Ella’s Kilimanjaro Climb

Hello! My family and I have just gotten back to Cape Town from Moshi, Tanzania where we went to climb the highest mountain in Africa and the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, Mount Kilimanjaro. We first flew for two hours and landed in Johannesburg, South Africa for a two hour layover, went to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for another two hour layover, and finally flew for one hour on a propeller plane to Kilimanjaro International Airport where an amazing trekking company called the Kilimanjaro Brothers drove us to our hotel. After getting a good night’s sleep, in the morning we woke up, got dressed, and, when our guide came to make sure we had all the right equipment, discovered that we were very unprepared. We were lacking ski pants, raincoats, wind jackets, glove liners, flashlights, water bottles, camelbaks, backpacks, and sleeping bags in addition to the thermal shirts and pants, thermal socks, heavy gloves, hiking shoes, winter jackets, normal clothes, and hats that we had brought from Cape Town. In addition, we were all missing durable walking pants except for Troy. Ofer and Asher easily found pants their own size, but me?, nope! I had to try on FIVE pairs of pants before I found the closest one to my size. It was still too large! SERIOUSLY?!!! There is no way I can be the smallest person to climb with the Kilimanjaro Brothers! Our guides said that I was “mosquito-sized”. It was really funny. Anyway, after we got our equipment we drove to the entrance to Kilimanjaro National Park. On the way there, Asher fell asleep but I looked out the window and saw many interesting things. I saw people washing and scrubbing their laundry, a group of little boys toasting to something with bottled water, small children gathering bundles of sticks, parents dusting their stoops, and people talking, walking, and working. It took three hours for us to eat a small lunch and buy entrance permits for the park, so we were some of the last people going into the forest. The rainforest. Yup. Kilimanjaro houses almost every kind of ecological system, including cultivated land, rainforest, heath, moorland, alpine desert and an arctic summit. I know that this sounds really lame, but the first day was one of my hardest climbing days even though it shouldn’t have been that difficult. As we trekked we saw many animals, including blue monkeys, colobus monkeys and rock hyraxes (Marvins!). By the time we reached the Mandara Huts on the Marangu Route (the first camp on our journey), we were exhausted. We soon had tea, ate dinner, and went to sleep. The next day, we crossed over from the rainforest to heather and moorland, though nothing eventful really happened, and repeated our evening ritual (tea/dinner/sleep) at our hut in a camp called Horombo. The following morning, we commenced on a short hike to a place 45 minutes away called Zebra Rock, called so because of its striped exterior. The lines, according to AfricanMecca Safaris, were inflicted by “ice too hard to be melted by the sun that thawed against the sun-warmed and thermally heated rock, ran down black basaltic lava rocks in white zebra stripes of ash-derived salts”. Anyway, let’s just say it looked pretty cool. At Zebra Rock we built mounds of rock towers for good luck and watched the fog cover the mountain. Then, we returned to the camp to play Uno all day in order to get used to the altitude (the Uno didn’t help with the altitude, by the way :-)). Once we had woken up and eaten breakfast, my family and I proceeded to climb up to a Kilimanjaro base camp called Kibo. Once again the hike was uneventful, but Asher and I talked about random things the whole way (Disneyland Character Costumes, Conspiracy Theories, etc…) so the trek was pretty easy, albeit crossing over to alpine desert. We also learned a traditional Kilimanjaro trekking song,

Jambo, Jambo Bwana (Hello, Hello Sir)

Habari gani (How are you?)

Mzuri sana (Very fine)

Wageni, mwakaribishwa (Foreigners, you’re welcome)

Kilimanjaro yetu (to Kilimanjaro)

Hakuna Matata (There is no problem)

Kibo was different than all of the other camps because unlike the rest of them we only stay there a few hours before summiting. Therefore, there are six bunk beds per room, meaning that my family and I had to share with eight other people. Luckily, we snagged the beds closest to the door. Our neighbors we so loud that I didn’t sleep at all. We woke up at 10 pm, got ready and began our climb to the summit. Though everyone was tired and we were cold, I continued talking about silly things just to distract us. Once we crossed over to the area of arctic summit, Asher began to feel faint. I’m sure he will describe this to you in more detail, but my toes were going numb and he had to stop every 15 seconds. When Ofer decided to stay back with Asher and for Troy to go up with me because it hurt my hands and feet to stop moving, Troy began stopping every 15 seconds. I love you guys, but come on people!! I hurt just as much as they did, and because I was trying to keep a strong face they disregarded my feelings. This resulted in me crying because they wouldn’t listen to me. Anyway, when we finally got to the top we rounded the crater and got to the icy summit! There were large glaciers gleaming in the sunrise. We then proceeded to climb down to Kibo where we ate and took a short nap, interrupted only by a group of German people singing like drunks (Ofer told them to go away). Then we hiked down to Horombo and finally went to sleep. In the morning we ate and hiked past the heather and moorland to the rainforest where we saw more animals (including Marvins). We were also able to pay more attention to the beautiful greenery, from the vibrant moss to the thick vines. After taking a break at our first camp, Mandara, we returned to the park and ate a lunch of chicken and french fries (much to Asher’s delight). On the drive to the hotel we stopped at an outdoor coffin store which made a very interesting picture. As well as the types of things I saw on the drive to the mountain, I also saw a little boy perhaps six years old selling raw fish on plastic rings around his hands (I just thought that was interesting). As soon as we got to the hotel, we all took showers, though Ofer had to change showers three times because they were broken. We then went to dinner at the hotel and received purple Kilimanjaro shirts and Official Summit certificates logged and supplied by the government. Troy orders pasta, Ofer orders chicken, I order grilled fish and Asher orders Fish n’ Chips. However, when they bring Asher’s Fish n’ Chips they are not Fish n’ Chips. Rather, they are fish……AND……chips! It was seriously a full fish, scales, eyes, bones and all, and french fries! In combination with heatstroke and this unexpected meal, Asher threw up. After a couple hours of sleep, we drove to the airport, suffered through a series of flights for 13 hours, landed in Cape Town, ate, and went to sleep. Then, we prepared for our first day of online homeschooling: today.

Ella

24-3-12-6-18-3-17-15…  18-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-24!!

Ella at Sunset, Horombo Hut. Mt. Kilimanjaro

Horombo Hut, Kilimanjaro

Stacking stones at Zebra Rock, Kilimanjaro

Ella, Asher, Ofer and Troy reach the roof of Africa! What a High!