Summit day

At dinner the previous day, Juma had "briefed" us as to what would happen that night. We were expecting to start towards the peak at around 12am...however, Juma told the group (whilst I was asleep in my tent) that as I was so slow, he would walk alone with me starting off at 11.30am and the others would catch me up. When Rob told me of the plan, I instantly and resolutely refused to go with Juma. Rob and I had planned to walk together for moral support and I couldn't believe that the one thing that might have got me to the top was being denied me. Apparently Juma feared that Rob would get too cold walking with me and wouldn't listen even when Rob assured him he'd be fine. However, after a very emotional night, I had convinced myself that I would give it a try, even though I knew in my heart that my exhausted body still wasn't strong enough. Then at about 10pm Rob woke with an explosive headache and nausea and realised that his chance of reaching the summit was fading away. He had been behaving oddly all evening...overexcited, talking utter rubbish...acting as if he were drunk. We had assumed that was just Rob...we were used to seeing him like that but as not a drop of Kilimanjaro beer had passed his lips in days, in retrospect, these were signs of AMS. Once Rob accepted that there was no way he could attempt the summit in this state, we made a pact that we would stay together and come back to attempt the mountain another time. We were awoken by the sun rising over Mawenzi peak...we should have seen this from the summit, but it was still beautiful from our tent. Disappointed as we both were at not making it all the way, we knew we had made the correct decision when both Alex and Laura experienced excrutiating altitude sickness at the summit. Laura had told us horror stories of people admitted to the Medical Centre where she had worked, including some fatalities and we just decided that our health was too important to take the risk. After all, the mountain would always be here long after we no longer were.

The afternoon

Possibly the steepest climb of the day was the ascent path to the next campsite where the 7 day trekkers would stay tonight. If I had stayed here and rested for the extra night, I think the following day I could have made the summit attempt with no real problems, however, as we had opted for the 6 day trek, we had a brief rest here, only to attempt the bleakest leg of the day 4 climb. The path out of the campsite was steep, winding and dull. We couldn't see any scenery (we should have been able to see the peak, but after lunch it was entirely shrouded in cloud) and once again there seemed to be no end to it. After climbing slowly upwards for an hour we reached a rest stop and Alex told me that according to his guide book, the summit attempt we would make tonight would be just like we had just done for the past hour...but would instead last for 6 and a half hours! Again, I wasn't convinced I could do that...I was feeling drained, exhausted and demotivated and all I wanted was to arrive at the campsite so I could rest before tonight. But it would be some hours before I made it. The familiar pattern continued across barren and ugly terrain: I would push myself on towards what I imagined to be the top of a slope, before an even steeper slope would present itself and I wouldn't have the energy to carry on. I would sit on a rock alone feeling exhausted and defeated...and there was no-one else to give me any encouragement, just me. Finally, Juma realised that I was beginning to become irreversably motionless and started to get angry with me. Sullen and unwilling, I dragged myself to my feet and continued somehow in a daze stumbling across rocks towards the campsite, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. At some point Juma took my daypack from me and I finally arrived at our tent and collapsed inside with the nagging knowledge that in just a few short hours we would be attempting the summit.

Final descent

Once again I got lost behind the group pretty quickly, and after a couple of hours I was in a lot of pain in my knees and hips. Into the bargain, my patience with Juma and his radio was wearing seriously thin. Juma had taken to walking about 4 inches behind me with his radio blaring, occasionally treading on the heels of my boots and grabbing at my rucksack every time he thought I was about to fall over (which I hadn't ever showing any sign of doing in all the time I'd spent walking with him!) About halfway down, Juma met a porter friend of his and the two of them spent the remainder of what should have been a wonderful, relaxing walk down the mountain through beautiful rainforest terrain shouting loudly at each other in Swahili. As we finally neared the bottom I saw Rob walking back up the mountain to find me! A welcome sight. But no matter what had gone wrong for me on this trip, I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

The day we had all been dreading!

I awoke feeling a whole lot better than I had the night before, but still I had very little appetite. The fourth day was rumoured in the camp to be one of pain and suffering...and in retrospect, I can't say that I disagree. For me it was a dull and unenjoyable walk up lots of very, very steep paths terminating in complete physical exhaustion...but I'm sure there are things I could have done differently. The first challenge though was Barranco Wall: our ticket out of the valley we had camped in the night before. It was, as the name suggests, a wall...or vertical cliff face with a zig zag path winding across the face. There was some scrambling involved, but I quite enjoyed that bit...it made me feel like I was really climbing! However, there were so many people attempting to climb the wall, and heavily laden porters trying to pass them that a traffic jam had formed early in the morning and didn't look likely to clear. The fun of the initial climb soon gave way in the heat of the day to weariness as the monotonous rock face seemed never ending. It was demoralising that each time you felt you had reached the top of the wall, you turned the corner to see the tiny figures of other people climbing high up ahead of you, seemingly hours away. Every time I saw a sight like that my heart sank. Had I been expecting it, maybe I'd have felt differently? By lunchtime we had reached a rest stop, and the next demoralising fact was that we would now decend the other side of the valley before going back up a very straight, very steep, dusty track. I was reminded of the scene in the film Ice Cold In Alex where they crank the jeep up the sand dune in reverse using the starting handle...tiny fractional steps would get me there using as little energy as possible. it seemed to work, and I figured out what Juma had been trying to tell me when he said "pole pole"...he meant go slowly, but don't stop!

Arriving at Machame Gate

We were all feeling a bit apprehensive in the Land Cruiser on the morning of the climb, Me, Rob, Alex and Laura. We felt a bit like we were waiting in the queue to ride a roller coaster...a mixture of anticipation, fear and excitement. This is what our trip has been about...and here we were! So close now. While our luggage was being weighed we queued up to register at reception...we hadn't expected this kind of bureaucracy , but we would get used to it. This would be the drill at each camp...signing our name, passport number, number in party, tour company, guides name...We eventually set off up the mountain at around 11am. Laura raced off at her own preferred pace (she has no idea what pole pole means) followed by Rob and Alex, and I trailed behind at my pre-determined snails pace designed to get me there whilst conserving energy. I walked with one of our porters, Esiah, who chatted to me as we walked. His English was limited, but better than my Swahili. He told me about his wife and 3 year old daughter. He climbs this mountain about once a month to supplement his farmers income and has been doing this for 5 years. What an incredible way to earn a living! It took me 4 hours to reach the campsite, which was far quicker than our guide had told us...I wasn't tired and I was feeling fairly proud of myself. The only people who had passed me, despite my slow and laborious crawl, had been porters who would speed past, heavily laden with awkward looking packages tied up with string and balanced on their heads. I was about the ninth person to arrive at the campsite and our tents weren't even up yet! After a surprisingly tasty and wholesome meal, we stood outside our tents and watched the stars before curling up in our sleeping bags and sleeping for what seemed like years.