Kilimanjaro! aka Oh Mommy! Machame! Part 1

1/12 6:32 Machame Camp- first night of the climb

I think impressions are better than narrative. So here goes... Africa- beautiful, lush, verdant, bananas, papayas, mangoes everywhere. Clean. Smiles and waves; beautiful fabrics in bold colors and patterns; children so beautiful it makes your heart ache.

Okay- the Gemini can't be away from narrative for too long...

Got picked up at my hotel around 9AM and met Vincent, our guide, and Maggie, a Filipina nurse working at Cedars-Sinai in LA. She's hilarious. When she introduced herself, I thought she said she was from Malay--turns out she was saying, "Mmmm. L.A." Lots of Californians in Africa.

Oh- one thing I forgot--I saw a cool PSA from Eve- the gist was "Real Men Wear Condoms". Very frank, very well done. I wondered how it was received in Tanzania. Also wondered if it was part of my friend Rob's MTV World AIDS Day Africa event.

-back to story-

We arrived after about 1 1/2 hours drive at Machame Gate, driving through small villages with loads of immaculately dressed people. Being Sunday, I thought they might be church bound. We stopped for Vincent to buy some meat for our trip. Delicious, fly-encrusted, room temperature meat. Which won't be refrigerated for our seven days. Mmmmmmmmmm. Take that, immune system.

(Not to mention the chicken leg for lunch which was unrefrigerated for 7 hours... I'm the gustatory Eval Kneivel!)

At the park entrance--elevation around 5,000 ft, we registered, I rented gaitors and ski poles, and generally just soaked up the environment. Today was a very busy day for Machame- the Whiskey Route up the mountain- maybe 35 trekkers or so, which each had at least 3 porters, a cook and guide. At around 11:30, Maggie and I were introduced to Sunda, our cook, who would lead us for the first section while Vincent tied up some last minute things.

Off we went, in 80 degree, humid weather, past monkeys and trees, with our gaitors on, as we waited to encounter the infamous mud. Very lush rainforest, intense pink violets, blood lilies, a baby black kite eagle. Gorgeous. It started to get a little slipperier under foot as we ascended. The mud stared to show up but didn't seem so bad. Kind of like our mud hikes up to Heublien Tower in Simsbury as a kid.

Then it showed up. Mud. Mud! Thick, deep, beautiful mud… The porters said "Chocolate!". To me, it was more like walking through the world's largest, deepest baby diaper--but then I thought that description took something away from the pristine beauty. And there were logs that would trick you. People placed logs as footholds and it became a chore to balance-hop from one to the next.

Seems my log of choice was a floater. Looked solid. I leapt on to it and sank up to my knee in mud. And this mud didn't want to let go.

"May I kindly remove your boot for you, sir?"

I schllluuuukkkked it out and kept going. It was an exhausting day of hiking--5,000 feet in elevation gain, about 4,000 through mud. My boots must have weighed 20 pounds each.

Around 4:30, just as I was seriously starting to flag, we left the rainforest and entered high alpine meadow. Another 20 minutes and we were in camp--mud encrusted, exhausted, serene.

Our tents were set up, including a dining pup tent (sorta had to eat at an angle), basins of hot water were brought to wash off, and my boots and pant legs disappeared, only to return 10 minutes later--immaculate.

Had some tea and popcorn, a dinner of boiled/fried potatoes, bread, chix noodle soup, and chicken pepper carrot stirfry. Great food but not much appetite. I downed some bananas and a Clif bar for electrolytes, and went to bed. Slept like a log.

-Oh, for five minutes, just past sundown, the peak of Kili appeared-- glorious, majestic. And high.