Africa: Journey to Mawenzi via Simba and Kikelelwa (Oct 9-11)

It was time to begin our trek, the main reason for those 25 hours of travel, months of training, random pills we were taking, and endless ups and downs with the planning. Nerves and excitement were abundant, but at healthy "adventurous" levels, and we were as reasonably prepared as we could have been.

To Simba Camp (Oct 9)
We woke up, took our breakfast, and handled last minute preparations. One of them being me realizing my mattress pad wouldn't fit in my duffel. Fortunately, it fit in Pat's duffel! We met with Yitzahk and our driver Jimmy, loaded the landrover, and began the drive to the Rongai gate. We stopped at a market to pick up food and met the porters on our way.

Upon arrival at the gate, we ate the lunch provided as the porters distributed the loads for the journey. We chatted briefly with 3 women from Calgary, Canada who had planned to take the 6 day Rongai Route (bypassing the Mawenzi camp.) They had fashioned an insulating device around their CamelBak straws to prevent freezing of the water at higher altitudes. Gamers. Before long, we were off and hiking!

Rongai Gate

The first 2 miles were not too special as we walked through some farm lands. Nothing super spectacular, but the hike did get more interesting as we traversed a forest the next 2 miles. Yitzhak showed us where he concluded an elephant must have crossed our trail due to broken down shrubs. Cool! We also saw a long haired monkey waiting in a tree. Occasionally, we caught glimpses down on the plains of Kenya. Before too long, we reached our camp at Simba and found a nice tea/popcorn break awaiting us. A few hours later we ate our "Chakula Kitamu" (delicious dinner), figured out how we'd arrange ourselves in the tent, and crashed as soon as the sun set. Gotta love the strict "awake with the sun" hours of the outdoors!

To Kikelelwa (Oct 10)
After our "cute" little breakfast (as described by the Canadian women commenting on our proper tea and egg sandwich table setup) we trekked to the "First cave" at a nice, slow pace. Our formal introduction to the "Pole pole" (slow) way of Tanzanian activity. The First cave proved to be entertaining, as Yitzhak showed us how to poke our heads through a hole in the cave and appear like gophers to a camera pointed to the top of the cave. See photo evidence. Yitzhak also introduced us to some local fried snacks and I introduced him and our assistant guide Julius to my Clif shot blocks.

Pat stepping on "gopher" Matt

We left the First cave after a brief break and arrived at the Second cave in a shroud of mist which later turned to a respectable rain. Geez, I thought early October was still dry season? And the Rongai route was the "dry" route? We took shelter in the cave, ate our lunch, and prepared our rain gear. We also chatted with some folks who turned out to be 3 related generations of Californians: a son, a father, and a grandfather. The father was an international US ambassador and was currently stationed in Tanzania. I WANT THAT JOB I WANT THAT JOB I WANT THAT JOB.

While a steady rain affords some eventually incredible views of snow covered Kili peaks, at the time I was not a happy camper to be wet as I was still dealing with the cold. We finished the day's trek and arrived at Kikelelwa camp, where I promptly took shelter in my nice 0F rated sleeping bag. I spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping when I had the chance (most of the time other than our meals) figuring rest was my best friend. It was a fun day, and slowly I was getting over the cold.

To Mawenzi (Oct 11)
Sweet. A shorter day. 2000ft of climbing to a hot lunch, then an "optional" afternoon acclimatization hike. I was a bit nervous this morning though as I would surpass the highest elevation I had ever been (about 14,000ft in Nepal.) I was feeling better though, already. Our morning climb was nicely slow and steady (Pole pole) with some incredible views of the snow covered peaks, and I turned into a geek calling out our elevation to Pat and Calvin. Yay Garmin 310xt. We also had our very first "Kibo sighting" which turned out to be a rock at about 13,500 ft that Calvin mistook for Kibo in a glasses-less state. I made an announcement when we surpassed 14000ft. We arrived at Mawenzi camp and were rewarded to a hot lunch.

Being "done" for the day, we were free to chill, and we did! Pat and Calvin brought out their DSes. I convinced Pat to start playing Final Fantasy IV, and soon Calvin followed suit. I was entertained enough just hearing the music! And then I got sick of the repetitive battle music, but.... yeah. We did decide to take a short but long-winded acclimatization hike later on in the afternoon, and Yitzhak led us up to about 14,700 ft. We got to see the ridge/saddle between the peaks of Mawenzi and Kibo up close. The very same saddle I took a picture of back in Moshi. That was as high as we'd get for the day, and we returned to camp.

After our dinner Yitzhak came to chat with us about the next day. He is a very reserved dude, but we got him to talk more to us that night. He shared his opinion of Tanzanian politics and how he respected the first president's ability to find peace among the different tribes when Tanzania first achieved independence in 1961. A stark contrast to the Kenyan leaders who as of today have not been able to find peace with the warring tribes. He also warned us that Mawenzi would reach some of the coldest temperatures we'd face, which was hard to believe when we arrived at camp to a balmy 80F. He was right though, as we were treated to a wild post-dinner ice fall, lightning, and windy storm! Cool! 

Africa: Jambo! Travel and arrival (Oct 6 to 8)

A scheduled 25 hours of flights/airport time. Geez. When I was a kid, I was afraid to fly. I dreaded even 1 hour flights down to LA. But at some point in my life I sort of decided, well, long flights open up a LOT of awesome adventures in the world, so definitely worth it to brave it up a bit! Fortunately, big huge 747s and 777s are so smooth that I'm convinced I'm just riding in a large bus with very little leg room. And as such the travel was just fine and uneventful, minus the mild cold/fever I started the trip with (which I attempted to knock out with Airborne vitamins.)

Our first flight was to DTW, which was scheduled in order to give us more transfer time at our second stop, AMS. A direct flight to Amsterdam would have meant only 50 minutes to board the plane to Kilimanjaro airport, a risk we did not want to take (as other friends had done so and had late luggage arrivals in Tanzania.) I passed the time with onboard sudokus, trivia, watching "American Reunion", and chatting with Pat. Before we knew it, we were on the last leg of AMS to JRO and almost half the passengers in the plane had daypacks, north face gear, or some other sort of trekking utilities. We were definitely on our way to Kilimanjaro!

Upon arrival at about 8pm on Sunday evening, we worked our way through the JRO visa maze, met Gabriel, our driver from Spoonbill, and got on the road for Keys Hotel in Moshi. My first impressions of Tanzania were that the roads were a lot calmer than I had seen a year ago in Nepal, and that the area was quite clean (relatively.) On the road we asked Gabriel about every 5 minutes if we could see Kili yet, but we realized we'd have to wait until morning to get a clear view. We checked in at Keys, learned out first Swahili word "Jambo" (hello/good day/good morning), took in some dinner, then proceeded to completely crash in our mosquito netted beds.

Calvin and Pat were eager to catch some views of Kili, so they woke up early, walked around a bit, and scoped out the town. I was content sleeping for 11 hours and waking up to catch the tail end of breakfast (in an attempt to knock out my cold, also I was lazy). After hearing their excitement at seeing both the Kibo and Mawenzi peaks of Kili, I decided I'd need to catch some quick views, too. Quite majestic and beautiful, we were able to see both the Kibo peaks and the Mawenzi peaks from our hotel.

After breakfast, we were met by our tour operator Pius Momburi and he took us to the Spoonbill office in town. We handled the business of our trek and safari, and were briefed on what to expect. Pius found a way to somehow add up our charges to make the total about $50 more per person than we were quoted, much to the chagrin of Calvin and me, but we were happy that the original "5 person group" discount was more or less still honored despite our group now being 3 people. Generally I'm a lot more relaxed about overpaying in a third world country as opposed to overpaying say, Comcast. The rest of the day was filled with some browsing of stores in town, in which I unsuccesfully attempted to buy a neat "Tanzanian journal" (maybe some sort of mountain or animal design cover with parchment paper?) to record the trip and had to settle for a generic black leathered book with the word "Diary" on front. Pat bought a local cell phone.

Later on we met with our guide Yitzhak who gave the first impression of being VERY relaxed about our trek. Since he was also very experienced, I took this as a sign of confidence. Both he and Pius told us it would be "easy". We were not convinced. But we took his word for the time being, grabbed some dinner, and made our final trek packing/preparations. For some reason we decided to try to go back to town after dinner, when we were promptly advised to NOT leave the hotel gate after dark by the security guard. So we stayed in, checked the standings of the NLDS, figured the Giants were done for being 0-2 and heading to Cincinnati for 3 games, and spent our last night in civilization in heavy anticipation of our trek!

Kibo on the left, Mawenzi on the right, the "Saddle" between, which we would eventually trek on Day 5

Africa: The Beginnings

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro? This wasn't exactly a childhood dream. I wasn't one of those people who had some "vision" when I was 8 where the mountain appeared to me. However, as I probably mentioned earlier in an entry my dad has always dreamed of climbing/climbed very high mountains and has an extensive mountaineering library. So, growing up as a Person, naturally I've been at least aware that Kili is the highest mountain in Africa for most of my life.

My specific interest in Kili really started almost 4 years ago, after I returned from the trek to Machu Picchu in Peru. I realized that not only was that just an absolutely awesome trip, but an experience I definitely wanted to do in other parts of the world as well. Traveling to a different country and taking on an adventure was not just a great vacation/escape from the work grind, but actually something I decided I wanted to be some of the highlights of my life. After I heard from a few friends that climbing Kilimanjaro was non-technical, "doable", and that traveling to that part of Africa afforded other adventures like safari and the chance to relax in Zanzibar, the wheels started turning for me!

But slowly. Eventually towards the end of 2011, 7 of my friends had made concrete plans to visit East Africa (more for some safari adventures), and that was an impetus for me to get serious about making Kilimanjaro plans/finding some climbing buddies with the hopes that I could meet up with those friends in Zanzibar.

At the start of 2012 I got the list of potentially interested people together and sent out an email with the tentative plan of Climbing Kili, going on safari, and relaxing in Zanzibar. We got our original group together of 5: Pat, Calvin, Newt, Vivian, Matt. We decided to take the Rongai route as it presented a long, gradual path up to Kibo huts for the summit night hopefully increasing our summit chances. Also, our friends Yu-kuan and Eric had taken the route before and successfully summited. We decided to use African Spoonbill Tours, also on recommendations from Yu-kuan and Eric as well as their friends.

Great! With the plans set pending the decision on dates, with commitments and excitement from our group members, and with Newt providing pointers to deals on equipment we'd need to buy, things were FINALLY in motion. Unfortunately this didn't last. Vivian and Newt had somewhat major life changing events, and I nearly had one with uncertainty about my job. So, the "set" plans were put on hold. For a long time. And with significant frustration. For a few months no progress was made. And then somehow, it all came together one day late in August. Newt and Vivian had decided to wait until next year to go, and Calvin, Pat and I decided to just go ahead and go in October. And we had our plan.

And with the plan it was time to get serious about training. I'm already rambling like crazy in this entry so feel free if you want to skip forwards to some part with pictures, but something that was important to me was training hard in preparation for the climb. After getting mild AMS in Peru at 12,500 ft after little training, then finding altitude much more tolerable in Nepal after a full season of triathlon training, I became a huge believer that being in shape helps your body deal with altitude a lot better. With the likelihood of climbing Kili this year being about maybe 70%, I'd decided back in June to do what I could to stay in shape after the the 2012 Tri season in case we did go. This meant long hilly runs at Rancho, bike n beer sessions, some swimming, and occasional longer bike rides. And when we bought the plane tickets, I realized we had 5 weeks left to train, so I put together a plan using the knowledge I'd gained from TNT workouts and old crew workouts back in high school. So here it is :) Use it, skip it, or scoff at it as you like :)

Key components of training:
- Long, hilly hikes with steep sections for leg muscle development, endurance, practice, and mental strength (Mission Peak in Fremont ended up being a PERFECT playground)
- Long hilly runs also for leg muscle development, endurance, and aerobic/anaerobic burst fitness
- Bike hill repeats for leg muscle development variety, and anaerobic fitness
- Long bike rides for leg muscle development variety and aerobic fitness
- Core workouts for strength carrying pack (a strong core helps just about all physical activity)

Other workouts:
- weight training, swimming

I also decided to use a bit of the "periodization" theory of triathlon training, that is, spend 3 weeks working hard and building, then take 1 to recover and let your body catch up. Of course with 5 weeks to play with, this ended up being 2 weeks hard, 1 recovery, 1 hard, then 1 recovery. So for my hard weeks, the schedule:

Monday - Core workout, Hilly Rancho San Antonio run (8 miles to peak of PG&E trail)
Tuesday - Bike hill repeats (Taafe hill or Mt. Eden)
Wednesday - Core workout, climb Mission Peak
Thursday - Swim ~ 1500m with hypoxia set, Weight workout
Friday - Core workout
Saturday/Sunday - EPIC workout (which ended up being ONE of: biking up Old La Honda, climbing Mission Peak twice, and running 13 miles at Rancho around park perimeter)

For the recovery weeks:

Monday - Core workout, 4.5 mile Rancho Run
Tuesday - Interval bike training
Wednesday - Core workout, climb Mission Peak
Thursday - Swim
Friday -Core workout
Saturday/Sunday - Flat bike ride, run, or hike

That, along with acquiring the gear, and doing what I could to secure my job, made me finally ready to head to Africa!