Kilimanjaro
21 dec
Dad and I arrived safely and happily in Arusha last night and we have already gone out for a sunburn. I missed Africa. Tanzania has some of the same smells common in West Africa — some mixture of hot dust, open cooked food, ripe fruit, and burning trash. It’s also incredibly dark at night and one can see billions of stars even in town.
Our plush hotel is outside of Moshi, pretty desolate. We rented bikes this morning and rode up toward Kili, started climbing through some villages, got caught in a downpour, shared some grub and bought cokes at a village and headed away much too early. The drying mud was both stickier than glue and more slippery than soap. We pulled and dragged our bikes to the paved road and gambled against overloaded trucks on our way back to civilization. Dad got our bikes and his legs hand-washed by friendly locals and now we find ourselves typing an email to you sipping Kilimanjaro beers.
I like the Tanzanian people!
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30 dec
I suppose this email proves we are alive. But you may not believe we made it to the top. I’m not sure I am believe it myself. Everyone but my father got sick. There was an unheard-of snow storm the night before we reached Uhuru peak and the route was closed behind us. Our guide and six of our eight porters suffered snow blindness. However, we were content to have snow unlike the previous four days of showers. The overcast skies kept the thin atmospheric warmth in, except on the night of our climb when we experienced almost complete views of the stars.
The final climb from 4600 to 5900 meters averaged about 45 degrees. Climbing at midnight made this surreal and confusing. Dozens of climbers with headlamps twinkling up the mountain against a sky of patchy stars and half moon upon the fresh snow along with a low oxygen level created a slightly disorienting effect. We were rewarded with a glorious sunrise near summit and clear bright skies and many pictures from the peak.
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