PROLOGUE

Don and I, along with a couple of other friends had been considering a climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro for several years. Sometime in early October of 2012 Don sent me an e-mail asking if I'd be interested in doing this over the Christmas / New Year break, and it didn't take me too long to decide that I should take the plunge.  Over the next month or so I did some research on airline options and tour companies.  Most of the latter were based either in Moshi or Arusha, the two Tanzanian towns that serve as kickoff points for the climb up Kilimanjaro.  Eventually, I honed in on an outfit based in Moshi called Ahsante Tours that seemed to be reasonably priced and seemed to have uniformly positive on-line reviews.  Don did some research of his own to figure out which of the different approach routes to the summit would be best, and we decided on the 8-day/7-night Lemosho route.  This was the longest path to the top in terms of time and distance (around 50 miles for the roundtrip) but it also seemed to give us the best chance at acclimatization, which every source indicated as being at least as important as physical fitness.  Don and I are regular hikers and we were both in pretty decent shape, but neither of us was fully confident in his ability to avoid altitude sickness with a five, or even a six day climb.

Weru Weru Lodge

We left Pittsburgh on Christmas Eve at 6 AM on a United flight to Washington Dulles.  From there, an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa and another one to Kilimanjaro International Airport.  The journey was long and tiring but completely uneventful. After landing around 1 PM local time on Christmas day we obtained Tanzanian visas at the airport. A bored looking official took the $100 visa fee from each of us and stamped our passports.  Our checked luggage was already on the baggage carousel and we were out of the airport terminal door in less than ten minutes after exiting the plane.  Pretty impressive!  Joseph, a driver from Ahsante was waiting for us holding a sign with my name on it and helped us load our stuff into his beat-up vehicle.  We drove straight to the Weru Weru lodge where we were booked for two nights. It was a comfortable facility, not particularly crowded, and mostly occupied by tourists.  

After a very nice dinner at the restaurant that was on its premises we both went to bed early to catch up on sleep and recover from the jet lag.  Don had ordered a bottle of red wine with dinner because he thought it’d help us sleep, but I was really not feeling up to anything more than a glass. I had picked up some sort of cold/cough/upper respiratory infection a few days earlier and I had a stuffed head and a runny nose along with a cough that was refusing to go away.  It definitely had me worried as I was hoping that I’d shake it off before the trek commenced, but this didn't seem to be happening.  I took a couple of NyQuil tablets from the small arsenal of medicines that I had brought along before passing out for the night.

The next morning we got up early and as I wandered out to the little balcony attached to our upper-level room I caught my very first sight of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was shrouded in clouds but I could definitely see it (well, OK – at least parts of it), but even as I watched it disappeared into the clouds.

First view of Mt.Kilimanjaro from the balcony outside our room

Once I was ready we went down for breakfast, and around 10 AM we were met in the lobby by the person who would be our guide on the climb, and who would also be the crew chief.  Julio was a short, wiry guy with a pleasant demeanor and spoke good English. He told us that he was 32.  He had been with Ahsante for over ten years and had a ton of experience. He had started off as a porter, then been a cook, and then had gone to school to become an assistant guide and then a guide.  I asked him how many times he had summited Kilimanjaro and he grinned and replied that he'd been up more than 200 times!

We walked over to our room with Julio so that he could inspect the gear and clothing we had brought along.  He seemed pretty satisfied with what we had, although he did suggest leaving behind some of the stuff.  Don and I were both slightly worried about the weight of our duffel bags, but after hefting each bag Julio said they were perfectly fine.  We asked him if he had any special tips for us and the only thing he really emphasized was to do things slowly. "In Tanzania, we say 'Kilimanjaro, polepole' and that means 'slowly'. Just go slow at the pace we set and you’ll be fine."  We’d hear ‘polepole’ many, many times before we were done! Don briefly raised the subject of tips since we knew this was kind of a big deal and we were pretty unclear as to exactly what was expected.  Julio was evasive.  "Noooo probe-lames. We can talk about that later.  And anyway, tipping - it comes from the heart," he said, pointing to his chest with a smile.

With everything squared away as far as gear, we figured we'd go into Moshi for lunch and spend the afternoon there.  Julio offered us a ride in the Ahsante vehicle. Along the way, we stopped at the Ahsante office to say hello to Doreen who had been my primary e-mail contact, and to pay up the remainder of our fee for the climb (we had already sent in a 50% deposit). Don had bought a box of See's chocolates at Dulles as a gift for Doreen and she was very appreciative, as she proudly showed it to the accountant who shared an office with her. 

From there it was a short ride to downtown Moshi.  My head weighed a ton and I went into a drug store right away for some decongestant, paid $8 for a sheet of Sudafed tablets, and immediately swallowed one.  Don went into the local department store to pick up some odds and ends, and both of us along with Julio then walked over to a nearby restaurant for lunch.  The place was mostly occupied by tourists.  Julio refused to eat anything and just had an orange juice.  The lunch was simple and light, and Don wound up also buying a bag of fresh Tanzanian coffee beans to take home to Pittsburgh, as well as a bag of ground coffee as a gift for Julio. We decided we'd just head back to the lodge to put all of our stuff together for the next day and call it a day after an early dinner.  Julio took leave of us in the lobby and asked us to have breakfast and be ready to go by 8:30 AM the next day, when he would swing by to pick us up.

We had a leisurely dinner at the restaurant along with some wine.  The same waitress that Don had tipped very generously the previous night provided us with excellent service, and we returned to our room around 8:30 to organize and pack our stuff for the trek.  I took another Sudafed in the hope that it would clear my head, and we were both asleep by around 10 PM.