My last entry ended the night before i began my epic climb up Kili. It was Wednesday morning when i started, and after a dissatisfying breakfast i met again with my guide to begin walking. My guide was a 26ish yr old skinny Tanzanian man, who for privacy purposes i shall call George. I was so nervous as i knew ahead of me i had 5 nights on the mountain and a serious amount of walking which would require some intense endurance and motivation. It wasn't long before we walked through the rainforest level, and we were lucky enough to spot some blue monkeys migrating. It was a fantastic moment and would have been one of the highlights of my trip. Unfortunately it was ruined slightly by the fact that George tried repeatedly to hold my hand. It's a little disconcerting to be alone with a strange man in a forest who is trying to hold your hand. I wasn’t sure if it was a cultural thing, but as the behaviour continued it intensified through the day and into the next. I've said all along that nothing would stop me getting to the top, (except perhaps imminent death). I didn't expect the challenge to come in the form of inappropriate behaviour, so it was difficult to deal with on that first day. I found myself having a strong word with him about the differences between Tanzanian and English cultures, and after that he kept his hands to himself...
Lunches on the mountain were quite nice - cucumber sandwiches, roast chicken leg, cake, biscuits, mango juice, boiled egg, and whole lemons. Apparently the lemons were oranges but I wouldn't believe it, I said to George if that is an orange then it is the spawn of an evil lemon and a very pale looking orange. The second day I had hoped for better fruity news in my lunchbox but alas, there sat another lemon. As I’m not partial to eating whole lemons as snacks I gave it a miss. At least my lemon could masquerade as an orange, the poor girl next to me had been given a lime...
They give you a serious amount of food on the mountain, to keep up your energy levels. For breakfast you're given 3 bowls of porridge, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and cucumber, and hard cold bread that they've mistaken to be how we make toast, followed by some pineapple. Then there's lunch, and dinner is 3 bowls of cucumber soup, 3 pancakes, a massive plate of rice, chicken and beans, and half a papaya. Also, when you finish your days climbing they give you a plate of popcorn and nuts and about 6 biscuits, and insist you have at least 10 cups of tea a day. I ate what I could but make no mistake, this food was all barely edible, you may think, well sausages are quite nice to have, but these sausages would be blood red and spicy, the cucumbers had hard pips in, the pineapple would be off or the rice would be starchy and cold. I don't mean to complain, I ate everything I could, but it was very difficult at times, especially as I started to get higher and feel sick from altitude sickness.
The second day passed and that evening I shared a hut with a Swedish girl and a Japanese girl. The Swedish girl was on her way down the mountain and had not made it to the top. This didn't give me much confidence, coupled with the fact that I spoke to loads of people coming off the mountain and asked them if they'd made it to the peak and I would say about 1 in every 10 made it. It seemed everyone had got to 5,700 which is the first peak on our route, but altitude sickness meant they couldn't get any further. I felt that if I could get to 5,700 without any complications I would know whether I could get to the top or not – in essence, getting to 5,700 was vital.
The third day I couldn't get my pace right. I would go too fast and George would say 'pole-pole' which means 'slowly' - the catchphrase of Kili, so I’d slow up and he'd say 'we're not supposed to be last you know' so I’d speed up... It was a long day and by the time I got to the third camp I was willing myself on by counting every rock that I passed and setting myself little challenges on the way. I arrived at camp 3 exhausted with a bad headache. I was worried that altitude sickness had already got to me, it would be a tragedy if I couldn't even have attempted the final summit after what I’d been through for the last 3 days. I had a real lonely, miserable moment that evening where I convinced myself I couldn't do it - exactly the reason you need to be in a team. I don't know how but I got through it and even managed to get to sleep that night.
I was woken up at 11:30pm where I had to dress and have breakfast. I was a bit casual about the whole thing really but climbing Kili is a very serious affair and when George came in and found me sipping tea without my shoes and gaiters on he was a bit cross with me. I quickly sorted myself out and we were off, into the minus 20 degree temperatures and pitch blackness. We quietly made our way up the scree path, pole-pole. It would take 7 hours in total to get to the summit but I didn't dare look at my watch, anything like that would de-motivate me. I regularly passed two Norwegian girls and we'd have little chats and they spurred me on a bit. After climbing for 4 hours without a break I started to lose it. We got to 5,200m and I blacked out and fell over. I was obviously very concerned, but after some thought I felt i could continue. I then proceeded to have 200 metres (of height, not distance), which takes about an hour, of pure hell where I was dizzy, sick, headachy, my nose was chapped and stinging like mad, I lost my hearing for a time, I was delirious and became convinced a massive gerbil was sat on the top of the mountain egging me on (i have no idea why), my tendons had all ceased up and were causing me immense pain so that I had to continually flap my arms to warm them up, I must have looked ridiculous. Then I got to 5,400m and I had passed the Norwegian girls again and George said something to me about needing to be strong, and I just pulled myself out of my slump and became strong again. I got through many of these tough times on the mountain by repeating my mantra: "Goonies never say die. Goonies never say die..."
I walked the last 300 metres (approx 1.5hrs) to the peak with little problem except for the tendon issue and a bit of a headache. I also got strength when I saw the sun rising. I knew that I was supposed to be at the top for the sun rise so when I saw a thin strip of orange on the horizon I smiled to myself knowing that it wouldn't be long before I made it. And when I did, well I was ecstatic. Not just because I’d made it to 5,700 but because I didn’t feel completely exhausted and my altitude sickness wasn't that bad, so I knew then that I would make it to the peak, or so I thought. I started crying with happiness, and George pointed to a flashing light across the way on what looked like a different mountain. I said, 'what's that?' he said 'the peak' I said, 'of which mountain?' he said 'of Kili!!!' it then dawned on me that I literally had another 2 hours of climbing ahead of me to get to the peak.
We got going pretty quickly and didn't really stop at all. It was all about exhaustion at this point because the altitude would only increase another 180 metres in total, but it was about 4-5kilometres away. I kept pushing and pushing, I got to the point where I couldn't even lift my feet, or even put them a full foot length in front of each other. Over the entire trip I had 5 walking speeds. This is how I classified them, starting with the bottom of the mountain through to the top. 1: 'Walking-to-the-shops' 2: 'Pride-and-prejudice-meander-by-the-river' 3: 'extreme-teenage-moping' 4: Frodo-Baggins-scramble-for-the-pit-of-mount-doom' 5: 'Zombie-mummy. What-a-slow-death-would-look-like-if-it-was-a-walk.' I cannot tell you now how I got to the end. At times I was sort of dragged by George and other guides, other times I just pushed myself along. The whole time I was on the brink of throwing up and if I thought about cucumbers for too long I retched. The last few steps are a bit of a blur, but I am delighted to tell you that I made it all the way to the 5,895 metre peak! We took some photos and every time I smiled tears would fall out of my eyes. I wandered around a bit and picked up a rock, then I just sat by myself and had a moment to think about what I’d accomplished, and have a good cry. If anyone tries to make out that Kili isn’t a big deal, they are lying. It is the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life and even if you're incredibly fit, it is a tough old challenge. I can only liken the feeling to what some might feel to get married, or when they see their first born. To me, I felt complete, like I’d got a bit of my soul back. Funnily enough though I now feel like I left a little piece of me on that mountain... Namely about half a stone of fat from my mid-drift (saved especially for such an occasion).
The walk back down was easy and event-less, so I won't bore you with tales of what the scree was like to ski down or what I listen to on my iPod between camp 3 and 2. What I will say though is that after Kili I became very philosophical and thought a lot about stuff. On my final evening I was sat in Springlands Hotel restaurant listening to people complain about the food and the air-conditioning and I smiled to myself... I finished dinner, and decided, without hope, to check if there was any dessert. Low and behold, there sat a massive chocolate fudge cake with green icing. So I think the lesson to be learnt there is to always give it a try, because you might just get lucky.
I had hoped that was the end of my adventures and it would just be a simple ride back to Nairobi for my plane. Alas, it was not to be and my final bit of excitement came when my bus driver decided not to stop at the airport at all and instead take me directly to Nairobi central bus station. He insisted he had asked three times if anyone wanted to go to the airport but I insisted I hadn't heard him, perhaps because he was pumping out Michael Jackson Thriller at such decibels that would blow my eardrums had I not have had my fingers in them. The arguing was pointless so I just sat back down, broke out into a cold sweat, and planned what I was going to do, which was to get a taxi back. 20 dollars (grr) and 2 hours later I was at the airport.
Having a near heart attack and being unceremoniously dumped outside the airport was not the way I hoped to end this story! Instead I’ll end it by telling you that at the other end of the airport I had the most amazing surprise – my lovely boyfriend surprised me by picking me up, it was like the icing on the best chocolate cake i’ve ever eaten :)
If you are considering volunteering, then i would whole-heartedly recommend that you choose African Impact for your experience. If you’re still unsure about volunteering, you can talk to me on Twitter: twitter.com/lydiawalker, or find African Impact on Facebook and talk to them.
If you have been inspired by this blog and would like to donate any money, then i have a donation page set up where the money will go towards Hope school, their chicken project, and Mary’s training to be a qualified teacher – a worthy cause, i hope you’ll agree. You can visit it here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/LydiaWalker
Thank you so much for reading my blog, i hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as i’ve enjoyed writing it!
Lydia xx
No comments:
Post a Comment