Day 53: lessons of Kilimanjaro

Here’s the peak looking all innocuous from day one’s campsite.

After postponing for 4 days (due to TSB being awful), I finally set off up Kilimanjaro. I’d asked my Mount Kenya guide, who also does Kili, if he thought 6 days would be okay for me. He thought so. There are various routes you can do – 2 companies were recommending the Marangu route for 6 days. They advised against the Machame route as it has a steep ascent on day 5 and ‘6 days doesn’t allow for acclimatisation’. But I thought that the Machame route, or ‘whisky route’ as opposed to a ‘Coca-Cola route’, because it’s difficult but scenic, sounded pretty cool. And I’m fairly hardcore, am I not? But also realistic – I wasn’t going to do the Ubumwe route, which is the most difficult. Company 3, also significantly the cheapest and least professional, were perfectly happy for me to do Machame.

Day one- easy.

Day one- also sweaty.

Days 1- 4 passed pretty much without blip. I still have my dodgy tummy and being implored “please, please try to eat” by the porter/waiter didn’t help, yet we were exceeding the stated times significantly, 2.5h for a 4 hour milestone, for example. This main challenge was having to walk really slowly to avoid mountain sickness. I wrote poems about the mountain and enjoyed the sunsets. I didn’t seem to talk to any hikers as we seemed to be leaving early and not passing anyone, and then it would often rain until sunset. Or it would be big groups. I did meet some old boy on the Baranco Wall and we chatted a couple of days later. He’s 72. Impressive.

Passing through Shira Camp on Day 2

The Baranco Wall was one of the features I wanted to challenge myself with. It has ‘the kissing wall’ where you need to hug the wall a bit and then there’s also one step in particular that involves a step up over a void. (I’d read there were a few but I only noted one). Apparently if you fall you won’t die, but you might break your hand or so.

Doing the Baranco Wall

But even the Baranco Wall was quite easy. Well, ‘easy’ isn’t the right word. It was a decent hike and for that step over the void, I did say “ooh, I don’t like this!” about 4 times as I slowly positioned myself then did it. The kissing wall was a bit narrow but it wasn’t as I envisaged; I’d expected to be clinging to the wall whimpering, prevaricating and psyching myself up.

The guide was calling me “dada nzuri” or strong woman/sister. Aren’t I amazing?

The last outing for my 16 year old boots. Or the last outing for me. They were better than some of the porters’ shoes so I gave them away. Impressively this 4th load of glue meant they didn’t leak at all. Best £65 I’ve spent in TK Maxx.

Of course, pride comes before a fall, as we know. I knew the summit day would be the hardest. I heard people trooping past at around midnight but we set off at 2am. The guide told me to wear pretty much everything. I wasn’t sure about that as I had generally found that I heat up a lot and need few layers. He was insistent that it would be very cold.

Barafu camp/ base camp. I did not enjoy leaving here at 2am.

So I set off wearing big thick padded trousers over my grubby hiking trousers and thermals, and about 6 tops. Within half an hour I was uncomfortably sweaty and worried that I’d cool off and freeze. The big trousers and a jumper came off.

A really awesome sunrise.

I picked my way through the mountain path feeling utterly exhausted. My hands were cold so the guide advised me to swap the thick gloves for his paper-thin ones. Seemingly they are better. I am still not convinced. I also noted hundreds of hand-warming gel sachets discarded on the route. I’d clearly missed a trick. Bastard.

Brave face, cold hands.

After a few hours, I really couldn’t feel my hands and my brain was telling me that I really, really, really wanted to go back to bed. Well, after about an hour I’d been overwhelmingly tired. The main thing that kept me going was that bed was not immediate but far down this cold, cold mountain. I tried distracting myself. I can tell you that I’d know exactly what do if I won the lottery. I tried counting up and counting down, as I do for drunk people determined to sit down on the pavement. The guide kept calling ‘one, two, one, two’, like to keep a child walking, as I struggled to keep my eyes open. My buff started freezing against my face as we neared the lower summit.

“There’s a f***ing iceberg up here!”

To make it worse, all those early starters were coming down looking jubilant and practically trotting down the mountain. I trudged on up, counting down from 500. The guide likened me to a chameleon we’d seen on day 1, doing a half-forward, half backward shuffle.

Between Stella Point and Uhuru Summit: Getting colder…

We finally reached Stella Point, near the summit. “Just 10 more minutes” said the guide. We got round the corner and I saw the Uhuru Summit off in the distance. I swore. A lot. The wind picked up and sought my hands in my pockets. I guess it meant that I still had some feeling in them to lose.

Umm, yay!

Eventually we made it. It took an hour of icy wind from Stella Point to Uhuru Summit. I wouldn’t not have made it without the guide who nudged and cajoled me along. I’d hunted down a beer- for my trig point beer tradition, and carried it all the way up the mountain but no, I wanted off that Baltic summit as fast as possible. I wanted to feel my fingers again. I had to wait for a lot of people to take photos with a ‘No war in Ukraine’ banner. I now understood why people were running down the mountain. To warm up! I skidded on my bum several times as we jogged down through thick and dusty scree.

My first attempt to make a video started with “if I look really f***ing cold and miserable, it’s because I am really f***ing cold and miserable”.

But in short, really, I can say that summit day was cold and miserable. Truly miserable. I hadn’t imagined the coldness – my hands had swollen up and gone purple..

Incredibly, the sun came out strong shortly after we started the descent of scree ploughing; it was warm and lovely. We got back to the basecamp at 10.30 and rested for an hour, before lunch and then 4 more hours of downhill. The next day we had just a couple of hours to do before going back to the hotel.

Day 6. Around 9 am. Emmanuel, my guide, said “you’re still on Kilimanjaro, you should drink the beer”.

So what did I learn? Well, it was not news to me – I’ve lived in Russia- but I DO NOT LIKE THE COLD. So I’m going to stay away from big mountains with snow unless I have a lot of heat gels. More broadly though, if people are telling you it’s difficult, perhaps it is! It’s so odd though that the other days were so disparately easy. On the other hand, I really don’t think I should have listened to the guide and his theory about the gloves. He wasn’t even wearing any himself.

I’m sure I will look back with pride, but at the moment I’m still stunned and affronted by how bloody miserable that day was. I recognise there are big groups and they cheer each other on and have life affirming experiences, but at the moment I feel it’s like some insiders’ group confidence trick. Kilimanjaro really tortured me that day. But I’ve done it- I’ve climbed the highest mountain in Africa, as well as the second highest. I’ll still do some munros. In July when it’s warm.

Yay I’m in a rubber ring! Much happier!

To end this more positively, I went to some hot springs yesterday. The journey included an hour and a half of bone shaking road (negative!) but this morning I spent $5 on a tuk tuk to avoid cycling back on it. What a glorious and sage investment!

The road was also dusty.

Splashy. I saw the birds this morning. They are bright yellow with dark red beaks.

Kikuletwa Hot springs

The hot springs were lovely. I got to camp there, all alone, but with a guard at the gate. Just me, the cheeping birds, whooping monkeys and distant motorbikes. There were glow worms floating between the moonlight dapples made by the tree limbs. I didn’t use my fly sheet so could watch the stars. This morning I had a quick swim before my tuk tuk smugness. I then even managed to get a replacement yellow fever jab certificate (because silly me took the wrong booklet) without too much hassle and with only a small detour to the airport.

I’m really not sure what the main Kilimanjaro lesson is… maybe it is that I need to note my enjoyment more! And to that, yes, I will try. My sister texted me saying “remember you only need to do things that are fun”, which is true, although I was in the middle of enduring external physical damage from the road to the awesome hot springs, so there’s definitely something about challenges and rewards.

Bye bye Donkey.

TLDR- Kilimanjaro was brilliant until it really wasn’t. Hot springs are good.

Finally- if anyone would like to donate, I do have a fundraiser for the National Brain Appeal. My uncle is a big advocate of them and their groundbreaking research. Here’s the link: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/eilidh-cycling-cairo-to-capetown?utm_source=Sharethis&utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=eilidh-cycling-cairo-to-capetown&utm_campaign=pfp-email&utm_term=b1250b3f215c4c84b718da3e0e60e249&fbclid=IwAR0Q5mwWYhsW9Om_vpvqmVpuMRXyL9mxUJ1Uxck-fSfwT9Gm_ofuRbAVAEU

Best $5 I’ve spent in a long time. Took an hour.

Child would not share chocolate despite me involuntarily entertaining her with my white legs.