Journey to the roof of Africa

After hours of a fun ride through bewitching Maasai land, the shuttle ushered us across the Kenya-Tanzania border at Namanga just before noon on a cool Sunday morning.

Immediately we crossed the border, it occurred to me that this was happening. After weeks of planning for the biggest gig of my life (yet), fate had brought me face-to-face with the mother of all expeditions — climbing Mt Kilimanjaro — and I felt (hoped is more like it) that I was up to the challenge.

This was not the first time though that I had attempted to climb to the summit of Africa. No. I had embarked on a similar mission a year earlier, hoping to conquer this monster of a mountain, but only going up to Point Stella, the second peak.

I had climbed down those cliffs a buoyant girl, my petite frame curling around thickets and rocks with the agility of a gazelle. And I had told the tale to whoever would care to listen afterward.

But this time... this time I intended to do better. Nothing short of Point Uhuru, the peak of the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

(Mt Kilimanjaro boasts the title of ‘the highest free-standing mountain in the world’ — Everest is simply the highest — because its height is relative to the sea level, meaning it is not in a mountain range.

Mt Everest stands on top of the Himalayas mountain range, its base at the extremely high altitude of between 2,000 and 4,000 metres, from where the mountain starts its rise to about 8,000 metres high up in the skies).

So yeah, I was hoping to heave and pant it to the peak of the highest free-standing mount in the whole wide world. We spent our first night at Impala Hotel in Arusha, where, unbeknown to us, we took the last bath for the seven days that lay ahead of us!

At dawn the following morning, we boarded the shuttle to the Madara Gate, where we embarked on the journey proper, this time on foot. The first part of the trek proved to be no obstacle.

I was actually having fun as I surveyed this paradise on earth, urged on by the happy tunes of contented birds. Day One to Madara warmed our muscles and, as the sun dipped in the horizon, we curled into our cabins for the night.

NTV’s Emmanuel Juma looked jubilant, while Dr James Kisia from the Kenya Red Cross wondered whether “this tiny, grubby, little cabin with hardly any ventilation” would really see him through the night.

It did, and Day Two took him and us to Horombo, 20 kilometres away. The cold was beginning to set in, so we were advised to do early evening exercises to keep warm and prevent our muscles from getting all crampy and grumpy on us.

On Day Three we decided to do an acclimatisation gig, which meant we would walk all the way to Zebra Cliff then return to Horombo Camp for the night. That way, we were told, our bodies would get used to the high altitude.

Day Four saw us ascend to Kibo Huts, our last camp before we attempted to scale the summit. The cold was unbearable, but sitting there, in the dark night and with a billion stars shining above us, we took comfort in the fact that we were doing this for a worthy cause.

When we left Nairobi a few days earlier, we were all driven by one thing: charity. Two things, actually: charity and a bit of fun. We planned to raise money to preserve the water catchment area of Loitokitok, a dry expanse to the South West of the capital. And so, as we rested for the night after having the last hot meal we would have in the next 24 hours, we knew it was all worth it.

But we were not alone. Ahead and behind us were hundreds, probably thousands of other climbers, all heaving it to the top of the mountain for pleasure, personal accomplishment or charity.

We had started the final ascent in the wee hours of the night and, as we trudged on, filing up the mountain like an army of ants, our boots crushing the stones and thickets beneath our feat, our sinewy backs contorting with every step we took, and with the cold mercilessly harassing our very patience, it became clear to us — at least to me — that this was no joke. Mother Nature had put this gigantic piece of beauty right in our paths, and she seemed somehow disinterested in letting us have it easy.

Several hours into the dark night, I told my guide: “I have to get to Uhuru, even if I have to crawl to get there!”

“Sawa,” he replied in perfect Kiswahili. “We’ niachie tu hio kazi, tutaimaliza.” (Alrightie, you just leave that up to me, it’s as good as accomplished.)

Okay, I padded that up, but you will have to excuse the excitement!

Soon, excitement aside, the walk began to take its toll. One by one, weary, weather-beaten souls began to turn back. But I trudged on, my feeble steps somehow managing to connect with the barely visible path. Ahead of me I could see the lead pack — not the pack, actually, but their trail of headlights that fluttered in the dark night like tiny fire flies in the distance.

Hours later, worn out, wet and exhausted, I let out a sigh of relief as our guide, like a troops commander in a battlefield, pointed to the sun beginning to form an orange hue behind us. Day was breaking.

Determined to reach my destination, I painstakingly put one foot in front of the other, my chest burning with every breath I took. This was no longer a mountaineering expedition. It had become a battle of mind over body.

And then, despite a torrent of coughs racking my exhausted body, the guide suggested we needed to pick up the pace. Is this man mad? I asked myself.

I could hardly walk! His argument was that, if I stayed longer on this path, the rangers on the mountain would spot me and have me evacuated before I reached Uhuru. That was the diesel I needed to fire up the pistons.

I had come this darn far, and nothing would keep me from Uhuru! Not even those namby-pamby rangers. I would not surrender to the gods of Kilimanjaro. The altitude and the cold would not prevail over me.

It did it the previous year, I won’t this time.

Then I got spiritual. In the heat of the moment, with the peak towering over me like a monster straight out of a fairy tale page, I remembered a verse from the book of Exodus in the Bible. “If your presence does not go with us, do not take us up from here.”

Words have a way of getting to people’s nerves, and that flowery piece from the Bible did it for me. I asked God to help me get to Uhuru... and I would not claim victory for the triumph. I willed my feet to move.
Up! Up! Up! Up!

Progress!

Award-winning progress.

Then I stumbled on a rock and fell, injuring my knee. Riziki, my guide, rushed to help me up. “You need to focus,” he whispered, then said some mushy things straight from a movie script. My colleague and Daily Nation reporter Alphonse Shiundu stepped up to be the gentleman, removing his fleece and helping me into it before Riziki took hold of my hand and guided me in the direction of Uhuru.

My eyes had all of a sudden become foggy, my breathing laboured, my chest on fire and my whole body shaking from the cold. My life literally depended on Shiundu and Riziki now.

A few yards later, Riziki lifted me up and carried me over some clustered rocks then set me down and continued to pace as if nothing had happened.

What the h...? Dimly aware that he did not have to do this, I mustered all my remaining strength and stumbled on.

I was still in some sort of cold-induced daze when Riziki set me on a rock and clasped my face in his hands.

“Look up at the sign,” he smiled at me. “You have achieved your dream. You are on top of Africa!”

Ladies and gentlemen, I had made it to Uhuru. I had made it to the highest point of Mt Kilimanjaro. I had made it to the roof of Africa. I was 5,895 metres above sea level. Eat your hearts out!

A few minutes later I was being evacuated. Halfway down the mountain, I met colleagues Emmanuel Juma (NTV) and Azu Ogola (Human Resource). The chaps looked the way I felt — finished!

Kaput!

Over and out!

But our hearts were at peace. We had made it to Uhuru. And we had also learned a few lessons in the process. For me, the realisation that I can’t be me without you, that I need a helping hand every now and then, that humility, dependence and gratitude must be a defining part of me, was as overwhelming as the view from the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro.

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In their own words

Nasra Ali (Kenya Red Cross): I bonded with nature so much that I struggled to get back into the routine of every-day city life. The first two days after we got back, I went to Karura Forest every day just to be around natural surroundings.

Dr James Kisia (Kenya Red Cross): The experience made me think about what we would do on a daily basis if we did not live in a house, or drive a car or have running water. I enjoyed just being able to go through every day without worrying about the house, or car, or phone calls from work. Maybe I am a country boy masquerading as a city chap!

At the recce in Mt Kenya, before we even embarked on Kilimanjaro, nature helped me see life from a different perspective. When it comes down to the basics, we often worry too much about things that mean so little.

Everlyne Wangema (Amiran/Red Cross): I miss the simplicity of Kilimanjaro. Everyone’s efforts count for something. When we tell our stories in the evening, everyone’s mask comes off. We discover that even those who are ahead of the pack, seemingly fit and full of energy, also endure their own kind of struggles, be they physical, emotional or even spiritual.

Annie Gitau (Nation Media Group): You must be authentic, because you (and everyone else) are vulnerable. At the end of the day, you cannot afford to pretend to be okay, you just have to be yourself: tempers fly, smiles encourage someone... and those who stretch out helping hands also need a helping hand further along the trail.

Steve Kiteto (Tanari): An hour’s worth of play in the evening to keep warm is worth more than a thousand words of a well meant conversation. Sometimes you just need to play, not reason.

Patrick Kioi (Red Cross): The unassuming effect of Kilimanjaro makes you feel humbled. You feel part of a team that you do not want to let down, part of a whole that you do not want to break away from.

You do not want to be the one who fails to reach the summit. Yet at the same time, even if you do not reach there, and the rest of the team does, you still feel you played your part, and that the success is based on teamwork. You are all winners.

George Ndegwa (Safaricom): There comes a time when your experience does not count. Only your will to carry on propels you. Nature requires you to rest, and you have to obey.

Millicent Okumu (Volunteer, Red Cross): Sometimes even the hardest places look like a dream — acceptable and inviting. There was a time when every big rock meant we could rest.

I started appreciating those huge frozen rocks, because it meant I could take a break and rest a while. At some point, there was a rock that looked like a sofa, I actually began to fall asleep on it!

Alphonse Shiundu (Nation Media Group): Conserve your energy, you will need it on the last day. It requires discipline to pace yourself. But it pays off in the end.

Muhia Karianjahi (Lead Guide, Tanari): I have seen and worked with many groups on mountain climbing and team building, but I have never seen a group like this.

You are awesome. I kept expecting people to lose their tempers and fight, but you stayed in the honeymoon stage and loved one another, helped one another and looked out for one another. Congratulations! That is why the ratio of those who made it to the summit was higher than any other group that I have ever worked with.