On the Slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro

Here’s another example of the uncertainty of life here in Moshi, Tanzania. Yesterday afternoon (Monday) one of the CCS staff reported that the national government had just announced that the National Holiday would be on Wednesday rather than on Tuesday as all of us had previously been told. The result of this was that all other volunteers had to go to their work assignments today. However, since we and another volunteer had arranged to go on our Mt. Kilimanjaro hike, we were excused from work. In addition, Jean’s volunteer site, House of Learning, will be closed on Wednesday because of the Holiday. On Thursday we volunteers will be taken to Arusha to visit the Rwanda War Crimes International Tribunal. So, Jean will teach twice this week, but Kirk will go to his placement three times. All of this paragraph is meant to say that schedules seem to be very uncertain here. We have learned to be very flexible.

Since we were excused from our work assignments today, we waved good-bye to the others as they left in the vans and waited for our driver who would take us to Mt. Kilimanjaro for our day’s hike. What a wonderful experience we had! As we may have said before, Kilimanjaro is the highest peak on the African continent and at 19,336 feet high the largest free-standing mountain in the world.

Our driver and guide was Kevin.
He is an intelligent and personable young man whose daughter Amy was born about a month ago. He is studying Wild Life Management at a university here in Moshi. Kevin was an excellent guide and told us so much about the animals and plants that we saw while on our climb.

He was accompanied by a licensed guide named Gilbert! Can you believe it? Gilbert is also studying Wild Life Management here in Moshi and is also a personable young man. We needed both guides because the other volunteer who accompanied us was in much better condition for the climb and went faster and further than we did.

Kevin and Gilbert drove us to the Marangu Entrance Headquarters on the southeastern side of the Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park. As we turned off the main road toward the park’s entrance, Kevin told us that we were within 10 km of the border between Kenya and Tanzania. We tried to get him to take us to the border, but he said he didn’t have the freedom to make that decision and would have to call the owner of the tour company for which he works. Kevin never made the call.

As compared to our experience at Marangu Headquarters
on Sunday, today’s was wonderful. There were very few people waiting to sign in to climb Mt. Kili (only 70 permits are issued each day at a price of $80 per permit); it wasn’t raining; and this time our guides’ credit card worked. All in all, we were able to begin our climb within 15 or 20 minutes of arriving at the gate.

We started climbing about 10 am and it soon became clear that Maria, our companion, wanted to climb much faster than either of us. The upward incline was severe. We climbed 2700 feet in elevation during a hike of slightly more than 4 miles at an elevation higher than Denver. As a result, Maria and Gilbert surged ahead. Kevin stayed with us and was a terrific companion and guide.
He pointed out Blue Monkeys, White and Black Colobus Monkeys, a Rock Hyrax, a huge raven, the calls of a Tropical Boubou and the Cinnamon Bee Eater, the beautiful but tiny Passion Kilimanjarica and three Fireball Lilies. He encouraged us to climb as far as we could, but understood when we said that we had had enough. The return trip down to the entrance only took us 90 minutes.

The trail from Marangu to the first camp, Mandara Hut, is 8 km and rises from 1800 m to 2700 m. We hiked at least 7 of the 8 km. Throughout the hike, we were in the Kilimanjaro rain forest.
The result of this is that we had a terrific hike of 14 or so km over about 4 ½ hours. It was a great day and a very memorable and wonderful experience.

We returned to Home Base in time to welcome back other volunteers who had been on a four day safari and others who had gone to a tiny island in the Indian Ocean for the five days. It is fun to have everyone back again and to hear about their experiences.

We’ve decided to walk across the dirt road in front of our home here in Moshi and visit the Muzungo (White Foreigner) Bar where we’ll splurge on a bottle of beer to celebrate our day’s accomplishment.

Since House of Learning will not be open tomorrow, Jean has decided that she will go with Kirk to TunaHAKI to help him teach and play with the children. She wonders what fun things he will get her into!

We are both tired, so will end by sending all of you our love,
Mama Jean and Babu