have to slow down.
People pass us rushing down ‘victims’, we pass victims stopped or ill on the trail. We pass the de-winged fuselage of an aeroplane but I know it’s a rock. It is snowing, and so it should be. Each step down hurts. Danny is in front. He farts, I try and hold my breath until I clear the danger zone and this makes me retch, three times, with nothing to come up. Just then an American woman passes going down, pats my shoulder and says “ never mind dear you are quite near to camp”. We are too, and have been able to see the lights for ages. We take a very long time to locate our tents, I am now thoroughly tired and fed up. It is about 4.30am.
Winga and Emanuel have been allowed the comfort of a proper tent while we were climbing last night; they usually make do with the eating tent. On my return Danny wakes Emmanuel from my tent. He is sleeping on the floor and he does not have a sleeping bag, just some rolled up trackie bottoms for a pillow, which he leaves behind. I leave them outside my tent door, and have put my silver survival blanket in the pocket, I saw some porters carefully folding one up one morning and hope it is useful for him. As for sleeping bags, when Samuel stopped once on the trail I saw his sleeping bag. It was a toy one, it had Daffy Duck on it.
I have a continuous and annoying non-productive chesty cough. Danny comes to check on me at 4.45, and says he will wake me at six. Why? I tell him to bog off; he can wake me after Andreass has had the one-hour sleep he is allowed after his return. I wake earlier, about 9.00am; it is very hot and sunny, which is unusual at this camp. My pee bottle contains only half an inch of liquid, it is very dark coloured. That tells a story.
Andreass steams in like a robot at 9.30, happy and knackered. He has his sleep. All the tents are packed up except his. The porters shake his tent and we hear “give me a few more minutes”. The next wave of porters are pitching their tents, they even have one made up ready to drop into the space left by Andreass.
Eventually Andreass is up, and we are away, down. But terribly hard long tracks, breaking away from the South Circuit Route to head toward Mweke camp. I am in pain, my toes, my shins, my knees and my leg muscles all hurt. We go from 11.30 to 4pm with very few breaks. We arrive at a camp at about 2pm and I think thank God, but no, we walk straight in and out the other side. This is, I find out later, Millennium camp, and is only for those going up Mweke, or late arrivals from the summit who would not have time to make the next camp down. No one tells us this at the time and I am really disheartened. The path from this camp to Mweke is very rocky and steep. We pass through more burnt rainforest to get to the camp. That must have been one hell of a fire.
Mweke Camp 3100m 10,168 feet high
We make camp. The air here is rich and lovely, we can breathe normally, and then joke about that, because we are still above 3000m and on the way up we were gasping at this height.
Over tea and biscuits we sort out the porter’s tips, it is all Danny has been talking about for the last two days. I pay the bulk, Andreass owes me. We plan to tip the porters tomorrow at the end of the trail. More white soup, pasta something, and fresh watermelon for god’s sake, - some one has carried a watermelon up and over this hill!
It is my bedtime, the last night on the mountain. We are back in the rain forest. It is spookily quiet. I check my tent, kitbag and sleeping bag for snakes and sleep with the doors zipped. We are camped on a slope as usual; it is wake up, climb back up the mat, sleep, slide down, wake up, slide down.....
Day seven Mweke camp to Mweke gate
Danny has decided that we will be walking by 7.00am today, obviously his work is done and he wants to get home. Not anticipating this I have booked a dayroom for tomorrow at Springlands and am on tomorrow night’s flight home. I could not imagine getting off the mountain and packing and travelling in time to make tonight’s flight, though it is obvious now I could have done so with ease.
Breakfast early, and I don’t want to see another crap sausage or omelette. The camp is full of the sound of Africans singing, and the sight of vaguely embarrassed climbers watching their porters perform pseudo-native song and dance routines designed to remind you they want tipping. Our miserable lot spare us this.
By just after seven we are off, through a beautiful forest. The path is mainly earth with only a few rocky bits. My knees are buggered and it is obvious to everyone on the trail. The steep bits hurt. We make good time, have no stops and take no drinks, and drop nearly 1300m over 11km, arriving at the gate by 10.30. We sign out, Andreass gets his certificate and we walk down to what I presume was Mweke village where you get the buses, it takes about 20mins.
The porters have gone. Danny says that they got a lift and have gone home to see their women because it is St Violating day (sic), - it is the14th February. They did not even wait for their tips, which we hand to Danny to distribute when he sees them. He explains that they have to go to the Springlands office in town to get their pay and to have their stuff checked. Apparently, if they break a cup or loses a piece of cutlery the cost is deducted from their wages.
There is a tropical downpour. Everyone reaches for their ponchos except me. This is heaven, I am hot and sweaty, and stand their soaking up the rain. At the village we are inundated with touts trying to sell us souvenirs. I deal for a lion and a giraffe, which sadly encourages them all to pick on me. We board the bus. Andreass sends for two Kili beers that taste amazing. We can call it Kili now we have climbed it. Well, almost climbed it.
We arrive back at Springlands. I recover my ‘leave behind’ bag (Phew). I phone Mary to say I am down. I cry. The hotel room that was a dump the day I arrived is now a palace. I look in a mirror for the first time since leaving. I have a completely white beard and look a wreck. I develop a plan. It is to shower, shave and get beer. It is a good plan.
Afterthoughts
I am not as disappointed as I perhaps should expect to be about not summiting, I am most happy to have done the whole thing and got back alive. No kidding. In hindsight I put my failure down to several factors, the most important one being that in the 10 months before this trip I planned to loose three stone in weight that I am carrying extra since I stopped smoking, and I lost only one. Effectively, I was climbing with about the same load as a porter carries.
Further, I was over dressed. I had too many layers and was constricted and too warm which made me tired and uncomfortable I had got myself out on our moor at minus 4 at night in England with just normal trousers and a shirt, fleece and windproof jacket and been warm enough but was scared of the conditions I had read about and went for overkill in the layers department the result being it was very hard to move.
Finally I think my failure on summit morning was part due to dehydration, which started the day before, and I didn’t notice it, because I was probably suffering from altitude sickness already. I do know that I didn’t want food after arriving at Barafu, and that strangely, I forgot to drink. In talking to other climbers I find their guides played a much more active role than Danny did in this area. I have heard of guides measuring and checking liquid and food intake in the days before the summit attempt, and threatening not to take people who have not eaten or drunk properly. We had no such help.
Notes
White soup:
This may or may not be unique to Springlands and the Zara group, but exists on routes other than Machame as witnessed by a bloke called Travis who went up Umbwe and who we met on the mutual descent trail. (All routes except Marangu come down Mweke way). On day one you get a white broth with some shavings of carrot on top. Carrot soup. On day two you get the same with some potatoes in. Potato soup. On day three the stuff is leek soup by the addition of shaved leeks. From then on they run out of ideas and it is just white soup, and almost impossible to describe the taste, but I’ll never forget it!
Kit:
A problem with travelling alone is that you cannot share kit like first aid stuff, spare batteries, sun cream, etc; you have to carry the lot yourself. A mountain essential, so I have read, is duct tape, often called gaffa tape, though what possible use it could have been eludes me.
We were lucky with no rain. Even so, I did not have enough shirts or trousers. I did have too much expensive thermal high wicking technical underwear though. I was conscious of my higher than normal rate of perspiration and thought I would need it, but didn’t. Apart from day one and the last day heat is not an issue, and the mountain was nowhere near as cold as I expected it to be either.
Eye protection:
I bought some of the new fashionable safety glasses from a builder’s merchants. Full wrap around protection, £8.00, but then, the sun was seldom a problem as we were in cloud a lot of the time except for the morning of day two.
First Aid:
I had two levels, a plastic box with immodium, Diaralyte, Aspirin, Lemsips and plasters, plus a sterile needle kit complete with cannula for blood transfusions. I didn’t need either, and struggle to see where on the mountain one could become injured enough to need a blood transfusion.
Insect repellent, and a travelling mosi net, were a waste of time. It may have been the time of year, but there were no insects – or spiders or bugs. Of any size or type. Anywhere. Amazing.
Best bit of gear: Baby wipes, and a sealed bag to put the used ones in.
Afterwards
I spent the last day with the friends I’d made on the mountain, mainly lounging about at Springlands. Someone mentions they have sent their other half flowers for Valentine’s Day, and paid by credit card. I say that I ordered Mary’s flowers on our account, which raised a few impressed eyebrows.
Late morning I chose to go into Moshi by myself for a look around for an hour. It was quite liberating not to have a guide telling you what to do. I met, by chance, Geraldine and Christina’s guide, a man called Reginald. It was good to see him; it was like meeting an old friend.
After a snack lunch at the hotel several of us went up the road to some souvenir shops to haggle. Then pack, check out, and wait for the bus to the airport. As the bus pulls out of Springlands, on cue, the cloud clears from the top of Kibo. Almost poetic. One last photo then.
We are the only flight going out. I didn’t realise that we were going via Dar es Salam, which is more than an hour’s flying time further south. It doesn’t matter. I am going home.
Would I go again? No need. Would I climb another mountain? Definitely.
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