Mt. Kilimanjaro: We Did It!

Our seven day trek on Mt. Kilimanjaro was a success, though it never seemed possible, nor did I ever really consciously realize what we had done as it was happening. We had a terrific crew of apparently nine people working for us, including a guide, assistant guide, cook, waiter, and porters. We never would have made it to the top without them. We barely made it anyway. The question for me now as I sit down to type is how much detail to present.

The trip started with our guide and some other entourage members arrived at our hotel and checked our gear. Then we drove down the road in an ancient Land Cruiser to the park gate, over an hour away down mostly paved road. The driver was simply tearing down the road, even when it turned into a windy dirt road, pedestrians and goats scattering. Some of the porters jumped into the truck on the way up to the gate.

The scene at the Machame Gate of Kilimanjaro National Park was near chaos. What seemed like hundreds of porters were buzzing around, loading their bags. Bewildered visitors were being shepherded to the front desk, where we registered. As we waited for the porters to have their loads inspected (20kg maximum), we saw blue monkeys in the trees.

The first day's hike took us through rainforest with tangled, tall trees draped with moss and lichens. Sweating porters carrying amazingly large loads blazed up the trail right past us, an amazing and common sight throughout the hike. Birds could be heard overhead but were difficult to spot. We did see a Hartlaub's turaco among the weird noises in the trees. Flowers such as the impatiens kilimanjari were easy to find along the trail; they give an almost neon glow among the shade of the lowest level of the forest. There were enormous ferns that grow like trees. After about a 3,000 foot ascent over 5 hours, we arrived at Machame Camp, situated in a habitat zone of small trees reminiscent of junipers.

Over the course of the next four days, we continued to move a few miles each day to the next camp. "Pole pole," (pronounced PO-lay) is the motto for ascending the mountain, or "Slowly, slowly." Indeed, it is well to learn the pole pole pace, for it is all you will be able to do by the time you come to the final ascent.

White-necked raven

All along the way, white-necked ravens harassed hikers stopped for lunch. There was plenty of garbage along the way for the ravens, four-striped grass mice, and stone chats to pick through in the lunch areas and along the trail. Other than those three animals, it was difficult to find other non-plant life but for a streaky canary (which hopped through our tent vestibule) at one campsite and some little swifts at the highest camp, Barafu.

We camped at 12,000' or above on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th nights, then at 15,000' for the fifth night. Temperature aside, the altitude begins to play interesting tricks on one's body. We noticed that our resting heart rate was between 90 and 105 beats per minute while we were laying in bed. Breathing isn't so bad most of the time, but while falling asleep, my body often would jolt itself into action to suck in a big breath. Usually, such a sigh is a good feeling, but when my body shook itself into taking a desperate gasp while I was mostly asleep was unsettling.

Baranko Camp, 12,900'

I struggled on the 5th day with altitude; I started to become slightly dizzy while going slowly up the 1,000 rise from our previous camp. The assistant guide took my backpack and carried it the rest of the way. Everyone in the party was concerned about me and asked later in the afternoon how I was feeling. After a short nap, the dizziness had gone away and was replaced with the usual headache. After our customary tea and dinner, delivered to our tent by our waiter, we shivered in the tent until our scheduled wake-up time of 11:00PM to start our attempt at the summit.

The journey to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro was an utterly surreal experience. In the midnight darkness, we set out up the slope, a long train of headlamps ahead and behind us following an invisible trail. It was impossible to see the mountain, not that being able to see it would have helped in any way. Eventually, the inky black peak became visible against the unfamiliar starry sky.

Mt. Kilimanjaro

Lungs and heart working at their maximum, and body shivering in the below-freezing air, we walked on up the slope. Using my headlamp, I looked directly at the assistant guide's feet in front of me, focused on taking deep breaths, and walking pole pole up the trail. The assistant guide took my backpack from me and carried it, apparently concerned that I'd continue to struggle because of my problem the previous morning. The entire hike up, I was in a trance-like state, staring at Douglas's feet and breathing, unable to see anything outside the light created by my headlamp. As the altitude, or the lack of sleep, or the utter exhaustion took their toll, it was as if my mind were detached from my body; I could see my legs moving, but did not feel as though I were making them move. It was a strange sensation. We continued like this without stopping for six hours.

Suddenly, we were at the rim of the crater, about 19,000 feet. The sun was not yet up, but it was clear where we were standing. For the first time, I thought that reaching the summit might actually be possible. It was just a walk along the rim to Uhuru Peak. The walk was taxing; I was at the end of my body's limits and the final hill to the summit was excruciating. With the sun rising on the horizon, clouds laying down below, and enormous glaciers all around, the scene was something so impactful, I had to sit down. I felt little of pride or accomplishment, but mainly relief.

The sign at Uhuru peak, and our guide, Alex. Never again!

The descent was nearly equally awful. It took 2.5 hours to get back to camp, where we had merely an hour's rest before picking up and moving camp again, about 5 miles away and another 5,000 feet down. That meant our total hiking time on summit day was about 12 hours with about 4,000' of upslope and 10,000' of downslope. We hiked out this morning and parted ways with our team that had been with us the entire way.

Our team did everything for us, basically. All we had to do was get our bodies up the mountain. They took care of setting up and taking down camp, cooking, cleaning, and packing all the gear everywhere. So did everyone else's team, and it was amazing just how many people were on that mountain. We thought there might be a handful of other groups, but there was an army of porters and hikers from all around the world. Apparently not all of them are as good as one another at using the pitiful squat toilets in the camps, a disgusting affair that must be tolerated.

Approaching the summit, I asked Amber whose idea this was, anyway. While proud of the accomplishment, neither of us wanted to do it again.

With the hard part of our trip out of the way, we are now bound for a national park circuit including Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, Olduvai Gorge, Tarangiri, and then finishing with some relaxation in Zanzibar.

Into Africa

I successfully made it to Africa, bags and all. The food on my KLM (Dutch airline) flight was gross. I never got a window seat and it was dark anytime we were somewhere interesting, so I saw basically nothing the entire time except the little interactive tv screen in front of me. I dominated the multiplayer trivia game - in your face, seats 29A and 34G! It was dark when we got into Amsterdam and I slept through the first half of my flight to Nairobi, so I missed all of Europe and the Sahara. Not that I was close enough to a window to see it anyway.

The only real excitement on the trip was on the 4th and final flight when the aircraft entered a holding pattern and the pilot, through heavily accented English, told us that we were in a holding pattern because, "The runway lights are out at Kilimanjaro. The electrical engineer is working on it, but if they don't fix it in the next 20 minutes, we will have no choice but to go back to Nairobi." While this was amusing to many passengers, I did not want to go back to Nairobi. Luckily, the runway lights got fixed, and as we started the descent, the pilot said that the lights were back on "and we are going to attempt our landing now." Attempt? That got a laugh. We made it. Amber and our guide for the second half of our safari, Dennis, were there waiting for me after I cleared customs like a veteran.

Adjusting to time zones wasn't a problem since I only really napped on the airplanes. I spent most of the morning birdwatching in the garden of the hotel Amber has been staying in for the past 4 weeks. There's an interesting blend of the modern - cell phones, wireless internet - and the rustic - very primitive showers that trickle water and have no shower curtains (geckos included at no extra charge). There are some really terrific flowering trees all over, particularly one with bright purple flowers. Just from where I'm sitting I can see yellow, red, and pink also standing above banana trees and other plants you'd typically only see in a botanical garden. Speaking of bananas, I had a delicious one with breakfast. I assume that it, like the chicken I ate for lunch, were grown locally.

Amber took me down the street to their favorite lunch spot. It pays not to be in a hurry. Lunch was delicious, though. We had samosas, chicken and rice with "special sauce" that was something like a tomato-curry sauce, ugali (cornmeal mush), and chapati (rolled, fried bread). I sampled two local beers, Tusker and Castle lagers. Both were weak in my book, but I tend to like ales, and you can't complain when you get a half-liter bottle for about $1.25.

After lunch, we went to the "Mount Meru Curio and Crafts Market," which was a small marketplace with little stalls where the vendors sold their wares. It was oddly reminiscent of our trip to Chichen Itza, where there were 100 vendors that all sold the same sort of things. The merchants all have small stalls, which allows more vendors to work in the market. The size of the stalls also makes it easy for them to pin you in their shop just by standing in the door. They're good at jumping out in front of you and saying, "Karibu! (Welcome!)" to get you to step into their shop. Once you're ensnared, they'll stand in the door and make it hard for you to leave. It's your job as the buyer to look slightly disinterested in everything and to offer an impossibly lowball price for anything. "How much do you want for this elephant carving? Ohhhhh. How about 1/3 that price?" Amber thought I did an OK job haggling, but I think she helped a lot. Only one vendor let us walk away after our offer of 5,000 shillings was refused twice. She would have let it go for 6,000, "Please, please," but no sale. I ended up with some ebony animal carvings and some coasters. I always seem to think I need coasters.

Environmentally, I have not found it to be a dangerous place, except for the threat of getting run over. The cars, by the way, do not use catalytic converters, so the exhaust is pretty unbearable and hard on the eyes and lungs. People are friendly and welcoming, especially when you see them on the back streets. They usually greet you with a smile and a "Jambo!" The only people who did not were the newspaper vendors. It was interesting to see what languages they thought I'd like to buy a newspaper in. German was a popular guess. I don't know why the one guy asked about Spanish, but he was actually closer to the mark.

It's taken a while to type my post here because I keep getting distracted by birds. No surprise there, right? So far today, I've identified most of the birds I've seen. Only a couple little ones have not been in my book, but I'm assuming they're a type of sunbird, which is a lot like a honeycreeper. My day started off in spectacular fashion with a silvery-cheeked hornbill, probably one of the most interesting birds I've ever seen as far as the way it moved while it foraged. The pied crow is very common in town, often circling around overhead and making a lot of noise. I have seen several Reichenow's weavers both in the palm tree here at the lodge and also down the street. Garden bulbuls and a ring-necked dove live around the pool area of the lodge we are staying in tonight. A black kite lives nearby and circles around frequently. I also found a female red-billed firefinch hopping along by the plants by the pool. I have seen no mammals of note yet, but I haven't left town.

I can see the top of Mount Meru sticking up above the trees to the north. It's obviously huge, but it's hard to really appreciate its true size because I don't know how far away I am. We start our Kilimanjaro trek in the morning, and won't be back for 7 days according to our itinerary. I can't even fully imagine what we're in for. Dennis, who picked me up at the airport, last said, "Have fun scratching your legs on Kilimanjaro!" He was talking about the sharp, volcanic rock.

The sun is setting, and that means it's getting dark quickly. And the battery's starting to run out. So I guess I'll leave my notes there for now. Next stop, Kilimanjaro!

The Odyssey

I wanted to write about how great my trip was. I wanted to write about the herds of pronghorns, the foxes, the dead badger, the coyote, the grass, the hills, the yellowing cottonwoods, the pelicans, cormorants, the western grebe, and the cows. I wanted to take pictures of fall trees in THRO and spend a day relaxing at home. My plans changed.

I was cruising east on US Highway 2. After an unsatisfactory brunch of breakfast sub at the Cut Bank, MT Subway (you mean it's only $4 to have a stomachache all day? Where's my wallet?), the road opened into its flat trajectory across the dry plains of Montana: herds of pronghorns here and there; a fox ran across the road. 70 mph on a 2-lane road sometimes just isn't fast enough. There was yawning and stretching. I was thankful for my $9 Wal-Mart sunglasses.

I was approaching Glasgow, MT, a programmed fuel stop on my journey, when I heard a familiar sound. "BING! BING! BING! BING!" A yellow light came up on my dashboard as I was applying the brakes to slow down on my approach into town. "ANTI-LOCK." "Anti-lock? That's weird. Well, shit. I can do without that for the next 24 hours."

I pulled up to the gas station and put gas in the car. I asked the attendant if there was a mechanic in town on Sunday afternoon. He just laughed. "Awesome! Thanks!"

I turned on the car. The whirring sound I had previously convinced myself was normal or an illusion seemed louder and the car hesitated to start. "Well, that ain't good. But at least those lights are back off. Press on!"

Soon after pulling away, the "ANTI-LOCK" light came back to the chorus of dinging, as did the "BRAKE" light. "Brakes?! Uh oh! I need those once in a while on this highway." I tested the brakes. Still there. I recall that the manual, which I had reviewed at the gas station, said literally, "If the brake light comes on, don't worry. You still have brakes."

I looked at the map. My earlier thought to bypass Wolf Point and take the scenic road by the Fort Peck reservoir was fading quickly. I passed the junction in Nashua where I could have turned off. Watching the gauges nervously, I pressed east.

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I could faintly detect the seat belt warning light coming on. I took off my sunglasses to look closer. I stared at the light until I remembered I was driving. I looked back. Suddenly the light got brighter, brighter, BRIGHTER. I laughed. I obviously had an electrical/instrumentational problem at this point. I've played too much Flight Simulator when gauges fail to be too deterred by that. Then it happened.

The gauges all went to zero and the dashboard went blank. "WHOA! THAT'S NOT GOOD!" It's pretty hard to guess how fast 70 mph is when you don't have gauges and there are no other cars around. Well, the car's still running fine, I just don't have a dashboard. Still, I started looking for a place to seek help, or at least to crash land. I looked to my left: a grassy field that stretched for miles. I looked to my right: a grassy field that stretched for miles. Then the dashboard started acting like a pinball machine: lights started blinking and the gauges went berserk. While comical, I was getting fairly concerned. About a mile ahead, another car was headed east down the road. I slowly caught up to it.

As I was coming up a bit of a hill behind that white car, I pressed the pedal down for more power. Nothing. The car just kept grinding away at the same speed. I could feel the car slowing. At this point, I was unsurprised that the inevitable event I was trying to convince myself could not happen was actually going down. At the top of the rise, I could see a red garage with rusting, probably inoperable trucks and buses. The car slowed. I turned the wheel to pull it over. No power steering anymore, either. The car rolled to a stop right by the driveway. I had no idea where exactly in the world I was, just that I was somewhere between Glasgow and Wolf Point.

"Oh boy."

I immediately forgot all my travel plans. I know well enough to focus on one step at a time and shut everything else out. Luckily, there was a house at the end of the driveway, a little white ranch house.

"Please let someone be home."

In a situation that would otherwise be embarrassing for me - walking up to a stranger's house - I didn't have much of a choice and never gave it a second thought.

I strolled up the driveway trying not to look creepy. "I did take a shower this morning, right?" Three geese stood tall and started honking loudly. Guard geese? Then I noticed the Vikings sticker in the car window. I thought about turning around for about .0003 seconds then thought I'd better just suck it up.

"Please let someone be home."

I rang the doorbell once I figured out how to work the weathered and broken button. I didn't hear any stirring inside. I knocked on the door. Nothing. This was a problem I was not prepared to deal with. I heard a car door close behind the house. When I went to look, a truck was driving away into the field behind the house. Bad luck. I'll have to wait.

I went back to the car to see if, by some miracle, it would start. It didn't. I went back to the house. By this time, the truck was back and I could see a woman in the garage: Sherri. I waved, walked up, and explained the situation.

"Come on in! We'll see what we can do for you after I take these fence posts down to my husband! You can watch TV until I get back. I hope you don't mind the mess! We weren't expecting company!" In seconds, I was in the basement being handed the remote for the satellite receiver. I sat down as small as I could get and tried not to touch anything. My eyes must have been pretty big. I felt a little dizzy.

Gordon came up out of the field and helped me push the car into the driveway. By chance, a Montana State Trooper showed up at precisely that moment and actually helped push. The car out of harm's way, we could start working on the next issue: fixing it.

We determined that the alternator was the source of the problem. The battery was working fine, and the car started with a jump, but then quit after a minute. Plus, the loud, whirring sound the alternator was making when I applied the gas was obviously not normal.

Gordon made some calls, but no one seemed to be answering. Exactly how and why it happened is a blur to me, but we went into town to find a mechanic we found on his cell phone. Well, he didn't have the part we needed. We decided to tow the car to the shop.

The guy driving the tow truck - I didn't catch his name - seemed to only have one good eye. He marveled, or mocked, how full of junk my car was. "Boy, this thing's just packed to the gills, isn't she?" Yeah, that was one of my concerns. I tried not to think about how the cyclops was an antagonist in Homer's "The Odyssey." We got the car started long enough to get it up the ramp and onto the trailer, then retired to the house.

We ate tater tot hotdish and watched football. I was invited to stay in the spare bed in the basement. Clean sheets went on the bed and I figured that was OK after I'd already spent hours with these folks and if they really wanted me to stay, I would. I had tried to refuse earlier, to no avail. Maybe it helped that they had three sons whose mean age was roughly mine.

I slept like a log. Maybe it had something to do with the house being much quieter than the noisy old St. Mary dorm. Eager to get going in the morning, I awoke with the sun shining in the window. It was 7:00 and both of my hosts were already at work. I found my way upstairs hoping for a note or something. The note on the table directed me to the coffee, juice, cereal, and the keys to the Envoy out front in case I needed to go into town to pick up the car. I ate toast. Lots of toast. It had been so long. I was alone in the house. Just me and 3 geese, several peacocks, half a dozen horses, two dogs, six cats, and a llama.

Odin

I decided to kill some time taking pictures of the farm animals. Odin, however, proved needy. Everytime I'd squat down to take a picture, he'd come and poke his nose right in the camera. So 95% of the pictures I took were either aborted or not what I really had intended. Odin smothered me with shedding hair.

Three of the "half-wild" cats. Three of the others trusted me by the end of the day.

When 10:00 rolled around, I called the shop. "Yeah, the alternator's on the way. We should have it for you tomorrow." OK. Wait, tomorrow? "Enjoy your time in Wolf Point! *Click*"

When Sherri and Gordon were back for lunch, I was instructed to take their car to the Fort Peck interpretive center about 45 minutes away to the west. That's pretty trusting. Then again, where am I going to go with their car when my entire life is packed in a car that's broken down in Wolf Point? I waited a while to decide if I really, indeed, wanted to take the car. I did, since I didn't really want the guilt of explaining why I'd not gone. It was a pretty neat little (free) museum with the history of the dam and dinosaurs and pelicans. The reservoir is impressive, too. The big, huge lake seems out of place on the eastern Montana landscape, but is as inviting as any lake I've ever seen.

I told them they'd have to put me to work if I was going to stay in their house another day. I offered to help fix the fence, the job which my arrival had interrupted. That sounded OK. I followed Gordon into the truck and then we drove down to the first gate. I proved unaware of exactly how to get this gate open. Sure enough, the same time I started working on it, the horses came running and mobbed me. I tried not to step on the kitten that had followed me. Finally, we got down to the fence, right down by the train tracks. Rotting old wooden posts just were not doing the job anymore. My main job in the beginning was pulling staples out of the old, rotten posts and wrangling the barbed wire while Gordon did the driving and fastening. I carried the posts from the truck to the fenceline. The sun was going down and the mosquitoes were awful. One trip to the truck, I stepped on a stick and it whacked me in the leg. "Darn plant!" Then I thought, "Hey, what if that was a snake?" I looked down and, to my relief, there was not a snake. I did, however, have a ball of prickly pear cactus that had gone through my jeans and stuck in my leg. I still have marks on my leg.

We put on a show of fence repair, part of the scenes of the west advertised by Amtrak, as the eastbound Empire Builder sped by. By the end of the task, I was allowed to pound a couple posts into the ground. Not bad, but the second one was a little more crooked than I'd have liked. Gordon told me about a train that had derailed right in the back yard, or the next property over, in the 1960s whose load of brand new cars had been buried on the spot by the Burlington Northern. I looked out across the flat to the Missouri River to the south, the cottonwoods at its banks turning golden yellow.

Job finished, and myself very thirsty, we loaded back into the truck and headed back toward the house. I sought redemption with the gate, now that I sort of knew the trick. I had the post halfway free when I was blindsided by the horses. One decided to use me as a fencepost. Gordon laughed. I ripped my pants on the barbed wire.

We had spaghetti for dinner, and somehow the best spaghetti sauce I'd ever had, mixed with some Coors Light. Far too good of fare for a squatter. I admired the Norwegian folk art in the corner of the dining room that had been staring at me all day.

It was one of the highest-scoring Monday Night Football games ever that night, and I fell asleep on the couch. I had to laugh at myself while I was awake, though. I was paying really close attention to car commercials I usually ignore.

Morning again, and I milled around looking for something entertaining. I'd pretty much used up my interest in the internet and the tv, so I played with the dogs a little. I got covered in hair again. The cats started taking interest in all the petting going on. The geese had stopped honking at me. The dogs tried to get into the truck when I went to leave to pick up my car. I belonged.

All the while, I had marveled at the generosity of the folks whose lap I'd ended up in. They had no reason at all to help me, let alone give me room and board. I really felt like I'd made good friends by the time I left, and was almost sorry to leave. Then again, they didn't need an appetite like mine hanging around that house, lest those geese start to look too tempting.

I picked up the car and gave Sherri her keys back. I got to meet everyone in her office. They, I think, instinctively knew who I was when I came in the door and asked for Sherri. "Is this the serial killer?" one joked. We all laughed. I didn't tell them how glad I was my car hadn't quit in front of Ted Kaczynski's house.

12 hours of road time to get home from Wolf Point is no joke. That's a long time to sit there, but a singular focus on getting home kept me going. I stopped briefly in Medora to say hello and audition for a podcast for the park. I think I got the part. The sun set about the time I was in Moorhead, MN. I only started getting bleary-eyed around St. Cloud. Time to drink that last bottle of Coke. The bright lights and multi-lane driving of the twin cities kept me awake for the final stretch. All the while, I talked to the car, soothing it, trying to coax it home one last time.

I've never had a name for the Alero. The old Pontiac was aptly named "Old Thunder" for its characteristic, throaty exhaust. And while "The Naggin' Wagon" was a fitting name for the Alero, I found a new name for it: Ulysses.

If Ulysses hadn't broken down, I probably would have missed the funniest license plate of my life. Anyone who hasn't seen Superbad can't possibly appreciate it. I laughed at it miles and miles down the road everytime I thought of it.

Wolf Point

The car quit. It's the alternator, at least. I was lucky to have the car stop in front of a house, let alone people as welcoming as these. If it had died 10 miles later, I'd have really been in the middle of nowhere. The car quit Sunday afternoon and won't be running again until sometime Tuesday! These folks gave me the keys to their car and told me to go to the Fort Peck Interpretive Center!

I'll give a full report when this is all over.

Time to Go

Car's packed, badges and keys and radio turned in, and I just made the sickening realization that my house keys are buried in my pen & pencil cup, which is in the bottom of the big tub, which is in the deepest, most buried part of the trunk. Argh.

Weaseling

Logan Pass was jammed with goats yesterday, which was good for the hikers interested in seeing them. I was more interested in watching the pika in the rocks. I saw a long-tailed weasel bound by in the sedges.

While watching goats from the Highline Trail near Oberlin Bend, I heard one of the squirrels give out a harsh alarm call. The goats, feeding near the trees and unable to see incoming threats such as bears or cats, immediately started sprinting to the open to get a better view. The cause for alarm was a northern goshawk flying over; it swooped back and forth and landed in the trees. Pretty cool to see!

This morning, I saw one of the juvenile osprey, now apparently sans parents, take off and drive away what appeared to be a juvenile bald eagle. Guts! We also saw a flock of migrating songbirds flying overhead early this morning.

Clouds and intermittent rain persist, and we're expecting more snow in the mountains in the next 24 hours.