Today was the start of what maybe my first bucket list item. By this I mean this is something I have said I would do before bucket lists were a thing. It was the summer in college I worked at Disney's animal kingdom on Kilimanjaro safari. The summer not only did I get to drive a really cool mock safari vehicle through a savannah of animals, I also worked with men and women from Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa. They all impressed me about their home countries with so much pride. The Tanzanians in particular talked about their mountain. It was at this time I vowed to climb Kilimanjaro, some day.
As it turned out today was the beginning of that day. Impatiens (a really beautiful flower that grows on Kili) tours picked us up promptly at 8 am and we were off. First to pick out our rental gear. We were met by a room stuffed full of all colors sizes and levels of quality in hiking gear. I picked out walking poles, a summit jacket, pants and gloves, a balaclava, and a rain pants and jacket.
After picking out gear which had to be carefully examined and then approved by Enock, our guide, we took a walk through Moshi to pay for the trek. On the way we learned more Swahili. My favorite at this point still being "Si Hitaji" (not only because it politely gets your point across but it also shocks the life out of most people you say it to." After sitting for a bit the credit card machine arrived, I paid and we were off.
During lunch we sat by a group of 6 Americans 5 of whom looked admiringly at our lunch boxes. They had a few raw veggies, some fruit and a muffin for their lunch. Upon further discussion it turned out one in their group was vegan. We tried to make them feel better pointing out they had a table cloth, real silverware and a server but that didn't really help. They wanted meat. We decided that if the vegan meals continued they would likely turn to canabalism by day 4 and affectionately called them "The Vegans" for the rest of the trip. Coincidentally we would loose track of them after the morning of day four and not run into then again.
As we walked through the parking lot we saw our 9 porters (3 per person) and our cook. We were told they would catch up. They not only caught up to us daily, they usually passed us like we were standing still while balancing 20 kg on their heads (according to one of the men until recently there used to be no limit to what porters could carry so they would be hauling 50-80 kg up the mountain. Fortunately it was recognized that this was not ok. These guys (and we did see one gal) are vital part of making this possible and should be protected (and tipped well. More on that later.))
Fortunately for the guys the guides had umbrellas for them. We progressed through the rainforest into the more sparsely vegetated Moorlands also beautiful.
We stowed our gear in our tents and were told dinner was ready.
It was a delicious fare that consisted of popcorn, cookies, chicken soup, fried fish, fried potatoes, bread and mango.
Yesaya, the gentleman who seems to be in charge of Impatiens asked us why we wanted to hike Kilimanjaro. I told him about my experience and he was in disbelief. So he created a wifi hotspot for me and a showed him pictures. He still couldn't believe it and showed various people in the car. He then decided that a Kenyan must have designed the whole thing and that I needed to send him a picture of me driving the truck. I promised I would. On the way we snacked on samosas and a delicious fried bread thing made by our cook.
We arrived to the machame gate and were first taken to register and then ushered into the "tourist shelter" to sort our gear. We then had the most calorie packed lunch I have had possibly ever. It consisted of mango juice, a banana (keep reading), a fried chicken wing, a burger with a fried egg on top, a sweet muffin, and a donut. It was delicious. I ate almost all of it (I feel my father beaming with pride).
After lunch we paid our park fee which was 700USD per person. It seems outrageous and I am still a little unsure what or maybe more accurately who the money goes to. It had started to rain during lunch but fortunately by this time had mostly quit.
Having handled all business matters we started our walk with our assistant guide Yeshua through the rain forest.
The rain forest was beautiful. We saw impatiens flowers almost immediately. The landscape was and would continue to be something out of a movie set with this in particularly being a fairytale mystical forest with bearded lichen and moss (also in my mind being what Bridge to Teribethia looked like). It was in the forest that it started to rain again heavily. We quickly discovered our new rented rain gear was not waterproof. Fortunately for me I don't travel without my circa 1999 Munich Mickey umbrella.
Upon arrival to our camp, Machame Hut, we found that our porters had already set everything up.
In total today we walked 7 hours and gained 1170 meters to finish at 3000m.
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