The first thing people
visualize when I say that I have been to Kilimanjaro is the location of the song from Endhiran
‘Kilimanjaro malai Kani Manjaro’ .Then I have to give them a bit of gyaan
saying that Rajini romances Aishwarya not in Kilimanjaro,Africa but in Macchu Pichu in Peru,South America the land of the Incans.[Now that I have
cleverly included Rajini to increase my view count lets go back to my post ]
We were a group of about 17 people from all across the globe
who had enrolled for the Kilimanjaro,Trek in Africa. We had decided to pursue
two different routes to the summit. A group of six people chose to take the Rongai route whereas the
rest of us were to take the Marangu route to the Summit.I will write about our
adventures in the Marangu route
Day-1
After a round of introductions at the Mumbai Airport all of
us departed for Addis Ababa,Ethiopia. Here Ramesh taught us a couple of breathing and stretching
exercises and we started doing the exercises at the airport much to the
amusement and bewilderment of the passengers there.From there we took the
flight to Kilimanjaro
We
landed at the Kilimanjaro International airport and went to our hotel the Shah,Inn
Moshi. Moshi is a small town at the base
of Kilimanjaro where most of the trekkers who want to Summit Kilimanjaro stay
in.The official currency of Tanzania is the TSH(Tanzanian shilling) and we get
about 1600 TSH per dollar.We were obviously thrilled to change USD into TSH
since we became lakhpatis and crorepatis in an instant(though the prices were
insane as well , we had to pay 1000 TSH for an apple!!).
We had a briefing with our tour company named Akaro and
those of us who were a little understocked on gear planned to rent it
from them. After dinner we went for a well deserved nap
Day-2
We got
ready in the morning bade farewell to
the Rongai folks.We were especially sad to see Ramesh leave as he had given us
a lot of advice right from breathing
tips to dietary advice like ‘Soy milk’.After getting introduced to our guide Jimmy and his team we were off to the
Kilimanjaro National Park, the starting point of our trek.
After a
bit of delay we started off on our first leg to the Mandara Hut through the
dense equatorial forest. We were able to see a few colobus monkeys and some
white necked ravens(just our normal crow
slightly bigger with a white collar around its neck, it did have a good white
collar job though, collecting the leftovers from our meals and keeping the
other crows at bay).People have high expectations of the animals you are
expected to see in Africa and anything less
than lions and tigers will not do for them. Unfortunately(or
fortunately) we were not able to see any of that
As we kept walking
through the forest the vegetation
started to clear a bit and we started seeing the first of the moss covered
trees. We were able to make it to Mandara at about 4 in the evening
Day-3
Today
we had to make our way from the Mandara Hut which is at 2750m a.s.l to the
Horombo hut which is approximately 3800m
a.s.l which is a 10 K.M walk. The vegetation started to rapidly clear as we
kept walking.We had lunch midway in one of the specifically designated spots the
weather started to change rapidly and
from about 20 degrees it came down to
around 5 at this point [thankfully we were prepared for this).After walking for
some more time we were able to see the strange looking alien type plants called
Lobelias
After walking for about six hrs we made it to the Horombo
huts. The view from these huts were simply ‘out of the world’.In the daytime
one could see the clouds below
and in
the nights one could have a clear unobstructed view of the sky with the shades
of yellow that characterize the milky way.Even though we were very tired
we just could not fail to appreciate the
sight of the night sky
Day-4
This was
our acclimatization day where we had to ‘go high and sleep low’.We were to go
just above 4000m to a place called the zebra rocks and then return to the
Horombo hut. This passed pretty uneventfully and we are able to easily finish
the 1.5 hr climb..After taking a lot of pics near the rocks we returned to our
camp.
We were
able to get some sleep in the afternoon and we all spent the evening
outdoors.We met an interesting guy from Holland who shared his trek experience
with us.He even made a good mnemonic for us to remember on Summit day 1,2,3,4.1
Pair of boots, 2-Pairs of socks , 3-Layers for the lower body and finally
4-layers for the upper body.After basking in the warmth for a while we went to
sleep early(fattened calfs getting ready for the kill )
Day-5
This was to be a
long day and an even longer night.We started early in the morning and we were
able to reach our next pitstop the ‘Kibo Hut’ just at the base of the Summit. By this time the mountain
had taken its toll on all of us and all of us had some sort of ailment. After
trying in vain to get some sleep we got ready to summit the mountain at 11:30 PM
The last part
of the summit was pretty tough.The inclination was close to 60 degrees .So we
had to zig-zag our way up the mountain.Also the temperature was very low (
about -5) so our guide didn’t really allow us rest. The sight of everyone with
a headlamp making their way up the mountain like a slowly moving caterpillar was pretty impressive.To prevent
us sleeping our beloved guides started singing African songs with absurd lyrics
containing all our names .‘Zaina Zaina’ and ‘Jambo Sana’ come readily to my
mind
After what seemed like an eternity the sun started rising and
to our pleasant surprise we were not less than 100m below the first summit. Sunrise just below Gilman’s
point where you can see the Mawenzi crater and the whole of Africa beneath you
just makes you breathless.The sun really started to warm us up both in mind and
spirit in no time the Cognizant Adventurizants team had reached Gilman’s point J.
Cheers!!!
At this point most of the folks felt tired and started the
downward climb. Some felt more adventurous and started the 1.5 hr further climb
to Uhuru peak, on the other side of the crater.This was really a cakewalk
compared to the earlier climb and we were at Uhuru peak in no time J
All of us had to quickly descend to a lower altidude.So we
skated our way over the gravel to make
it fast to the Kibo hut.After a brief rest and a quick meetup with the other group we
descended quickly to Horombo
Day-6
This was the last
day of the trek and there was a definite ‘End of the adventure’ feel hanging in
the air. All of us reached Mandara hut by lunch and we had a great time
recollecting all the wonderful memories we had. After that we quickly started
the downward climb to the Park gate. We had an incredible catharsis of emotion
when we reached the park gate. Happy that our ordeal is over but sad that our
trip had come to an end.
With heavy hearts we all assembled to have one last meal at
our hotel before bidding farewell! Thanks to all especially to Amit Chilka and
the team from Akaro who made this possible.
Till our next adventure
From the Kilimanjaro Adventurizants team
-Adriel
