Journey to Africa’s highest point – Kibo Kilimanjaro

Our family is living in Tanzania, East Africa, from China. No need to share with you the reason for our being in Tanzania but I'll share with you my experience trekking Mountain Kilimanjaro.

Journey to the highest point in Africa, Mountain Kilimanjaro in Tanzania / Faith Reporters

It's November morning 2022 at Moshi in East Africa’s largest country, Tanzania.

I’ll surely share with you our story but let me first share with you our first visit to Mountain Kilimanjaro.

A Toyota Landcruiser has come to pick me and my Love for a trek to Africa’s highest point, Uhuru peak at Mountain Kilimanjaro.

30 minutes through the jungle, we arrive at Kilimanjaro National Park gate and do some paperwork as our ten porters have their luggage measured to 20 kilograms limit.

We have our lunch at a village called Machame from where we start trekking into the rainforest in the afternoon.

Before we started the journey, you may find it weird, we agreed to sleep in separate tents during the 7-day trek.

We had been warned that making love, on top of strange altitudes, exhausts the body and we were not sure if we could resist it under the same tent.

My guide Ambrose who walks after me to keep my back tells me the Machame is one of the longest and busiest routes to the summit.

The route, nearly 40 miles to and fro, avoids steep parts of this rugged mountain, allowing the body to get used to the new altitudes, increasing chances for successful trekking.

Ten strong men are ahead of us on this soggy path not big enough for two people to walk freely side by side, dodging around the giant and small mossy trees and thickets.

It would be spectacular to behold the stream-like path extending into the forest but the mist makes it fade into obscurity in just about 50 yards.

This is where footgear, gaiters and trekking poles become so important in the slippery and rugged path that makes the journey a remarkable experience.

Machame Camp

Five hours into the rainforest, we arrive at the first of the six camps we’ll sleep in the next six nights, Machame camp, seven miles from Machame Village.

I stow my weary body on a bench-like log, near a thorny thicket, facing the way that brought us through a signpost of Machame Camp.

Rectangular houses with an open gable roof, European architecture, are shelters for the rangers and cleaners at Machame Camp including the hip-and-valley roofed kitchen.

We find several other trekkers at Machame with whom we enjoy the glorious sunset putting the horizon on fire, piercing through the trees around our camp onto the green and orange tents.

Sunset fades in twilight and temperatures continue to drop but I remain warm even at 80C at night in my moisture-wicking underwears.

Shira Camp

The next morning, most of the trekkers have breakfast on rocks outside before we set off for Shira cave camp, three miles ahead.

The vegetation begins to fade with a few green short trees giving way to the dominance of black rocks of Kilimanjaro’s moorland zone.

The logs of old dead trees, white and hard, lie on bare rocks and there’s no evidence that the rate at which the trees die is the same at which new ones grow.

After five hours, we reach Shira Cave camp, have some food and wait to enjoy the sunset.

At Shira, there are no trees but barren rocks all around as if it’s a different country.

Kilimanjaro summit is visible as the neighbouring Mountain Meru.

The morning at Shira is colder and clouds are hovering over us, touching the mountain not far above us.

Barranco Camp

We leave Shira for Barranco Camp on the morning of the third day.

There are more rock pieces to go about, so many pieces that the path is a natural selection of the feet to find where to step but also crossing a bridge over a sheer valley.

We arrive at a steep hill of black rock called the Lava Tower at over 15000ft (about 3 miles) above sea level, where we have lunch but we’ll not sleep here.

From Lava Tower to Barranco Camp is a descent, a disappointment that the more the descent, the farther from the summit.

Kilimanjaro weather and atmosphere are so unpredictable that every hour of the hike may have its look.

As we descend to Barranco, we find ourselves in a mist, not able to see beyond 30 yards with scattered groundsels appearing as trekkers in the obscurity of the mist.

At Barranco Camp, the tents are erected in the silhouette of the Barranco wall, giving us a full view of the rugged Kibo summit and the snow just a short distance.

Unfortunately, at this beautiful scenery, I developed nausea probably due to the high altitude and thin air.

We have brought with us some lemons I usually use to keep nausea and vomiting at bay, inhaling the gas from the lemon skin and drinking some warm lemon water.

I’m told the biggest number of Kilimanjaro failures start at Barranco camp over 13000ft (about 2.5 miles) above the sea level in this Alpine Desert zone.

On the morning of the fourth day, we have breakfast at the top of the Barranco wall in full view of Kilimanjaro peak.

Karanga Camp

We take the fourth hike to Karanga Camp through stream-like paths below outflanking huge pillars and walls of rocks, sometimes taking the opposite direction from the peak.

We have our lunch outside viewing Kibo, Kilimanjaro’s summit.

Kibo summit looks beautiful under the blue sky, almost turning the black rock to blue and the snow on it as well.

Barafu Camp

On the fifth day, we move to Barafu Camp, a Swahili word for snow or ice.

All we see are barren rocks and identifying the path requires knowledge of the way through the mist.

We pass rock layers with iron-like minerals as if the lava got mixed with some red soil at the time of the eruption.

After tough hours of ascension, we arrive at Barafu Camp, welcomed by big pieces of broken rocks that suffered the construction of a rectangular house with an open gable roof.

Ambrose tells us this is the last camp.

At over 15000ft (nearly three miles) above sea level, the height of the Lava Tower we passed, the skies are far below us and the sunset penetrates another layer of clouds above us that touches Kibo summit.

A night to the summit

We take some rest before we wake up around midnight to trek to Kibo the summit and Uhuru peak.

According to our guide Ambrose, trekking to the summit takes place at night such that one can catch the breath-taking beauty of the sunrise at Africa’s highest point.

The ground is frozen at night, more walkable than it would during the day’s wet moisture.

So, we trek the 5 kilometres to the summit without seeing how far we’re going until the golden beams of the dawn illuminate our way.

A sign standing on a rusted iron bar probably pushed into a rock crack warns hikers against sliding on the ice and to be more careful.

We continue to the crater ridge, viewing the glaciers covering the crater, all above a vast sea of skies just below.

We arrive at Uhuru Peak (the Swahili word for being free from) at 7 O’clock after trekking for 7 hours through the night from Barafu Camp.

The temperature at Uhuru and the whole Kibo Summit is below freezing.

We’re welcomed by a wooden signpost whose pyramidal pillars are fixed between huge stones since there is no way of digging a hole in the rock.

At 19341 feet (3.6 miles) above sea level, we stand on the highest point in Africa and one of the world’s largest volcanoes.

Kilimanjaro mountain is one of several other mountains in East Africa’s Rift Valley system that is splitting eastern Africa off the African plate from the Red Sea to Mozambique in southern Africa.

Kilimanjaro is both a dormant and extinct volcano whose three craters: Mawenzi and Shira are extinct but Kibo is dormant, having last erupted over 200 years ago.

Over 30,000 visitors climb Kilimanjaro a year, uniting and dividing couples.

Ambrose tells us some memories of people who have proposed to or surprised their loved ones in tears-of-joy events at the mountain and other stories of breakups.

We sit on the peak and move around, taking pictures of ourselves and this island in the middle of the vast sea of skies.

The clouds below us are like a sea covering the earth and Kilimanjaro an Island.

I keep a rock from the summit as my souvenir.

Back to the earth

Descending back to the bottom took us two days, back to Barafu Camp and another route to Mweka Hut and Mweka Gate.

Kilimanjaro National Park gave each of us a certificate for having made it to the summit as we waited for the car to pick us back to the hotel.

......................................

Please send your story tip or idea to FaithReporters@gmail.com