June 15: Mt. Kilimanjaro

Hiking to Mandara --2700 meters!!

The starting point!

Today we hiked up to the first base camp of Mt. Kilimanjaro!  A dala-dala picked us up from Bwana Chuwa's house and drove us about an hour to our starting point.  There were two other groups who were about to hike up the mountain as well--a group of guys from the Netherlands, and a group of old people from France, if I had to guess.  After signing in, we began our hike!  Our group included all the Cornell students in my program, Francis (our teacher), Francis's wife, Becca (our TA), and 5 tour guides.  One of the tour guides, Bryton, offered to take pictures with my camera the whole way up.  Because I am normally the picture-taker and don't have many pics of myself, I agreed!  The hike itself was pretty cool.  We saw blue monkeys and colobus monkeys (which my family and I saw last time we were in Africa--they are fluffy black and white monkeys that kind of look like giant monkey-skunks).  We also saw some other animals on the trees, pretty birds, waterfalls, and cool flowers.  The vegetation continued to change throughout our hike, so we also saw a lot of different types of plants and trees.  We stopped a couple times so people could take pee breaks, or water breaks.  The second time we stopped, the Netherlands guys passed us.  They started after us, so they must have been going pretty quickly.  When they passed us, one of the guys yelled, "andd team Netherlands is beating team USA!!" It was funny.

Colobus monkeys

Hiking!!

I found the hike fairly easy.  The first hour was pretty flat, and the last 2-3 hours was not as much of an incline as I had expected.  Because of our large group and the different pace preferences, we went kind of slowly.  When we finally reached the first base camp, we had lunch.  They provided us with boxed lunches--burgers with an over-easy egg, chicken, a muffin, and two small bananas.  I was starving so I ate everything!  It was cold!  Also, it was not what I expected.  I thought we were going to have a really cool view, and that was not the case.  Honestly, it was kind of a disappointment.  We could see trees, but not much else.  There was no lookout point like I thought there would be.  If given the opportunity, I would not do the hike again.  I would like to go all the way to the top... or at least to the 3rd or 4th base camp.  Then it would maybe be worth it.  However, I still think it's cool to say that I have climbed part of Mt. Kili!

At the first base camp!!

Planking. 

After eating, we hiked up about another 15 minutes so that we could have a view of one of the craters.  That was cool, but still not what I expected.  After taking pictures looking down on the crater, we walked down into it.  That was fun and I basically had my own little photo shoot in the grass.  The tour guides told us we were running out of time and had to start heading back down the mountain.  It took us 4 hours to get up, and was supposed to take about 2 hours to get back down.  Ume and I went ahead with one of the tour guides, Kay, and we were the first ones in our group to finish!  Kay taught us the Kilimanjaro song, and we sang it all the way down (I’ll get the video from Ume so I can show y’all).  It goes “Jambo!  Jambo Bwana!  Habari gani? Nzuri sana! Wageni, mwakaribisha!  Kilimanjaro—Hakuna Matata!”  That translates to: Hello! Hello Mister!  How are you? Very good!  All you visitors, you are welcome!  Kilimanjaro—No worries!  It was fun singing. 

Over-looking the crater!

In the crater

Being silly in the crater

We drove home, and had a really pretty sunset view!  When we got home, Adrienne and I gave mama the biggest hugs ever.  We were starving and she was preparing us food.  She was also so happy to see us!  We took hot bucket showers and then we ate.  She cooked us chips maiya… but it was a new and improved chips maiya!  The chips and eggs were topped with cucumbers, tomatoes, and plantains.  Adrienne named it “Chipa maiya 2.0”.  It was really good!  Mama also served us hot tea—just what I needed.  I got in sweat pants and a sweatshirt, curled up with some tea, and read my book.  Adrienne and I are definitely sleeping early tonight!   

Sunset!