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“The only joy in the world is to begin”
-Cesare Pavese
July 11:
It’s been a little over a week since I returned from
Pre-trip planning, packing and sometimes panicking:
I didn’t journal all this as it happened but here’s a few (well, quite a few!) details as to how I finally got on a plane to
I remember Heather coming out for a hike with Karen, Pat and I and we just grilled her with questions about the trip. She and Marshall had climbed Kili 3 years ago, so she very patiently answered our questions. I shared info about the trip with some of my Leadville Trail 100 buddies, including Mick and Sharon Donoff, who ultimately decided to come as well. In the middle of all this decision-making, I also started a new job, teaching in the Physical Therapist Assistant program at
While the fundraising went well, can’t really say the same for training. Partly time constraints, partly knee injury, resulting in very little running or hiking. Went to C4P in February, limited miles but still my favorite fun “event”! At some point I realized that I was worrying too much: school remained a huge challenge and time commitment, and I was volunteering as a coach for Girls on the Run, and trying to get the knee problem diagnosed. So I did what I could, mostly walking and some hiking – finally getting in good hikes with boots and daypack in late May/early June, after the semester ended. Did I feel really ready and trained up for this? No. Did it matter? Believe it or not – no.
Some of my Girls on the Run group at our 5k!
After the race
As far as equipment, gear and clothing, it wasn’t until mid to late April that I started getting serious about organizing what to take. Long story short, many visits to REI and other mountaineering stores, as well as Target, Amazon, Best Buy etc. While I owned a lot of workable stuff, I also needed to update some older gear and buy whatever I was missing. And of course each item had to be perfect (those of you who know me well are probably laughing that I would actually write that!). Then there were the decisions related to cameras – finally ended up with a new digital – which I am still learning all the features of (my big plan was to practice on the plane, well, that didn’t happen…), plus took a 35mm film camera with 2 lenses. I like taking slides, finding slide film these days is not as easy as you would think. My living room became gear storage central for about a month as I added, subtracted and finally decided on what to take. One “day before leaving” luggage glitch – had to repair a large hole in an old duffel at the last minute. Geez, just get me on the plane….
Medical and Health Prep: This part was fairly easy, called the travel clinic at Kaiser and spent 30 minutes on the phone with a pharmacist reviewing my trip plans. Then went in for a bunch of shots, picked up a bunch of prescriptions and I was good to go…Dealing with my knee was not so easy…Finally diagnosed a baker’s cyst, but the problem is really in the joint itself. Have not yet figured out the real problem. Ended up getting a cortisone shot in the knee joint, which I reluctantly agreed to. I would rather know the reason for the problem and instead I get a shot for inflammation – cause unknown. The cortisone shot, which I got in mid-May, helped but didn’t cure. I ended up being able to hike with only a few annoying twinges. It’s somewhat worse now that I’m home and trying to run again. Whine…whine… J
In reading over the above paragraphs it all seems so much easier and quicker than it was. I also have most likely put all readers of this to sleep before the actual trip journal even starts!
One final pre-trip story: While trying to get things ready and perfect, I was also finishing the semester at school. Those of you in education know that things never really end – there is always something to do. I had students with incompletes, I wanted to clean my office, I signed up to take a required training course for a new online learning platform the college is switching to etc. About a week and a half or so after the semester ended I’m in my office and logged on to start the above mentioned training class, realized that it was going to take more time than I expected – I was trying to get out for a long hike that day as well, my knee hurt, and I had received a review copy of a textbook for one of my classes. I ended up not hiking that day and when I got home I looked at the new text and actually thought about taking it with me to
June 11, departure day: stuffed the newly repaired duffel (I am rather proud of this repair job, it held up the entire trip!); my brother Glenn picked me up at 7 AM; I would arrive at the Springlands Hotel in Moshi, Tanzania about 29 hours later.
“Everything is about dreams, I think, about breaking free of anxieties and floating off to a new and wonderful arrangement.” -Bowden
Monday, June 12:
It is about 10 AM; I am sitting in the plane in
The flight to Kilimanjaro Airport was great! Ended up with a whole row to myself so able to stretch out and get up to walk around more often. One of the snack boxes they gave actually had a Sudoku puzzle (my favorite) built into the lid with a pencil. That was fun – Karen would have liked it! Landed and got through passport control quickly – all the luggage came – yeah!!! and no checking of anything at customs. Never saw anyone even stationed at customs. Jane and I found a guy from Springlands Hotel holding a sign with our names on it and he took us to their van. Several guys hung around and wanted tips for supposedly helping with the luggage, which was on a cart! This bugged me, but not sure of tip protocol yet, so gave a dollar to a couple of them. Our driver, Papu, got us to Springlands, which is just outside of the main part of Moshi, in about an hour, talking a few times on his cell phone. (Cell phones are huge here, I had no idea!) Mostly paved roads with a final section of dirt road. We arrived about 9:30 PM. Ran into Marshall, Mick and Sharon right away and then got checked in. Rooms are small and serviceable; Mick calls it adult hostel style. Two twin beds with mosquito netting, some shelves, no water pressure (always a pet peeve of mine when I travel J), very little hot water. It works for what we need. Went to bed around 10, surrounded by mosquito netting. Did not sleep well – it was noisy, with groups arriving, the hotel gate opening and closing, people talking loudly etc. But – I made to
“As wide as all the world, great, high and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of
Tuesday, June 13:
Up early this morning since I wasn’t sleeping and took a quick “cold” shower. Figured out afterwards where the switch was to turn the hot water heater on. OK- the learning curve is steep and unpaved and rocky J.
First view of Kili – walked outside the hotel gate and looked up – way up, and there it was – the summit was clear but the lower part of the mountain was completely hidden by clouds. It is bigger than I expected. Being from
The hotel grounds are very pretty, lots of greenery, plants and flowers, with gravel paths leading to the different buildings. You constantly hear the sound of gravel crunching, even in the rooms.
The eating and bar areas are open sided with roofs to protect from rain.
Internet access is available and there is a TV room, usually tuned to World Cup soccer (during our time there), as well as a small gift shop and a pool. Power outages are very common, the hotel has back up generators for some of the basics – like lights. The hotel is surrounded by a thick wall, gated with a guard and the gate is locked at night. We keep our money, passports and other valuables in safe deposit boxes, even while on the mountain or safari. It feels a little weird to leave that all behind when we’re traveling away from Moshi, but it is nice not to worry about carrying it. Springlands has a large staff who are very cheerful and friendly. Sometimes things seem a little slow, but this is
Met up with our group for breakfast, so to introduce, starting from the left:
Marshall Ulrich: our trip leader and organizer from
Roger Kaufhold: also from Idaho Springs, Marshall’s neighbor, decided to join the trip at the last minute, loves beer!, tells amusing stories with a Midwestern flair that occasionally gets him into trouble!
Sharon Donoff: from Laguna Beach,
Mick Donoff: also from
Jane Jontz: from
Jo Ann Beine: you’ll learn more about me than you probably ever wanted to after reading this journal!
Missing from the group:
Heather Ulrich:
Barbara Wright: a long-time (30+ years) friend of Mick and Sharon’s and an awesome athlete from the stories I’ve heard. She had signed up for the trip – a vacation after enduring a challenging year in which she dealt with and overcame a bout with cancer and the loss of her husband in a cycling accident. About a week before the trip she found out she had a recurrence of cancer and was unable to join us. Just thinking about it is emotional; we are so lucky to be able to do these activities and adventures. You were/are in our thoughts and hearts, Barbara….
Back to our 1st full day in Tanzania:
Breakfast at Springlands is a buffet with bread, sausage, fruit, juice, eggs to order etc. Tables are set with hot water and tea, instant coffee, hot cocoa, sugar and powdered milk, called Nido. The eggs to order was a nice touch – everything from omelets to scrambled. We shared breakfast with another climber, Ron, who is here for his 2nd attempt on Kili. Last fall he got pulmonary edema and had to descend. He is just off a climb of Elbrus where he and his guide fell near the summit. He’s got a leg/hip injury that he’s hoping will get better before he starts the Kili climb. He’s doing the same route as us so we’ll probably see him on the mountain.
After breakfast, Marsh gave each of us a Go-Lite jacket embroidered with the benefit expedition logo. (We're wearing them in the photo above.) He talked about how important this is to the Sisters and how much they appreciate the donations. He also described some of the work they do – last fall he and Heather were able to visit some of the villages in
We decided to go into the main part of Moshi to see some crafts and the local market area; the hotel is located a couple of miles outside of the main town area. Moshi and Arusha are the two towns to base out of for Kili climbs and safaris. Moshi is smaller, about 100,000 people. We are driven into Moshi and make our 1st stop at a place that sells tanzanite; a beautiful blue gemstone that is only found in
We also visited an area where they do various crafts like wood carving and painting on site. They work out in the open and have small huts to show and sell everything.
Roger bought a tall giraffe carving. Sharon and I each bought an oil painting. Folk art - our 1st negotiation - spent about $20.00 each. (A totally reasonable price, and we would all get better at bargaining especially after we learned the going rate for some items.)
Shown with the artist: Sharon's painting is bottom left, mine is top left.
Ended up in the local market area which was fun to walk through, surrounded by our entourage of guys selling stuff. Most of them are trying to sell for the various shops and stalls and make a commission. If they didn’t have something you asked about, they would disappear and reappear a few minutes later with it. They did try to sell us Kili t shirts, but we didn’t want to jinx our climb by buying them before we did it! The market is very colorful especially the fruit and vegetable stands with the women dressed in bright colors. However, you have to be careful taking photos as the women know the tourist game well and want to be paid!
We walked back to Springlands from the market area. It was turning out to be a fairly warm and sunny day. Dirt road past some huts, along railroad tracks. Kids would come out and say Hello or Jambo. Sometimes they would ask for money.
After lunch, Jane took a nap and I reorganized/repacked for the climb. We can only have 15 kilos (about 35 lbs) in weight for the porters to carry. There is a scale in the courtyard; at one point I took my bag down and weighed it, luckily it was right on! The porters are allowed to carry about 40-45 lbs max. My repacking seemed to go on forever – I got tired of making decisions!
At 5 PM we had a meeting with folks from Zara, our local tour company, that also owns Springlands. We met our guide for the mountain – Dismas – and he went over some of the climb details. He is the same guide
Dinner was around 7:30, not my favorite, except the soup was tasty. I usually don’t eat much soup, but would have and enjoy soup almost everyday on this trip! Rice, meat, some sort of unusual pizza, beans, vegetables. I was kind of avoiding veggies and fruit, except for these really good tiny bananas that they have. (Marsh said the hotel did a good job of cleaning the vegetables, but you read and hear so much about avoiding things that you can’t peel yourself that it’s hard to ignore!) Roger was enjoying his last night of drinking Kilimanjaro beer!
Continue: Kilimanjaro Climb Day 1