We woke up and wolfed down our breakfast. Nerves had us on our second cup of coffee.
Our guide Living Thomas, affectionately called Baba, introduced us to Vince, the fourth member of our group on Kilimanjaro. Vince seemed to be the odd one out in the group, though this perception lasted less than five minutes.
He is a 56 year old school teacher from Canada who instantly gained our approval when he stopped the bus at a bottle store and bought a bottle of Johnny Walker for the week on the mountain. Between the four of us we had three bottles of liquor to keep us from freezing on the mountain.
The heavens opened at Machame Gate and we all donned our rain gear and proceeded up to Machame Camp. We were sent on with another group while Baba organised the essential paper work for all the porters.
So off we were, four mzungus walking up Kilimanjaro. We somehow lost the group, so the four of us just kept to the path and followed the masses up the mountain. By lunchtime we had christened our group Team Babalas, firstly for having no guide and being “Baba-less” and because of the amount of alcohol we had. Caroline and Vince were both happy to comply with the South African word for a hangover.
Kilimanjaro has a rule. “Pole Pole!” It means “slowly slowly”. You have seven days to get to the summit, why rush it? The objective is to save every ounce of energy for the summit, as well as the slower you ascend the more acclimatised your body becomes to the altitude.
Your first few days become a routine of waking up, washing yourself in a litre of warm water, eating your well prepared breakfast, packing your bags, boots on and walking till the next camp. Routine that is constantly interrupted by your guide telling you to go “pole pole”. Marc and I were named, “Mzungu Kicha”, which means “crazy white man” in Swahili. This was firstly because of cycling to Kilimanjaro and secondly because we were to active for the slow pace of “pole pole”.
Team Babalas proved their mettle to Baba, by all getting to the top of Lava Tower and at the altitude 4680m above sea level we all pushed out enough push ups on a cliff to broaden the smile on our guides face. After day three, Baba was certain that all four of us were going to summit. The closer we got to the summit the more energy we seemed to gain.
We entertained ourselves every evening by candlelight with a deck of cards, Jack, Johnny and a little Amarula for dessert. By the third night the altitude got a grip of me and Baba insisted I start taking Diamox or face not summiting. I was only affected by it at night and the side effect of the Diamox was terrible: tingling feet and fingers as well as the urgency to urinate every five minutes. As stubborn as I wanted to be I had no choice but to take the pills. By the time summit day came around the whole group besides Marc was on Diamox. I did not feel to bad knowing I wasn’t alone.
Within five days Team Babalas had become a close knit unit and we all sat at supper in our last camp, Barafu, ready and layered for our summit run at 11:30pm. We all managed to get some shut-eye before the icy cold start just before midnight.
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