climbing Kilimanjaro
Oh Kili, how do I even begin talking about this experience, the toughest and most physically demanding challenge in my life so far.
So let’s start with WHY: why kili and why now? As an English literature major, my first time hearing about Kilimanjaro was through Ernest Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro, I wasn’t sure whether he actually set foot on that mountain as it’s a fictional short story, but the name was engraved in my mind ever since, it just being super remote, far away, like knowing Ernest Hemingway himself doesn’t change my life at all. It wasn’t until Sondra (my ex-colleague while I was still working for TikTok) went for about 2 weeks and came back with her updates on celebrating her 30th birthday via climbing Kilimanjaro, and that’s how I started getting to know more about this mountain beyond just its literal meaning and admiration of her standing atop the highest peak in Africa when turning 30, that was the year of 2021. Five years later, as I am about to turn 30 myself, I really couldn’t think of a more memorable way to celebrate this milestone in my life, and I signed up for this trip too.
Since growing up, I rarely celebrated my birthdays except those big decades and the coming of age. I don’t really buy the concept nor do I see the joy of birthday celebration as I didn’t contribute to anything to deserve this celebration (okay I understand that every year of surviving this turbulent world is worthy of celebration and people just need an excuse/occasion for partying). The same applies to my 30th, a big decade in life I know, but I wanna do something to make more sense of the celebration, something that makes me truly proud.
Everything worked out so well, that makes me believe it’s fate that brought me to the mountain with the right company and the right timing and the right location. Being in Abu Dhabi really makes it easy to get there, with my best friend Christelle who’s adventurous and willing to go on this journey with me, with all the practical recommendations given by Jonathan (who’s my failed hinge date but turns out to be super helpful as he went through the same journey around a similar time several years ago and recommended such a wonderful trekking agency to me). All dots were connected so perfectly and it’s time to follow the serendipity and set off on foot.
Now, onto the journey: I had to admit that I severely underestimated how tough this mountain trekking can be. Kili is not just a random mountain, but an almost 6000-meter-high altitude mountain, which requires several days of acclimatization, it’s a must-have process to prevent high altitude sickness as much as possible, but it doesn’t mean you won’t have any. Little did I know that nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, headache, not to mention the extreme dryness and peeling off skin all hit me hard. We chose the 7-day Lemosho route with the summit on the 6th day (precisely the night of the 5th), while the first day of 4 hours trekking gave us some sweetness and overly optimistic expectations, day 2 and 3 struck so hard with almost 10 hours’ trekking on the second day and 6 hours on the third. Day 2 and 3, I suffered from high altitude sickness and every step of the way makes me want to vomit. The sun hanging over our heads with beaming sunlight dried us out and peeled off our skin severely. There were so many days I wanted to beg the guide to take me down and I just found every step forward to be so hard and couldn’t see myself moving any further. There were so many times while I was resting on the stone with my tears sliding down and evaporated so soon that I lost all the feeling but pain and drowsiness.
Thank god I didn’t give up eventually, as day 4 and 5 started turning towards positive sides, nausea was gone ever since I took the high altitude sickness pills and the anti-nausea pills, the treks were significantly shorter too, so my hopes grew high again. We saw the snowy peak from multiple angles, feeling it closer and closer; we climbed and kissed the rocks, we danced salsa on a flat peak and saw ourselves standing above the clouds! The pride and adrenaline kicked in and I started looking forward to the summit night, the truly agonizing summit night.
I still remember almost every minute of the summit night so well even a week after, regardless of how much I wanted to erase the pain from my mind. Omar (our lead guide) for the summit, holding our hands together, prayed to God, that 10 seconds of silence before departure seemed so precious. We set off, first on the 1-hour rocky path with each step a big stretch, and we had to stop almost every 15 minutes to catch our breath. Then the endless zig-zag path, I swear I’ve never hated zig-zag so much in my life that we probably spent about 4 hours there with the never-ending path. All I had in my mind was staring at Omar’s footsteps, mindlessly following him left and right. I tried to put on music but all those “liked songs” seemed so annoying that I just wanna shut them off as my brain really couldn’t process anything more than following the footsteps. 3 hours in, our water bladder froze, I cheered secretly every time we needed to let others pass through first so that I could take more micro breaks to catch my breath. I didn’t want to ask the time, as the more I knew, the more desperation it brought, I want pure silence and sole ignorance, all I know was following and breathing, zero expectations.
The moment when we reached Stella Point, the sun hadn’t come out yet, but my tears jumped out, and I screamed “fuck yeah” so loud as if I hadn’t screamed anything before in my life. There is something you almost lost hope for but suddenly emerged at the least expected time, and this was exactly that thing at that specific moment. But this is not yet the end, it took one more hour to reach the Uhuru Peak (the highest peak, or the “freedom” peak) from Stella Point, the sunlight started beaming at us from dimness to full blown. We saw the glaciers on the way, the yolk-like sun on our back, the almost flat path towards the destination, the signpost at the peak seemed so close yet so far, and I strived, every step on the way, and finally we were there.
I made three wishes, and kissed the signpost. I hugged my teammates so tight with tears ricochet, and turned our way back, this time, embracing the sunrise on our faces and beaming smiles with so much pride in us.
Descending took us about 10 hours spanning across 2 days, 4000 meters decreasing in elevation seemed crazy, and we were almost running down hills, in the end I couldn’t even feel my toes anymore. But the pride of reaching the summit and the hope of getting back to the hotel with a hot shower and a soft bed took over us, that everyone was panting but with tremendous happiness.
This is the official end of the journey, and I wanna acknowledge the fact that there’s no way I could have done this without the 6 guides leading us every step of the way, the chefs making delicious food, the waiters waking us up every morning and every day with hot water and drinks, the 45 porters carrying all the equipment and resources and our duffel bags and setting up everything before we reached every camp. They are the main reasons why every time I want to give up, I had to cheer myself up and march forward regardless of how exhausted and sick I was as they’ve done everything possible for us to achieve our dreams on this mountain.