Day Two: Smokin' Santa

Day two began with "bed tea" at 6:00 a.m. - that would be steaming hot tea delivered to the tent and hand-mixed by a mountain waiter as I  groggily tried to muster the energy to say "asante." I could get used to this treatment.  Warm washing water was delivered at 6:30, and breakfast was served at 7:00.  Last night I balked at the thought of being woken up an hour before breakfast with nothing to do but sponge down and roll up my sleeping bag.  However, I quickly discovered that stuffing a sleeping bag into a sack at altitude is nothing short of exhausting.  By the time I mustered the energy to drink my tea, to unzip myself from my sleeping nest (which I have already come to love), and to stuff the down bag into its cinch sack, I was ready for my first nap of the day.

First glimpse of Kibo in the morning light
 (see the flag at the summit?)

Fortunately Howard rousted me from my drowsy state by calling out and insisting I "take a look at the view" from the south-cul-de-sac.  Well, there it was.  Kibo peak, in all of its snow-covered glory, loomed above us.  On our trek into camp the night before, Kibo had been covered in clouds.  Now, with the sun rising behind us, we got a giant-sized glimpse of the peak that beckoned.  Kili actually sports three peaks: Kibo, the highest, Mwenzi, the rugged, lower peak, and a crumbled-down third peak of no significance (which means I can't remember its name, but you can Google it).  Sue, our other neighbor in the land of the misfits, was already out of her tent snapping photos.  She was quick to point out the photo she had of the giant flag at the summit (the big green one that was about half the size of the mountain).  Altitude had obviously addled her brain over night, and (after scrolling through a few other photos with a similar green "flag") we quietly concluded that there was a large spot on the camera lens.  Naturally nothing remained quiet for too long, and Sue spent the remainder of the trek desperately hoping to find an enormous green flag at the summit in order to quash the teasing that ensued.

We were happy to see that Gayle's smiling face had resurfaced at breakfast (after a long night spent trekking back and forth to the toilet tent). The mountain food still tasted good on day two, and we welcomed our breakfast of eggs, deep-fried green onion treats, bread (beginning to taste slightly moldy) and fruit.  The morning beverage mixing scene was reminiscent of bartender training school.  With no hot beverage option that was completely appealing, many of us took to experimental drink mixing with a vengeance. It began with Kilimanjaro instant coffee, Nido (the aforementioned nasty powdered creamer), hot chocolate mix, straight cocoa powder and Milo (an Australian version of something like Ovaltine) and could be sweetened with sugar or honey.  No matter how you mixed it, it usually came out disgusting.  By the end of the week, most of us had converted to straight tea. I personally would have thrown someone off the mountain in exchange for a venti iced coffee with real cream and sugar.

Mwenzi Peak

The hike itself on day two was about as good as it gets.  We all moved at the prescribed "pole pole" pace and sucked down water like there was no tomorrow.  We enjoyed gorgeous views of both Mwenzi and Kibo peaks throughout the day.  We walked through burned scrub land for a few hours which made toilet breaks particularly challenging.  Not only was there no foliage to hide behind, but bushwhacking through the charred remains of trees in search of privacy was messy business and left me covered in black ash (a nice combo when mixed with generic hiking grime and lots of sun block).


When we stopped for lunch at "Second Caves," we were treated to a true picture of the number of hikers (and staff) on the Rongai Route with us.  It was a crowded lunch spot with a party atmosphere.  Sunshine, fresh air, beautiful views, music and bare bellies were all on the menu (along with soup and Medium Fat Spread sandwiches). However, it was Smokin' Santa that took my breath away.  As we all waddled along at a snail's pace, intent on forward progress, deep breathing and water consumption, this porter had likely just sprinted to the lunch spot, set up shop and was now enjoying a high-altitude smoke break.  It gave me a giggle anyway, although not as much of a giggle as the large, white belly on one of our Czech friends on the trail who had seen fit to disrobe for his noon-time meal.  We wasted a large part of lunch imagining him in leiderhosen dancing a jig to the summit.  There was also some discussion about improperly restrained body parts on women in the same climbing group...evidently we were still feeling too good.

A crowded lunch at Second Caves...

I wear my sunglasses at lunch...
to cut the glare from the pasty-white,
protruding bellies!

Sadly, the laughter had to end at some point, and we packed up to carry on.  Actually, we just popped on our day packs and headed up the trail.  Magically our dining tent came down, chairs disappeared, tables were folded away and somehow they all beat us to camp four hours later.  More beautiful hiking was the order of the afternoon with plenty of time for conversation.  It was on this afternoon that someone in our group first dared question the authenticity of the Fat Lady on the Mountain.  A long conversation ensued during which there was much debate about whether a seriously overweight person could manage this hike.  Fortunately Smurf was prepared with all of his statistical research. He was able to reassure us that it is the most "unlikely" people who have the greatest success rate on Kilimanjaro...the old, the fat, the slow, the couch potatoes, the smokers and the heavy drinkers. He had some scientific rational for this interesting statistic, but all I heard was "even an old, fat, chain-smoking alcoholic can climb this mountain..."  Great motivation for the afternoon climb!

Oh yeah...I could TOTALLY do that!  I just
wanted to let him feel manly.

After we finally put the Fat Lady to bed, we moved on to other interesting topics of conversation.  We brainstormed evening entertainment options including a Kili-Olympics of sorts with events like projectile vomiting (for distance) and peeing for the record (based on quantity).  We invented a new flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream dubbed, "Puke on the Boots," packed with chunks (naturally). We learned about dung beetles and how each kind of dung has its own beetle, so a mongoose dung beetle is partial to mongoose dung whereas an elephant dung beetle only has a nose for elephant feces.  And, we began our Swahili lessons in earnest with locker room talk.  Inspired by lunch time sightings, we learned that "Matiti" means breast and "Mataco" refers to your hind end.  We also learned that "choo" refers to "woman parts," which then (of course) lead to an extended discussion about what a choo choo train is.  We also perfected some of the polite conversational phrases we would need on the mountain like, "Let's go: Twende, Ready: Tayari, How's it going?: Mambo?, Well: Poa, and, the over-used and ever-present, Hakuna Matata, which functioned as punctuation in Guide John's speech.  Every sentence ended with "hakuna matata."  The guy was unflappable.

Just after 4:30 p.m., we hopped over Dr. Seuss-like vegetation into Camp #2, Kikeliwea (3600 m).  It had been a full day of hiking.  I congratulated myself on accomplishing my goal of 5X5 (5 liters of water by 5:00) and promptly ran for the toilet tent and popped another Diamox (seeking my daily dose of tingle). 

Camp #2 with Mwenzi and Kibo in the background.  Kibo still looks awfully far away.

I'm sure it was the Diamox talking when I heard Chris exclaim, "I never knew Crocs could be so comfortable!  I'm going to buy myself a pair in every color when I get home (and some fuzzy ones for winter wear!).  Perhaps I hallucinated the last part, but at altitude the brain does funny things. While we enjoyed a late afternoon "tea" of the various hot drink concoction options and roasted peanuts, we heard, "The guy is here to grab your bladders" - signaling that it was time to pull out empty Camelback bladders and water bottles for refilling for the next day's chug fest.  Really this hike all came down to bladders - the challenge of filling one with clean, treated mountain water, and the challenge of emptying another with nary a bush for peeing privacy.

Potty talk continued over dinner until Howard chimed in with his "true confession" for the day.  After the previous night's revelation that he had been "stiffed" on the accessory front in the south-cul-de-sac, the TK crew had been quick to rectify the situation and saw to it that he got soap and toilet paper like all of the rest of us, and he got bathing water too (which naturally was not clean enough for the germaphobe).  Howard admitted that while attempting to wash in the bowl of mountain water, he had set his soap down on the ground.  Apparently he missed the memo about the soap-eating ravens, because his soap was snapped up in a matter of seconds by one of those overly-bold behemoths.  Thus began the story of Howard's soap-eating raven who would follow us and mock him on the trail for the rest of our journey.

Perhaps it was the incessant teasing or perhaps he was just tired, but at some point in the evening Howard just checked out.  He stared off into the distance (perhaps dreaming of his germ-free friends at home or flush toilets) and looked as if he were sleeping with his eyes wide open. This, of course, lead to more fun at Howard's expense.  We coined the phrase, "Doing a Howard," to indicate that someone was spacing out on the job. 

Guide John came in to give our nightly briefing - to remind us to eat, drink, sleep with our heads elevated, pack our "rain gears," and walk slowly. He warned us that, on day three, our hike would be steep but short. Hakuna Matata.  We would be finished hiking by lunchtime, but then we would take an afternoon hike "just for fun" to acclimate better to our increased sleeping altitude. Hakuna Matata.  With visions of "Puke on the Boots" dancing in my head, I snuggled into my warm sleeping bag, dressed in multiple layers of long johns and socks, and drifted off to sleep.

Day One: Diamox Talks

After a fitful night of sleep at the Outpost Lodge in Arusha, it was at last time to head for the mountain. I hopped out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to enjoy my last shower for the week only to discover that the only water coming from the tap was ice cold.  Hmmm...not a good start.  I began with a shocking shampoo and prioritized from there - already dreaming of the post-climb shower before we had even left the hotel.  I bid the kids good-bye over Skype and gave them one last glimpse of all of my fingers and toes in the event that any should be missing upon my return.  When the Smurf reported that there was no water at all in his room and begged for a freezing shower in ours, my spirits lifted a little.  Misery loves company.

At 8:30 the Team Kilimanjaro crew arrived with the rest of the freaks.  This was our first meeting, and we were all on our best behavior.  The jury was still out on exactly what kind of group bonding was going to occur on this adventure.  We piled into the "short bus" that was designed to carry far fewer passengers than we squished and stacked onto the available seats.  There were the nine of us (the paying climbers  - or the marshmallows) and about 15-20 more TK staff (the chocolate chips) squeezed in for this smelly adventure.  It was, indeed, quite ripe already, and I could only imagine what that bus was bound to smell like on our return trip.

Eggs in the heat.
Hmmm...E. coli anyone?

The drive to the Rongai Gate, where we would begin our climb, took about five hours with various stops along the way to pick up more staff, food and prescriptions.  We caught some early glimpses of the mountain, and I was pleased to see that the summit was still covered in snow.  We searched and searched for the elusive giraffe that appears on every postcard of Kilimanjaro.  We may as well have been searching for a unicorn.  As we got closer to the mountain, the scenery turned from dusty and brown to tropical with endless banana trees. 

Early glimpse of the mountain

Sun hats? Souvenirs?

Once we reached the gate, we "officially" registered, used the toilets a few times (Howard's foray into the "staff toilet" convinced him that he would not be pooping this week) and ate our first meal of soup and sandwiches together.    This first round of soup tasted great.  By day seven, we would not think so kindly of this dietary option.  However, on day one, the excitement was still running high, and we all wore rose-colored soup glasses.  I believe we may even have marveled at how tasty the tomato and "Medium Fat Spread" sandwiches were.  The super-sized tub of Medium Fat Spread that would grace our meal table for the next week (in various forms ranging from slightly melted to frozen solid)  became a sort of sick fascination (along with the Nido - instant creamer).  Would a product called "Medium Fat Spread" ever sell in the United States?

The porters spent their time at the gate sorting and weighing our equipment, repackaging our backpacks into large "rice bags" which they would carry atop their heads and, no doubt, fighting for the job of carrying the "private potty tent and equipment." Apparently the person who takes on this job (including the cleaning task) gets a hefty chunk of the tips at the end of the climb (as they well should). The porters are paid based on the weight that they carry up the mountain, so I was happy to do my part in bringing along enough layers to keep a sun-seeking iguana warm at the summit.  I do believe there was a small scuffle over who had dibs on my monstrous bag (just after the toilet tent job had been assigned).

Ummm...yeah, I could do that.

The porters took off ahead of us - practically sprinting up the trail - so that they would have our camp set up when we arrived three hours later.  We snapped the last of the shiny, squeaky-clean, smiley photos before setting off up the trail.  The adrenalin was pumping.  At last we were getting started on this adventure that had been looming for so long. Our natural reflex was to run up the mountain.  It seemed flat.  The path was smooth - alternating between green grass and tropical plants and shady pine forest.  This is where we got our first lesson in the TK pace...pole, pole.  With a guide at the front as a human barrier against sprinting, our pace was, at best, a turtle walk.  Having been stuck in a bus all day with the anticipation of the climb ahead of us, the speed restriction was challenging.  But, this would be just the first of many occasions on which it was best to trust the instinct of the guides.

Smiling...

Still squeaky clean!  Sue, where are you?

The three hours we hiked over gradually rising terrain turned into polite socializing time.  We learned more about our Ohio climbing crew and our lone Aussie. When we reached Simba Camp at 5:30, we marveled at the level of pampered-camping we found waiting for us.  Our tents were arranged in two areas...the north cul-de-sac, for the couples' tents, and the south cul-de-sac for the singles (or "the land of the misfits" as I preferred to call ourselves).  Our sleeping pads had been dusted.  Toilet paper, soap and a bowl of hot water for "bathing" was delivered to each of us*.  Our water bottles were picked up for refilling.  There was nothing to do but "bathe" and keep out precious bars of soap safe from the soap-eating ravens we* had been warned about (these flying rodents hovered nearby for the entire week).

Highlights from the trail on Day #1

(Kelly, where's the banana photo?)

The South Cul-de-Sac and the Al Fresco Bath (sounds nicer already)

Home for a week

Bathing in a small bowl of water with a bar of soap, no cloth, no towel and no clean water for rinsing is really a fruitless activity.  At this point on the climb, the water was still arriving warm, so it at least served as a good hand soak for a few minutes.  Baby wipes, however, were really the bathing "tool" of choice.  Fortunately one of the goals of the TK guides was to never let us sweat - another reason for the plodding pace.  At higher elevations and colder temperatures, sweaty clothes would translate into freezing bodies.  Thus, the baby wipe bath was more an exercise in wiping away grime than sweat, because sweating was strictly forbidden.

Attention Fashion Police!  Smurf's footware at the end of the day closely
resembles Crocs (hmmm...this is the boy who claims that Crocs are indeed
the Devil's gift to fashion).  But no, it's actually worse!  These are not Crocs.
They are Frocs (fraudulent Crocs - decorated in nothing less than a faux
wood-paneling a la 1970's pattern).  Ooooh...the standards are dropping quickly.

In addition to "bathing." we had a few minutes to compare the "long-drop" permanent toilets with the private portable potties that had been carried up the mountain. The long drops smelled awful, but there was a certain sense of anonymity in pooping where thousands before you had done the same. The same can not be said for the private potty. In a group of nine, you are always going to know where the contents that greet your arrival in the potty tent came from. This is the point at which Howard informed us that he would not be using the private potty tent because he did not want to touch the same zipper that all of us had unzipped and zipped on our way in and out of the tent each time. Apparently the "long-drop" was a less germy option because he could kick the door open and closed. Can I just say, eeeeeew?

The offending zipper and accompanying toilet

Once everyone had spread out their sleeping bags, bathed with wipes and explored the restroom facilities, we reconvened in the "dining tent" for our first dinner together.  This is where the polite social banter began to breakdown, the potty talk began, and the real bonding commenced.  For starters, another steadfast TK rule (after "pole, pole," and NO SWEATING) was 4X4 - referring to the need to drink at least four liters of water everyday before 4:00 p.m.  This would not be a collective four liters of water for the group, but four liters per person before 4:00.  This presented a serious challenge for me.  I am a camel by nature.  I don't typically drink 1/2 glass of water in a day - never mind four liters.  I will run an entire marathon without drinking.  I don't really like water.  What's a girl to do?

Romantic candlelit dinner with a bunch of trash-talking teenagers

Well, slightly petrified about the threat of altitude sickness, I drank my heart out.  I started sucking on that Camelback first thing in the morning and didn't stop until it had been drained twice.  Ugh.  Naturally this unusually high rate of water consumption lead to an unusually high frequency of trail side pit stops for everyone in the group.  Nothing like repeatedly stopping to pee behind a tree (which only got more amusing as we climbed above the tree line and were reduced to a wild pack of peeing dogs intent on laying claim to the largest rocks we could find) with a group of people you barely know.

Naturally, the conversation quickly became potty talk.  How many liters did you drink?  How many times did you pee? Are you taking Diamox (a prescription drug that is supposed to help alleviate symptoms of altitude sickness that also, you guessed it, makes you pee)?  If so, did you drink the recommended five liters of water?  Are you tingling?

Tingling?  Yes.  One of the side effects of Diamox is the Diamox tingle - an odd numb-tingling sensation that feels a little like part of your body has gone to sleep, and it's going through a warm tingle to wake up again.  Many of us were taking Diamox, and we would be struck with tingles at any time during the day.  Toes, heels, fingers, lips...you name it, it tingled.  Apparently Chris got the full-tongue tingle on this first day.  He started talking at dinner, and we couldn't shut him up.  He babbled in off-color commentary for a good part of the meal.  Kelly shook her head in disbelief.  "Chris doesn't talk. I'm not sure what is going on."  We all decided it was the Diamox talking.  Kelly made a note to herself for future frustrations with lack of "spousal communication:" Administer one tablet of Diamox and wait for talking to begin.  Unfortunately we did not figure out how to shut him up.

Over our dinner of tilapia, potatoes and cabbage, we discussed the camping arrangements and all of the "accessories" that had been delivered to our tents prior to dinner.  *Howard looked confused.  "What toilet paper? You got water?  Soap?  They refilled your water bottles?  Are you guys kidding me?"  Apparently Howard's tent was a little too well hidden in the land of the misfits, and he had been forgotten in the "accessory delivery process."  Poor Howard. We all had a good laugh at his expense, and the teasing began in earnest.  As Howard forked bread on to his plate (rather than taking a piece with his hands), he took the first round of grief about his germaphobia as we all speculated about how he would possibly survive the week (and then proceeded to come up with as many possible ways to gross him out as possible).

Gayle was conspicuously absent from our dinner-time social hour (unfortunately for Howard, because she might have provided some badly needed support as he drowned in Diamox-induced banter).  Gayle was suffering the first signs of altitude trouble and was attempting to sleep it off and get it out of her system.  I think we all sobered up a bit and realised that this hike was likely to get tougher - not easier as the days progressed. 

Our fearless (and quite likely permanently traumatized by
our middle-school behavior) leader, John.

John, or "Wazi" (Open One) as everyone on the mountain seemed to know him, arrived after dinner to brief us on the next day's plan.  This would be the first of many pre-hike briefings that John would deliver - all memorable for the sheer speed at which they were delivered and the number of times in which the same information was repeated in a variety of different ways.  John spoke in the manner in which he wanted us to walk...pole, pole.  He thought through every word, breathed deeply (often mid sentence) and very, very slowly got his point across.  If anyone ventured a question, John repeated the answer in four or five different ways to make sure we understood.  Toward the end of the week, questions were strictly banned by the group just so we wouldn't have to endure the answer session.  There's nothing like having to desperately pee (remember how much we were drinking) when you are trapped at a table in a tent listening to suggestions for minor blister treatment being rephrased over and over again.

With day one behind us we all returned to our tents and crawled into our warm water beds (except for Howard, who apparently missed that memo and was stuck sleeping on a thin camp mattress for the entire week).

Meet the Freaks

Back in Vermont with a solid Internet connection for the first time in three weeks, there is a Kili story to tell.  SPOILER ALERT **** We made it.  Summited.  Descended.  I still have ten figures and toes.****

The good news is that this enables me to type as I always have (in contrast to the pre-trip visions I had of having to relearn how to do everything with my nose after losing my appendages to frostbite).  So, if you are reading along simply to find out if we survived.  We did.  If you are reading because you are intereseted in climbing Kilimanjaro yourself and are researching Tanzanian flora and fauna, possible climbing routes and the environmental impact of global warning on the famed Kilimanjaro glaciers, you are definitely in the wrong place.  If you would like to hear a funny story about a group of nine slightly off-balance people drawn together by the pull of a mountain challenge and repelled from one another by the smell of their socks after too many days of baby wipe baths, you are in the right spot. Hold your nose, supress your gag reflex, and enjoy the ride.

Well before our trip began (back when we officially registered to climb with Team Kilimanjaro), Chris sent a reminder email to the five of us who had signed up to climb together. "Once our climb is posted on the site, anyone can sign up to join us.  Recruit your friends.  Otherwise you never know what kind of freaks we may end up with!"  None of us heeded his sinister warning.

Meet the freaks*

*In fairness to the beauties below, all closeup face shots were taken on the seventh day of our climb.  No one had showered in a week.  Hats were strictly forbidden.

 

Howard: A fifty-one-year-old reformed lawyer who runs a company that invests in cell towers (or something like that) came along on this trip as a part of a threesome from Ohio (with his friends Jeff and Gayle).  "Howie" (as only Gayle was technically allowed to call him because she has known him since birth, but by the end of the week we all took the liberty of using "Howie" because we felt like we'd known him for a lifetime) left twin ten-year-old daughters and a wife who "would never poop in a box" behind in Ohio for this little adventure.  Howard confessed early on our first day to being a germaphobe (or perhaps it was just obvious by the way he forked his bread from the serving plate at lunch and looked on with disdain as the rest of us used our grubby little fingers to pick up our sandwiches). A phobia of germs is tricky to indulge on the trail when cooped in small, grubby tents and sharing dirty trail toilets with the sniffling, sneezing, unwashed heathens who are, in fact, your climbing companions (and only source of entertainment) for an entire week.  Howard merits three photos because, although we left him after our climbing adventure, his presence in the form of a cell tower or a soap eating raven seemed to watch over us for the remainder of our African journey.  It was spiritual in a creepy sort of way.

Jeff: Surgeon by day, covert mountain-top pharmaceuticals dealer by night.  Jeff instilled a sense of confidence in us all by reassuring us that if anyone lost a finger on the trail, he was definitely qualified to reattach it to his/her rectum (since that is apparently his area of expertise in his professional life).  Jeff arrived in Tanzania with Gayle and Howard by way of a longer than anticipated layover in Amsterdam where they watched TV and fretted about missing luggage.  Fortunately, Jeff had packed his fully stocked mountain first-aid kit overflowing with any possible drug you could anticipate needing on this climb. We should have paid extra to travel with this guy (or at least contriubuted a copay). Jeff and Gayle were celebrating their 20th anniversary (although Jeff assured us there would be no real "celebrating" going on in their tent at altitude - claiming it would be physically impossible. The rest of us were curious about this hypothesis and encouraged Jeff and Gayle to report back to us on the results of experimentation.  Gayle shook her head and claimed to be suffering from altitude headaches). Jeff and Gayle were also celebrating their 50th birthdays with this adventure. 

Gayle, pronounced "Gay Lee" by everyone on the Team Kilimanjaro staff due to the Swahili habit of pronouncing every letter in a word): First, Gayle's clean appearance and cheery smile is due to the fact that her picture was taken on the first day of our hike (not our last). I have made an exception in her case because A) she had just survived an enormous dust storm when we last saw her and was somewhat scantily clad as her wet laundry had been drenched in sand and B) she was just a sweet woman who deserves a break for having bravely endured this adventure in the company of Jeff and Howard. The story goes that it was Gayle who was the mastermind behind the Ohio crew's climbing effort.  Howie and Jeff both blamed their presence on the mountain on this persistent nurse/marathoner/mom who got it in her mind that they needed to climb Kilimanjaro.  Gayle was due to celebrate big #50 shortly after her return from Tanzania. Gayle and Jeff left their three children, ages 19, 17 and 15, at home to cheer from them from afar.

Sue (pronounced "Sue Eh" by the TK crew): This lone Australian in our group really had no idea what hit her for seven days.  Somehow this mother of two and grandmother of two, who ran away from Australia to escape her 50th birthday celebration, ended up with this crazy group of people headed up Kilimanjaro.  Her African itineraries had gotten jumbled.  She was supposed to be seeing gorillas in the mist but somehow ended up seeing out of only one eye from the roof of Africa (but that story will come later).  Consequently, Sue's trip preparation was a bit limited.  By the third day on the trail, we convinced her that she should zip her tent closed to stay warmer at night (it was below freezing mind you).  By the seventh day, Sue learned how to tie her hiking boots.  She provided comic relief for all of us. Throughout it all, Sue maintained a great sense of humor and her success was a tribute to how far you can go on sheer willpower.

Eva: An energetic and athletic, 23-year-old hailing from Alaska (but coming to us via Mexican and South African travel adventures) is Lisa's cousin.  She likely spent most of this trip wondering how exactly she ended up with this group of old geezers climbing the mountain.  Younger than everyone in our group by a decade or two or three, Eva dealt admirably with the slow pace and sophisticated conversations (mostly about bodily functions) of her geriatic trail mates.  With an Alaskan tolerance for cold, Eva's choice of shorts for hiking attire (and the glimpses they provided of her well-toned hiking legs) was likely responsible for motivating all twenty-plus porters and staff with our group to carry on up the trail every day.

Lisa: A dear friend from our junior-year-abroad in France and my connection to Africa, Lisa is my heroine.  I live vicariously through her as she jets around the world single-hendedly fighting poverty and hunger, protecting children and empowering communities. At the end of the day, this super woman comes home to her seven-year-old African princess, Bella, who generously shared her home and her mom with us. Africa is "home" for Lisa. She speaks fluent Swahili and is a tremendous asset to all travel adventures in this part of the world. She was excited to join us on Kilimanjaro and "do something touristy" for a change. We were thrilled to have her as part of our group - teaching us all of the necessary middle school locker room vacabulary in Swahili so we could describe various body parts we saw along the trail and various bodily functions we experienced along the way. Lisa made sure we didn't miss out on the guides' gossip, made various special requests in Swahili and, generally, just kept the story straight for us for the entire week.

Chris: a.k.a. Smurf, Chris was the Kilimanjaro planner in our group.  After an sunless few weeks spent frolicking in the rains of Vietnam, he was ready for another travel adventure – ideally one with less precipitation and mold.  A few weeks after he and the Smurfette returned to Vermont from Vietnam, I got the email.  “Are you serious about Kilimanjaro?”  My answer was, “Yes.”  The next thing I knew, we were signed on with Team Kilimanjaro, and the motivational links to videos and blogs of everyone and their mother climbing Kilimanjaro began arriving in my inbox.  Chris is a planner.  He did the research, studied the route, evaluated the proper number of days to spend on the mountain, did comparisons of success rates based on age, athletic ability, route choice, average temperatures and the phases of the moon (and I refuse to let him forget that he did not schedule our summit attempt on the night of a full moon).   On our first day on the trail, most of us were still trying to figure out exactly how many nights we were going to have to sleep in a tent.  Chris knew the mileage of our hike, the altitude we would gain, the type of forest we would be hiking through and what we should expect to see along the trail.  Thankfully someone knew what we were doing, because, by day five, we were all questioning what, exactly, we were doing.  And why?

Kelly: a.k.a. Smurfette, Kelly ended up on this adventure by virtue of being married to the Smurf.  There had been some decision making involved in the choice to leave behind sweet Atilia, the two-year-old Smurf baby, but in the end Kelly was game (if not completely clear on why she was doing this).  Kelly’s main contribution to our climbing group was her running commentary on the experience of the “Fat Woman on the Mountain” (a large Vermont woman who has summited Kilimanjaro three times). Kelly contacted the Fat Lady before coming to Africa and showered us with useful tidbits of information throughout our hike (ie. always use condoms at altitude, even if you have had a vasectomy, because you never know what your body will do on the mountain).  Some tidbits may have gotten slightly twisted along the way, but Fat Lady trivia made for excellent conversation nonetheless.  For you naysayers among us who were convinced this woman was a complete hoax (after having experienced the effort it took to haul your skinny little asses to the summit), here's her link http://fatwomanonthemountain.com/.

Jennifer (So I made a small exception to the "no hats" rule for myself...let's call it artistic license.  There is no way was I going to post a picture of myself on day seven): Yours truly has been dreaming about the Kili climb ever since I skipped it fifteen years ago (having just vomited my way up and down Mt. Kenya).  It was on my bucket list for my fortieth year, but that turned out to be a very long year.  So, footloose and forty-three seemed like as good a time as any to finally get to the mountain.  Leaving behind Foster, Brianna and Nolan was the toughest part. Knowing that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” made the separation possible.