I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, by SF

There are a lot of things that go through your mind when you’re preparing to leave for Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

 

“Do I have everything I need?” “Am I ready for this?” “Can I do this?” And the one I thought about the most, “Oh my gosh, I can’t do this.”

 

 

As I sat on a fourteen hour flight to Qatar, I thought about these things a lot. One five hour layover, a five hour flight, and an hour long bus ride later, I was in Arusha, Tanzania, severely jet-lagged, listening to our head guide, Athumani, prepare us for what was to come.

 

Little did I know he would become one of the reasons I made it through this trip. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the hotel and getting to know each other better. 

 

 

The next thing I knew, I was waking up at five thirty a.m. on August 29th and I was on the bus, heading for Lemosho Gate, where we would begin the climb.

 

There were eight people in our group, all of whom were connected to one of the owners of CrossFit Odessey in Dallas, Texas (it’s really amazing). We drove for three hours before we arrived and ate our lunch while everyone got our things ready.

 

 

Something that continued to amaze me the whole time were the porters. They carried our bags up the mountain, the whole time. The bags probably weighed 15-20 pounds each, and they carried at least two of them them on their necks and sometimes heads. It was truly incredible what they were doing.

 

 

When we started, we hiked for a few hours with about 1,000 feet elevation gain, so overall it was not a very hard first day.

 

Once we arrived at the first camp, we didn’t really do anything except rest. We talked a lot, ate some popcorn with gingersnap cookies that they gave us, and then ate dinner. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was not what they gave us. The food was absolutely incredible. We always had soup and then the main course, which was fish and steamed vegetables that night. 

 

The stars once we walked outside were breathtaking. The timing of the trip was so carefully planned, and it was a new moon, meaning we couldn’t see the moon. It gave us the perfect view of the stars, something you can’t see in Dallas thanks to all the light pollution. We tried to stay out, but it was cold, and the long day had gotten to us, and we soon went back to our tents to go to sleep.

 

 

If I could change one thing about the trip, it would be the tents. I was so tired at the end of every day that I didn’t care about sleeping on the ground, but it was hard being in a two person tent for a week straight. Also, trying to change when you can’t even kneel without your head being pushed up against the ceiling was challenging, to say the least.

 

We woke up at six the next morning, had a quick breakfast, got our backpacks on, and set off at around seven.

 

August 30th, day 2, was, according to Athumani, the hardest day until the summit. Coming from a man who has summited 500+ times, I believed him.

 

 

We transitioned from the lush rainforest of day 1 to a region called the Heather Moorlands, or what I thought was more like an Arizona Desert. It was a long, nine hour day of climbing up rocks in the heat.

 

 

 

This day kind of threw me off slightly, because we had gone up one mountain and down, only to realize there was another peak in front of us… still before we would reach the summit.

 

It was pretty much the same routine once we got to the Shira 1 camp. We just rested and ate another wonderful dinner. Another look at the gorgeous stars, and we were off to bed. 

 

We woke up at six the next morning and had cream of wheat and eggs for breakfast, and then we started hiking. Pretty quickly, we figured out it would be the same routine until we got off the mountain.

 

When you’re just hiking for hours at a time, you have a lot of time to think because there’s nothing else to occupy your mind. I was very anxious, but I didn’t spend the whole trip worrying about what was to come. I learned how important it was to live in the moment, otherwise, you miss things. 

 

 

For example, if I was staring at my feet, I wouldn’t have noticed the monkeys in the trees. If I was staring at the person in front of me, I wouldn’t have stopped to notice the beautiful view.

 

Something else that I noticed was that, despite being on the greatest adventure of my life, I was bored. I was in a gorgeous country, experiencing something that was truly once in a lifetime, but in the long hours I spent hiking, I found myself getting bored. However, I found many things to enjoy. 

 

 

We found an area where previous hikers had stacked rocks on top of each other, creating hundreds of cairns. The conversations I had with the people in our group. Simply appreciating my surroundings. However, as we got closer to the summit, I became more anxious. 

 

The beginning of day 4 was a turning point for me.

 

I was homesick, and the adrenaline had worn off, and I started thinking, “What am I doing?” a lot.

 

However, I began talking to Athumani, and he helped ease my worries. He told me not to focus on the summit, but instead just putting one foot in front of the other.

 

He also told me how incredible it was that I was doing this at thirteen, and he had a six year old that did it last month, so if he could do it, so could I. He helped me so much.

 

Something that also helped was that once we reached the camps after day four, we started having a little bit of service, and I was able to call my mom on Sunday, September 1st. It definitely helped me feel more confident!