Day 5: Post-Summit

Day 5, Part 2:

I was passed out in my tent for a few hours, grunting at people when they came to say hi to me. My head was in so much pain. I tried to sip water, but didn't get very far without feeling more sick. I really just wanted to sleep there until the next morning. And it wasn't even noon.

MK tried to help by bringing me some water with rehydration salts or something fancy like that. Meant for severe dehydration, which I figured I probably had or was pretty close to. I took a sip of that disgusting elixir and was immediately dragging myself to the entrance to the tent to throw up more. One of the porters came over when he saw me vomiting outside the tent (all water at this point). He wanted to bring me tea. I wanted to die.

I curled back up in my tent for a while longer and MK came over with special orders for me. I was getting up, taking my things, Peter was going to start walking me down the mountain, and she would finish packing my things. Shockingly, I responded to her instructions by following them.

Peter and I started hiking down the mountain. Before we left camp, I was stopped by 3 forty-something gentlemen who were going to summit the following day. "Did you just summit?" why yes, several hours ago. They asked if I had done so in my shorts and running shoes. Oh, they were woefully unprepared for what was ahead of them. It's freezing on that mountain at night. They were leaving at midnight, like we had, and were starting to get nervous. I fueled their paranoia by telling them about my vomiting, hallucinating, etc. They looked concerned.

Peter and I started the hike and soon Godbless joined us. We made small talk - mainly about hiking, biking, traveling, Africa, etc. We stopped at about 4000M at a camp site and I bought Godbless, Peter and myself cokes. I managed to scrape together enough money - a dollar, some Tanzanian shillings, Kenyan shillings, and a pound. Cokes are highly overpriced at 13,000 feet. Some boys who we had met a few days earlier asked where my crew was. I told them that they let me go early since I couldn't stop throwing up. The coke was amazing. It killed my headache (probably the caffeine - I hadn't had my coffee). Peter and I left Godbless, who decided to wait for the rest, and continued hiking.

Peter and I got to camp around 5PM, so the hike down took us like 4 hours. I felt so much better at 3000M. It was really amazing how the altitude affected me and then decreasing altitude made me feeling immediately better.
About an hour after I made it to camp, MK showed up. She had ditched the group because she was feeling ill from the sun. About an hour after MK showed up, the rest of the group rolled in. Alannah was still hurting - her back injury kept her pace a little slower. Lenore and Kim had felt nauseous on the way down the mountain. Julia was feeling better in the lower altitude. I greeted them - they were pleased to have me acting like a human being again.

We had our tea, peanuts, and popcorn and started figuring out what we were going to tip our crew. Tipping is customary for the trip and it's done in a public ceremony of sorts the final morning. We wanted to make sure we recognized the crew, especially those who had personal impact on us. MK wanted to give extra to the chef for dealing with her Gluten issue. We all had strong connections to the guides and to the porters who set up our tents. So we used the guide that Duma Explorer gave us and tried to allocate tips to all 26 people.


We had our last dinner, which was followed by a "special treat" that was brought up to congratulate us for making the summit. Cake and wine! But the best part was the song that they sang when they presented the cake and wine. 'Cakey-o, cakey-o, cakey-o'. It was probably the funniest thing I had ever heard. It was also surprisingly delicious.

We had cake, wine, and went to bed. I felt so dramatically different than earlier in the day. It was awesome.

Day 5: The Summit

Day 5

A note about altitude sickness

For the uninitiated, a quick note about altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is when people get sick when they increase altitude. Sickness can range from a mild headache to vomiting and blurred vision to as serious as Pulmonary Edema and Cerebral Edema. The final two are very serious and can lead to death. The thing about altitude sickness that's strange is that it affects people wildly differently and there is no way to tell how you will respond to altitude. It has nothing to do with your fitness level, overall health, or any other measures that are controllable. Often, it affects extremely fit people more severely than overweight, lethargic folks. For more on altitude sickness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness

As none of us had been much above 12,000 ft (except Lenore, who summited Cotopaxi last year), none of us had any idea how the altitude would affect us.

We were woken at 10:30PM and beckoned to the meal tent for tea, snacks, and to do final preparations for the climb. We all bundled up, but it wasn't that cold. I had a little water and a bit of a biscuit, but was feeling a little nauseous.

Around 11:30 we started assembling to leave. Godbless gave us a pep talk and we were introduced to two other guides who would be joining us for the summit. Between the 8 of us, we were carrying 6 bags. We decided to consolidate our stuff into 6 bags so help one another along when people started feeling sick. Also, three of the bags (MK, Bea, and mine) lacked waist straps so were much more difficult to carry. MK and Bea started without bags.

We all had our headlamps on and started walking, very slowly. Pole, pole. Godbless told us it would take 6 hours to reach the first peak, then another 2 hours to reach the summit, Uhuru peak. Many people stop at the first peak as it is almost as high as Uhuru Peak and when you get there, most people are pretty exhausted. I wasn't feeling 100% so I tried to get myself into a rhythm to pass the time - no one was really talking. The air is so thin that people were breathing heavily with our extremely slow pace. I started counting my footsteps - every hundred steps I would take a sip of water.

Everyone seemed to be doing ok after about 2 hours. We stopped for a break about once an hour, which was good to break things up. I was starting to feel more and more nauseous, to the point where I felt like I really needed to vomit. Julia was starting to feel a bit ill - her heartrate was very fast and she was concerned about it. She relinquished her bag and we all continued.

Over the next hour, I started to feel more and more nauseous. The rest of the group started feeling tired, too, and we started taking more breaks. We took a break and I finally threw up. All my energy gels and advil. Bummer. I kept my bag a bit longer, but was starting to feel really horrible. Everyone was trying to be supportive of one another, but I really couldn't talk. At the next break, i gave up my bag, and threw up more. I wanted to have control of my water, which is why I hadn't given up my bag, but I was starting to feel delirious.

Other people started feeling some pain. Alannah, who was the only one not on Diamox, hurt her back and was keeping a slower pace than the rest of us. Julia had a headache. Others had mild headaches. The altitude was clearly hitting me the hardest. I don't think people fully recognized how varied the responses to the altitude were. MK didn't feel a thing - she yelled some words of encouragement to all of us, trying to sych us up for the rest of the climb. Normally, that would have been great support for me. Since my head was about to explode, any noise just hurt.

We continued up the mountain moving slowly. I was behind Godbless since he was worried about my health. Lenore or Kim (not sure which one) asked me a question and I just said 'No talking'. I was hurting really badly. When we came to resting points, my eyes would close and I wanted to sleep.

While we were walking, my eyes started rolling back into my head. Godlbess was feeling the altitude, too, I think. He was swaying a bit in his footsteps and when we would come to resting points, he would almost collapse. After about four to five hours, we were nearing the first peak. Godbless said it would be about another hour. I threw up. Godbless told me we would only go to the first peak. I figured he would send me back at that point. I wasn't making much sense to him and I think I didn't look very good. I walked behind him and started seeing things. There was confetti coming off of his bag. How fun!

We continued with our slow walking. At one break, Lenore tried to feed me water. I took one of our coveted bottles of water from her and thought I was holding it, but then dropped it. I felt horrible. I was losing control of my normal body functions and dropped an entire Nalgene of water. Since some of the water sources had frozen, this was not good.

While we were walking, I tried to just get into my own zone. I counted my footsteps, focusing on just puting one foot in front of the other. It seemed like the hardest thing I had ever done. My head felt like it was going to explode. My arms were tingling. My eyes were rolling back into my head. I couldn't seem to stop vomiting. My vision was blurred, but when it wasn't, I started seeing things. As the sun rose and we were approaching the first peak, I started really hallucinating. There were cartoon rabbits and turtles. They were both green. They were very happy. The more the sun came up, the more certain rocks started glowing neon. I tried to avoid stepping on the neon rocks. I'm not sure why.

We got to the first peak and rested. We had made it to where most people turn back. We rested and Alannah showed up. At that point, I thought she had turned back. She hadn't - rockstar. I wasn't sure I could keep going. I asked Godbless how much further and he said a forty five minutes to an hour. Maybe I could do that. For some reason, I got up and just started walking. I guess others did soon after, because Godbless was soon with me. He wasn't walking in front of me anymore, he was beside me. We passed people as they were coming down from Uhuru Peak. Many in our group offered words of encouragement, I just stared blankly. Probably a little creepily, to be honest. I was staring a lot. I asked Godbless how much longer. He always said ten minutes.

Finally, I reached the summit. I was in an incredible amount of pain. I took out my camera and turned in a circle taking a picture of every angle from where I was standing.

The shadow of the mountain:

The glacier:

The sign:

I then decided I needed to get the hell off that mountain. Immediately, if not sooner. Lenore, Kim and two others had waited for Alannah so they could summit with her. I saw them approaching and took a picture. They looked like they were marching to war. Lenore came up and I told her I was getting off the mountain. She told me I had to stay for one group picture. I begrudgingly agreed.

After that, I just started walking off the mountain. And by walking, I mean a slow almost-run. Lenore sent Msuri after me. I was chasing the dream of feeling like a human being again. I was heavily incentivized.

I went as quickly as I could down that mountain, vomiting along the way. Toward the end, I was so weak I could barely walk. I couldn't believe how horrible I felt. I started getting nervous about permanent brain issues from my stupid decision to continue summiting.

I finally got to my tent at 4600M and passed out.

Day 4: Barranco to Barafu Camp, 6/17/2009

Day 4

We woke up to morning coffee, sun, and cold. We wanted to leave by 8am as opposed to 8:30am, like we had the prior days, since our hike would be pretty considerable. Breakfast was the same, although, as we were preparing to leave by 8am, I left after porridge thinking that was it for the morning. I didn’t want to hold anyone up. I missed the eggs! Noting that I was gone, Bea made me a safety sandwich. Awesome. Bea is totally a team player.

It was warm again, so I stuck to my shorts and running shoes. I really thought that by day 4 I would be into the hiking boots and pants, but it didn’t seem necessary. Still, Godbless wanted to carry my pants and ski jacket just in case. So it goes. The challenge to Day 4 is the first part – the rock wall. It’s a scramble up terrain that requires using your hands to pull you up in some spots. It was fun, though, and we all managed the climb pretty easily.

After about an hour, we reached the top. The views were amazing. We took a few group shots and then, out of nowhere, a rainbow appeared. MK, still obsessed with her new camera, wanted to get a few shots of herself in front of the rainbow. I posed, too, for a rainbow shot. We all had some snacks (mainly chocolate), and hit the trail again.

It was a long hike to our lunch spot. We kept a good pace, but the terrain was up and down and rocky. Godbless and Peter kept telling us to sippy, sippy, so we did. At this point, we had become pretty close to the guys. We tried our best to learn some Swahili phrases – Asante (thank you), Karibu (you’re welcome). And we taught Peter ‘peanut’ in Spanish – Cacahuate. In our silliness, we would yell ‘Cacahuate!’ to be followed by ‘Paracheechee’ (avocado). It was entertaining at the time.

We finally got to our lunch spot and had our packed lunch. A few of our porters and our cook was there because they wanted to serve us soup. We had our lunch before heading to Barafu Camp. At lunch, we were told that it was the last water stop. At Barafu, the final camp before ascending Kilimanjaro, there is no water. We filled our water bottles to carry and the porters would carry as much as they could. We had become accustomed to pretty much as much water as we wanted, and were spoiled by hot water bottles at night that we used to keep us warm, the previous two nights.

The rest of the hike was exhausting. Day 4 seemed really long considering that we would be waking up at 10:30PM to start trying to summit at 11:30PM. We finally got to camp and I was exhausted.

Tea was served around 5PM, shortly after we arrived. I didn’t think we were being served dinner since we had to get up at 10:30PM and might want to sleep, but was told that dinner would be around 6PM. I was starting to feel a little nauseous and felt like sleep was more important than dinner, so I decided to pass on dinner. I went to sleep around 6PM and felt nervous about the challenge that was before us in just a few hours.

The success rate for people hiking Kilimanjaro on the 6-day route is around 60%, so, in a group of 8, it was normal to assume that 2-3 of us wouldn’t make it. It seemed like most of us were dealing with the altitude ok, but clearly I was nauseous enough to skip dinner after a day of 10 hours of activity. The other effect that I felt was that my personality seemed to be muted. I’m typically pretty excitable, hyper, energetic. I was a bit more moody, tired, and quiet. I noticed it in myself – I put my headphones on a few times during the hikes, which was rare for me.

The rest of the group had dinner, I went to bed to try to get some sleep before the big summit.

Day 3: Shira Camp to Lava Tower to Barranca Camp - 6/16/2009

Day 3

We woke at 6:30am to the wake up call of Benson, the waiter who brings our morning beverage. It was cold, but the sun was out and I was excited to hike. My stomach hurt when I woke up. It iddn’t feel like anything new – ie, probably not altitude, but just normal indigestion. Day 3 would be an acclimation day – lots of up and down. We would go as high as 4630M at the Lava tower, but then descend to our camp at 3900M. The hike today would be long (about 15KM), have lots of ups and downs, and we would get a hot lunch.

Breakfast was the same as the day before – porridge (mainly water), eggs, sausage, bread, and some fruits. When we left breakfast, it was warm again, so I ditched the pants and stuck to my shorts. Godbless questioned this decision, so I let him carry my pants for me. Also, three of us were carrying bags without waist straps. MK had been given advice by someone who had hiked the entire Appalacian Trail and approved her bag. The bag was way too small and didn’t have a waist strap, so that advice was not very good for our purposes. As such, the guides took some of the stuff from the three of us (me, MK, and Bea) who had no waist straps on our bags. The weight without the waist strap was felt entirely on our backs, which was starting to hurt.

We headed out of camp and up a dry path toward the mountain. The incline was moderate, and we kept a slow pace. Peter led us keeping the pace slow. They kept telling us ‘Pole Pole’ (slowly, slowly). Increasing altitude too quickly is not good, so whenever we went up, we kept the pace slow. After the first day, I followed the pace of the guide. I knew the altitude on the first day was altitude that I had run at before. After 3000M, it was a level that I had never been to before. I had read about altitude sickness before the hike, so I respected the severity of the challenges, danger, and randomness of altitude sickness. I had no idea how my body would react to altitude. I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but altitude sickness is completely random. I knew cold would be an issue for me, I knew my lungs are strong so can handle oxygen deprivation, but other than that, I had no idea how my body would respond.

After a few hours, we reached our hot lunch. My stomach was still hurting me. I had packed a ‘safety sandwich’ in the morning when I wasn’t able to eat much, but I hadn’t touched it. The lunch was a curried vegetable and some soup (also curry). I didn’t think it was a good idea to put that stuff in my already troubled stomach, so I stuck to my safety sandwich – a less risky peanut butter and honey. No one was feeling too horrible due to the altitude yet, which is pretty good. Some of us had mild headaches (mine came in the morning), but we were all popping advil about twice a day as a preventative measure. Also, all of us, minus Alannah, who is allergic to sulfur, were on Diamox, a drug that helps with altitude. It’s unclear how diamox helps – apparently it just increases your threshold a bit. You can’t completely erase the effects of altitude, so diamox just helps you to handle a bit more than your body would normally be able to handle.

After lunch, we continued the hike. After about an hour, we hit the Lava Tower, our highest point thusfar at 4600M. It was cold there. I finally succumbed and asked Godbless for my Gortex pants. I hated the Goretex pants. First, I like having my legs free. Second, I had let someone borrow my Goretex pants and when I came to get them back for the hike, she mistakenly gave me her Goretex pants. These just didn’t fit me right. Too short, fell off me, they were just not comfortable. Anyway, we took some pictures at the Lava Tower, met some other hikers who were staying there to acclimate for a night, and went on with our hike.
We hiked another 2 hours, mainly downhill into the valley, with great views of the rock walls. We were all getting pretty tired by the end of this hike. It was a long day. About halfway in, I shed the Goretex pants, which made me way more comfortable. We finally reached our camp around 4:30PM and settled into our tents.

We had the same nightly routine – tea, break, dinner, and then shivering cold, we went to bed. A day full of hiking was making us all tired so going to bed at 9:30 seemed totally normal.

Day 2: Machame to Shira Camp - 6/15/2009

Day 2

We woke up at 6am to a porter at our tent door bringing us our morning beverage (for me, coffee, obvi). For the record, before we left Arusha, I insisted to Stacy that she make sure they pack equipment for making real coffee, not the instant kind. Having your coffee brought to your tent is sort of awesome. I was excited to start the day. I got up, went to the bathroom, and saw that we had a great view of the mountain (the day before it was too cloudy from the rain to see the mountain). It was incredible. It seemed so far from where we were. I couldn’t believe that we would be going up to the top of it.

After we had our coffee in our tents, we got dressed and went out for breakfast. Breakfast was porridge, eggs, sausage, and bread. And, of course, more hot beverages. When we went into the tent for breakfast, it was still cold. By the time we had eaten, the sun was out and the day was warming up. I stripped down a layer to my shorts and running shoes for the hike.

The start of the hike was gorgeous. The weather was warm and sunny, we all were enjoying the warmth and the view. After about 2 hours of hiking, we stopped to take some pictures of the view. A few model shots on the rocks, Kim falling off the mountain (posed), and some scenery shots. As with the day before, our porters passed us soon after we started hiking. They were quick and wanted to get to the next camp to set up for us.

After a few hours, the sun faded quickly to fog and misty rain. We arrived at our lunch site and sat for lunch. We had carried our packed lunch with us – fried chicken, a hard boiled egg, a chocolate bar, orange, and sandwich. The birds circled around us hoping to get some food, so we kept all of our trash in our lunch sacks. After lunch, we started hiking again. It was considerably colder than when we started and my hands were freezing. I have a somewhat common ailment – Raynaud’s disease, where my hands and feet (fingers and toes) freeze quickly due to poor circulation and have a hard time warming up(http://sclero.org/medical/symptoms/raynauds/a-to-z.html) As such, my hands had frozen during the short break and I started running around to get some circulation to them. I threw on my headphones and gloves and jogged while we started hiking. It’s frustrating and the cold was something I feared coming onto the mountain. When I lose feeling in my hands, it’s frustrating and hard to reverse.

After about 45 minutes, my hands had feeling again. The hike was foggy and misty, the terrain had changed from the day before. No longer were we in the rainforest, we were in the moorland, much drier, less green and lush. The hike was over moderate inclines, not too exhausting. After about 2-3 more hours, we arrived at our camp. It was about 2:30PM. Pretty early, and many of us still had energy and wanted to look around more. The mist and fog had cleared away and it was finally sunny and warm. We all tried to jaunt off for a hike, but they wanted to serve us tea. Bea and I broke away and started hiking, but eventually one of the porters came to ‘help’ us, since we had wandered into the swamp. I was frustrated because I just wanted to explore a little, but the guides and porters didn’t want to leave us alone. We succumbed and came back for the tea.

After tea, we took naps, got into warmer clothes, and got ready for dinner. Again, the temperature got super cold once the sun started going down. At 3900M, the camp was colder than the night before. Dinner was similar to the night before – soup, rice, vegetables, bread, and pepper steak. After dinner, we had more warm beverages. Liquids are a huge part of surviving the altitude increases, so they try to inundate us with fluids all the time. While we hike, Peter is constantly saying ‘Sippy, Sippy’, encouraging us to drink our water.

Exhausted from the day, we all went to our tents to go to sleep around 9:30PM.

Day 1: Drive to Machame gate, hike to 3000M - 6/14/2009

Day 1

Today we started our Kilimanjaro climb. We were picked up at our hotel at 9am for the drive from Arusha to Kilimanjaro. We had two jeeps for the eight of us. On the drive, we stopped at what looked like a normal mini mart, but also doubled as a strip joint (or some derivation of one). We all got snacks and last purchases before we wouldn’t be able to get anything for six days. The drive took about an hour, then we turned down a dirt road that led to the Machame route (or Whiskey Route, which apparently references the views – ie. You feel drunk from the beauty, or something like that).

We got to Machame gate and met our third guide, Peter. Peter is the step brother of Stacey, who owns/runs the company that we used for our trip, Duma Explorer (www.dumaexplorer.com) . She is American and met her husband, who is Tanzanian, here about 9 years ago when she was here doing an HIV project (her first job). Peter is adorable and very western-looking, as are our other two guides, Godbless and Msuri. I didn’t believe Godbless’s name when Msuri first told us his name. Godbless? Really? Apparently, he goes by God for short, no joke. He doesn’t like that, so clearly I only called him ‘God’. As I told him, Godbless? Your parents must have had high hopes.













It’s raining and we all sign the book at the Machame gate with our names, ages, where we live, who our guides are, etc. Apparently, it’s illegal to go up without a guide, and permits to hike are extremely expensive. We all get our lunches, take a few snapshots, and start hiking. Today’s hike is supposed to be about 6 hours, through the rainforest, from 1250M to 3000M (times 3.3 to get to feet). We all start and the pace is very slow. Clearly I can’t handle the slow pace, so MK and I go a little faster (but not fast at all). Despite protests from our guides, we finally break away from the group. I hadn’t run in like 2 days, so I needed to burn some energy.

MK and I continue up through the rainforest and our porters pass us one by one. For our group of 8, we had a total of 26 staff with us. Our head guide, Msuri; our guide, Godbless; Assistant Guide, Peter; Cook, assistant cook, and a slew of porters to carry our stuff, set up our tents, etc. We thought the number of porters seemed high, but it’s really necessary for all of the stuff we need, including all food for the 6 days. MK and I stopped every 45 minutes for 15 minutes to let the group catch up, but we had made too much ground. Soon, Godbless caught up with us and made us slow down.

After about 3-4 hours, we made it to camp. There were a few other hikers in the midst, including a couple from the UK. Our porters greeted us enthusiastically, which was adorable. Our camp had 4 tents, 2 people each, a tent for the porters, one for the guides, a ‘toilet tent’ (basically a patio chair with a hole in it and a bag to catch the goods – amazing), and our dining tent. It was really a lot nicer than I had expected. MK and I took a tent together, since we were the first to arrive, did some nominal washing in the warm water they gave us, and waited for the others. Everyone else arrived about 45 minutes later. As the sun started going down, it started getting really cold, but the rain stopped.

Shortly after the rest of the group arrived, it was time for tea. We went into the dining tent and had tea, hot chocolate, and popcorn. It was great. We soon discovered that they wanted to feed us liquids as often as possible. After tea, it was soon time for dinner. Dinner was soup, rice, vegetables, and tilapia. Since I don’t eat fish, I just had the rest. MK, who doesn’t eat gluten, was given a bunch of separate stuff. They were great about accommodating her allergy. Kim, who doesn’t eat anything but meat, filled up on the Tilapia.

After dinner, more tea and hot chocolate, then we all went to bed. It was freezing. It really gets cold on the mountain at night, but we curled up into our sleeping bags. We would get up the next morning at 6am.

The filthy busride from Nairobi to Arusha - 6/13/2009

6/13/2009
We left the Fairview hotel in Nairobi today at 7:30am for our trip to Arusha, where we would stay the night before starting our climb. The Fairview hotel was a wonderful hotel – Kim and I even got room service when we got there late in the night. The bus was pretty nice – nicer than we expected. Then again, we thought we had the whole bus to ourselves, and we were wrong. We drove into town where we picked up about 10 other Americans and they moved all the luggage to the roof. The drive was long – there was road construction on about 30% of the roads we drove on, so we couldn’t get going very quickly. It wasn’t air conditioned, so we kept the windows open, but then when we went through the construction parts, the dirt was blinding.
Once we hit Tanzania, we had to get out to get our passports stamped for leaving Kenya, then we had to purchase a Tanzanian Visa. You walk about 200 meters from one post to another. In that time, we were harassed a bit and one guy managed to almost steal my Ipod. Alannah caught him, I had absolutely no clue.
When we got to the Visa area, it was completely jammed with people. It must be the time of day when all the tour buses from Nairobi that leave at 8am hit there, it was clearly the once-a-day rush. We waited in line for about an hour, then paid $100 for our Visa, showed them our Yellow Fever card, and then they took our passports. We waited about 15 minutes as they disappeared with our passports. When they returned they just yelled ‘Americans?’ we rushed over, took our passports and headed out. The hour + process resulted in the most ghetto Visa I have ever seen – a stamp, with ‘$100 paid USD Visa Multiple entry’ written next to it. Like, just writing was the Visa.


The rest of the ride was pretty uncomfortable. The roads were under construction and dirty – when we finally got to Arusha (around 3pm), we could wipe the filth off every part of our bodies.
Once in Arusha, we proceeded to our hotel, the Jacaramba, got our rooms, and then met our guide and assistant guide for a debrief. He went over the daily itinerary, what we still needed in terms of equipment and gear, and what to expect. They were very by the book. I had read that I could just hike in my running shoes up until it got really cold (like the 4th day), but they insisted I had to hike in my hiking shoes. I resisted a little and everyone knew I would do what I wanted anyway. Then, Stacy, the owner of Duma, the venture company, came and talked to us. She was a white woman, probably mid to late 30s, who started Duma Explorer 9 years ago with her husband, who’s Tanzanian. She’s originally from Texas, but clearly fell in love with a man and decided to make a life here. I asked her the same question about my running shoes and she said I could totally wear my shoes up until the summit day (which is what she does). Yes!
After the debrief, the assistant guide came and checked my gear. I was all good. He was concerned about my hiking boots, though, since they weren’t really boots. But they should be fine. I wanted to wear my running shoes for the first few days, but the guides said that was a no-go. When Stacy arrived, she said that was totally fine. I pretty much want to wear running shoes and shorts for as much of the hike as possible. I realized that I may or may not have sent Stacy my information card (unclear). She only seemed moderately aware that I was a vegetarian, and I clearly was not listed for any rentals (definitely need the sleeping bag and poles). We scheduled to meet in the morning at 9am. Bea was still waiting for her bag to arrive. Through “networking” she managed to get two girls who did the leadership venture to leave her a bag of their hiking stuff so she didn’t have to bring anything (I think she was already traveling when she decided to join us). Amazing.
We had dinner at the hotel in different shifts . As I was eating my salad, I was reminded that the vegetables are washed with the water and that I would probably get sick. Awesome!
I’m excited to get this started. Tomorrow, we hike 18 KM and increase our elevation from 1,250M to 3,000M.

London to Nairobi, 6/12/2009

6/12/2009
Kim and I flew from London to Nairobi today, with a stopover in Paris. I left Karen’s place in Greenwich at 3am, got to the airport at about 4am, and our flight was at 7:30am. I left so early because of the Tube strike, since it took me seven hours to get from the airport to Karen’s house when I landed.
The flight from London to Paris was uneventful, the flight from Paris to Nairobi was actually fantastic because it was basically me, Kim and 70 members of a non-denominational church in South Carolina. They were coming to help build a school (and spread the word). Upon landing in Nairobi, we had to fill out a health information sheet, a Visa application, and a landing card. The Visa was $25 for single entry (although, we thought we were buying multiple entry). The entire process took about an hour, but only because of inefficiency. You can expedite the process by getting the Visa ahead of time, but we didn’t do that.
Once we got our bags, we left the baggage area and found our driver, who was waiting with a sign with our names on it. He drove us to the Fairview Hotel, which was quaint, but nice. We basically got in, ordered room service, called our friends, who had arrived at about 3am, did some emailing, then went to bed. We set the alarm for 6am for our 7:30am departure time.

Wine Wharf, London

We went to the Wine Wharf (http://www.winewharf.co.uk/) last night to meet up with some of MK and my friends in the London area. I didn't sleep on the flight and only got in about an hour nap, so I was pretty tired. My cure: wine. Obviously. I indulged in a white wine flight, which was basically my version of perfection.

For those who are interested (read: Neil), the details of the wines are listed to the left. The Chilean Sauvignon Blanc was fantastic, as to be expected. I feel like I've been leaning toward Chilean Sauvignon Blancs lately, when a reasonable New Zealand Sauv Blanc isn't available. I had a wonderful one in Boston with Katyhat. In addition to the wine, we had cheese, olives, nuts, and salad. It was amazing. I got to meet MK's friends from Hong Kong - a wonderful group of badass, irreverant women in finance. We're staying with her friend, Karen, in Greenwich, who works in derivatives at HSBC, does triathlons, and ran to work yesterday. Awesome.

After the Wine Wharf, we took the ferry home, which was wonderful.

MK leaves today for Africa, I leave VERY early tomorrow morning. Until then, I rest, get over jet lag, and eat fantastic british chocolates.

London Town

I left Boston yesterday at 2:34PM, was delayed at Dulles by 2 hours, and finally got off the ground to London around 8PM. I didn't sleep at all on the flight, despite the free cocktail all passengers received for the delay. However, I did watch two movies: He's Just Not that Into You (for the second time, sucker for romantic comedies) and The Reader (twisted, sad, hot).
I arrived in London at 7:30AM to the Tube strike. I had prepared (read: MK had set up my travel arrangements to be prepared), so I was scheduled on a bus to Canary Wharf, where I would grab the Docklands Light Rail to Greenwich, where MK's friend lives. Due to the strike and the rain, traffic was ridic. It took me about the exact amount of time it took me to fly to London from Dulles to get from Heathrow to Greenwich. I made some friends, including the driver, who is an avid runner and former inhabitant of New Zealand, and the two other passengers who spoke English (a woman from Chicago who works for Northern Trust, and a British bloke who works for a Med Device company). Regardless, the whole ordeal was exhausting.
In Greenwich with MK, her friend's house is adorable, I need a nap very badly, and we are meeting people for cocktails at 6:30PM. Back on the horse. I remember that I love London - charming, character-filled, cute accents. I'm deciding what to do from the 22nd to the 25th and London is starting to look more appealing. I will take pictures tonight. Until then, I'm safe in London and looking forward to 2 days of rest before heading to Nairobi on Friday.

T-24 Hours

I created this 'blog' to document my travels for the Summer after graduating from Wharton with my MBA, the summer of 2009. My travel schedule is as follows:

Jun 9-June 12: London, UK
June 12-June 14: Nairobi, Kenya
June 14-June 21: Climb Kilimanjaro
June 21-June 22: Nairobi, Kenya
June 22-June 25: TBD
June 25-July 1: Mykonos Island, Greece
July 1-July 13: Boston, DC, Philadelphia, NYC (downtime)
July 13-July 18: Seattle, WA
July 18-August 31: Bike across the country - Seattle to DC

I felt like posting all of my updates on Facebook was too imposing on others, so to fuel my self-importance (and document this once-in-a-lifetime summer), I decided to just do it all in one place. I will likely include daily random thoughts, pictures, advice, etc.

CP