To The Roof Of Africa

The recent success of a Condor Adventures climbing team on Mount Kilimanjaro provoked memories of my first time on the great mountain. The next six times I summited, we had the services of porters and cooks, which were comforts indeed. Just told tales from the returning group of victorious climbers indicates that conditions on the route up have changed little in the 23 years since I first strapped on my pack at Marangu Gate.

The conversation of the other half dozen or so groups in the dining room was subdued. We all sat in silence, not from fear, or even worry, but from a vague uneasiness that we might have taken a step too far. Most of us were Floridians, flatlanders: Two brothers, a painter and a claims adjuster; a director of a tanning lotion corporation; an architect; a designer; a dental hygienist; an accountant; an insurance agent and his wife, parents of three adult daughters; and the hostess of a television series, who would direct the CBS filming of our camera safari. They were bold or they would not have been there. They were there as novices to attempt an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro, at 19,340 feet the highest point on the continent of Africa, a great mass of volcanic earth with one hundred foot thick ice for frosting. And it was there to test our strength of will.

We were going to follow the Normal Route on our ascent: five nights and six days on the mountain, with one of the days free for rest and acclimatization to the altitude. Guidebooks for those who would not even consider such a climb sometime call it the "Tourist Route." Climbing manuals do not call it that, and those who have been to the top and down often call it "The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Done."

The quiet dining room was part of a small hotel; also the home of a British widow and her friend. The surrounding plantation no longer produced coffee, but catered to climbers from all over the world, providing the two elderly women with an income sufficient enough to cover their basic needs. More importantly, it covered the needs of a staff who had attended the family for years and who now fired the hot water furnace, cleaned the rooms, and, in spotless clothing, served our hearty family-style meals on linen table cloths set with heavy silver scratched with age but polished to a deep glow.

The only other nearby accommodation was at a larger hotel, frequented by package tours. The place was bland and dull.

The day before, we had walked the one road into the village of Marangu, past small Anglican churches with brilliant bougainvilleas spilling over fences and crowds, mostly women and children, leaving to walk to their rough homes tucked behind small cornfields. The children wore starched white tops and the women kimono-style dresses of "Kenya cloth" in complex patterns of strong colors that, by contrast, darkened the brown of their skin. The bars were one-room buildings with bare openings.

In the yard behind one such establishment stood a large barrel filled with pombe - banana beer. We each scooped the thick liquid up with a gourd dipper and raised it to our lips. It looked like pancake batter and smelled like vomit, but it was not too bad. The alcohol came through as what wine connoisseurs would call an undertaste. Barefoot men in ragged clothes sat on the thresholds. We were five miles away from the squalor of the main road. It was a pleasant walk among the friendly people of the Chagga tribe, independent owners of small farms, prosperous by the standards of Equatorial East Africa.

We were actually on the mammoth mountain, but it was no more perceptible than being on the sphere of the earth. The only thing that looked like a mountain was the crater rim: black with a white cap, four days away and about four miles above us. Riding in from Arusha, all we could see of the mass was a slate blue slope on one end of the horizon and an opposing slope on the other, the rest hidden by a wall of gray clouds. Then a knob of bright chalk appeared above, so high we had to tilt our heads back and look up. And we were still 20 miles from the mountain's base.

The Chagga move freely across the border between Tanzania and Kenya on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro. The frontier doglegs around the mountain as it was deemed fair for Queen Victoria to have Mount Kenya on her side, and Kaiser Wilhelm II to have Kilimanjaro on his. Every African on the park staff is Chagga. Their apprenticeships begin with five years as porters, then five years as guides, and five years as hut caretakers. Having moved up successfully, they are qualified to join the Rescue Brigade, an elite corps housed in special barracks, wearing special uniforms, and trained to cope with any emergency.

We loaded into an open truck and rode through Marangu to the smiles and shout of all we passed. There is now a hospital along the road with an AIDS wing of windowless rooms locked from the outside. We turned at a waterfall to pick up a large group from the other hotel. A man with a company logo on his shirt asked which of them would like to lead. We were appalled. One lad was carrying a guitar. We were to see a drove of them, halfway up, turned around and heading down. The boy was dragging his instrument. A porter held a pretty young woman upright. There was a loose articulation to her joints as though the tendons had failed.

At the park entrance I argued, cajoled and begged for us to ascend without porters, hut stays and cooks. The officials said that it was mandatory for us to sleep in the huts. For that we would later be thankful. Our packs weighed about 25 pounds each. Every item had been weighed or checked by catalogue description. Cardboard cores were removed from toilet paper rolls, handles broken off toothbrushes. Only the essentials were on our backs, including one powdered, freeze-dried meal per day and a lightweight tent. We were required to pay hut fees, entrance fees, daily fees, and rescue fees.

The paved trail soon turned to gravel, then a footpath, and then a maze of roots as we slowly gained altitude. The afternoon was spent moving through a green cloud forest slaked by streams and waterfalls.

Suddenly Mandara Hut appeared in a clearing. It was a huge A-frame structure. Its massive beams supported a first floor with an open porch and a spacious interior enclosing picnic tables and a wood burning stove obscured by wet clothes hanging like flags of many colors. Upstairs was a long narrow passageway between two rows of double bunks. Invariably, anytime a hut was mentioned, a Tanzanian would interject that they were built by Sweden. Effective and inexpensive international good will.

Smoke rose from the caretaker's buildings as the dinners for other teams were prepared. We heated water in canteen cups over Sterno cans and poured it into the foil pouches. The red sauce meals (chili, lasagna, spaghetti) were good. Some, such as the "Oriental Delight," could induce vomiting in the severely fatigued.

The sunset view from the porch was magnificent. Edwin, one of the caretakers, came by with another man who was emaciated, silent, and would not make eye contact. He said, "He made love with men. He is sick. Can you help him?"

I thought, "Oh, dear God, if I only could!" The caretaker said he would have griffa when we came down if we wanted some to smoke.

The next morning we left the trees to rise through rolling terrain covered with unfamiliar flora such as the giant groundsel. At Horombo we rested for two nights and a day, to acclimate to the altitude, which is a matter of the body's vital systems adjusting to oxygen deprivation. At Horombo that life-supporting element is a much smaller percentage of the ambient air than at sea level. A bulletin tacked to the hut door warned of the dangers of cerebral and pulmonary edema. The former is an increase in the brain's intercellular fluids causing headaches and nausea, the latter, a filling of the lungs with liquid similar to drowning. Both can be fatal. The cure is to go down. The sign also warned that the young are more vulnerable in that they are more aggressive and inclined to move upward faster than is prudent. Under the structure lay three stretchers with handles at each end and a bicycle wheel mounted to the center.

That evening I paid a caretaker to prepare a meal for us. I remember homemade soup, a baked potato and some unusual meat, undoubtedly surplus from one of the big companies making their way up the mountain. What luxury!

At dawn we started across The Saddle, a barren lunar landscape totally devoid of plant life. Although the incline was shallow, the height would not allow more than a slow, deliberate pace. To the right appeared Mawenzi, a fumarole blown out as a lesser eruption, eroded to sheer spires of bristling rock. Our guides said climbing it required "cords."

Porters coming down, regardless of the weight of their burdens, would call out greetings in Swahili: "Jambo!" To which we would answer: "Habari", and they would answer: "Misuri," all with a friendly exuberance that touched the heart. I learned to say, "I sure wish I had a cold beer!" in Chagga (spoken in the homes of probably less than a thousand people), which was met with raised brows over big eyes, immediately followed by uproarious laughter: (How does he know that?)

The horizon became a charcoal wall of volcanic sand. Like a tiny fleck of eggshell, Kibo Hut, at 16,620 feet, was barely discernable from a distance. The trail above the hut was apparent: a zigzag going up, two straight lines coming down.

I have spent nights in some rough places (a dirt-floored basement in Nepal comes to mind, its walls decorated with yak dung drying for fuel), but the conditions at Kibo are the most miserable I have ever encountered. The bare block building with a roof of corrugated metal is without heat or insulation. Outside, the only water is scooped from a 55-gallon drum through a perpetual glaze of ice. At sea level in the tropics the hut would have been delightful, but to us, dog-tired and chilled to the bone, it offered little more than shelter from the wind. Most suffered from headaches or nausea, many were irritable, none could sleep: Oxygen deprivation was taking its toll. At midnight the guides brought hot tea and cookies that nobody wanted.

We stumbled out in the dark and started up. Two steps up, boots sinking into the loose gravel for one step down. It was a slow dance: 30 ponderous steps then two full minutes of rest. Farther up it would be 20 steps; five near the top. It was helpful to take your thoughts away and enter a trance-like state of mind. Some would doze off while standing. The guides would chant, "Pole, pole" (slowly, slowly), sometimes coming close to chuckle the mantra in your ear.

After what seemed like a year, we came to Hans Meyer Cave, not a cavern, but a rock outcropping over a concave area, just large enough for five or six to lie close together in the dirt. No one wanted to get up. One did not move but declared that he was going down. Then two more stumbled away. Soon after, another said he was going blind and turned around.

The guides would tease, beg and admonish, to encourage us to move ahead. Covered in high-tech, down-filled, extreme weather clothing, I was colder than I had ever been and prayed for the sun. A red line appeared, as thin as the first blood from a razor cut, curving ever so slightly across the horizon; hinting at the shape of the planet. It slowly became an orange stripe, then a band of yellow. Finally the sun caressed us like a warm glove. Clouds were at our feet. A few said they could go no further. The guides pointed up to a field of boulders against a clear blue sky, "It's right there!"

We had climbed for eight hours since leaving Kibo when we attained the crater rim at Gillman's Point (18,700 feet). We had conquered the mountain. A few loose plaques in various languages were strewn around. Faded banners hung from metal staffs. Wedged into the rocks was an aluminum-bound, wooden box containing a pencil on a chain and a book of signatures. I wondered how often the guides replaced them and where they were stored. Some wanted photos. Most just lay down in the dirt and snow.

Far across the crater was a fluted wall of ice cliffs hundreds of feet high. On other ascents, some have traversed the rim to the true summit at 19,340 feet, but it is academic. Usually fatigue and concern about afternoon storms discourage the extra hike.

Down, down, down. Fast down. Warm down. Sliding and falling into the sand on weak legs down. Kibo far below down. We stopped at the hut to sleep for an hour, heat now permeating the thin metal covering. Then arising to go further down. Out across The Saddle's hard surface. The pace quickening with the increasing oxygen.

Passing Horombo, where a caretaker was selling warm beers, some stopped at the outhouse. By dusk we were at Mandara. The next morning was a two-hour walk to the park gate. At the hotel: Hot baths! Clean clothes! One climber's wife owned a gourmet shop. She had sent a large smoked salmon filet. Opening the foil we fell on it like wolves.

We assembled on the lawn. The guides dressed up for the ceremony. They chanted songs in their language. One was just, "Kilimanjaro, Kilimanjaro . . ." to the clapping of their hands. Certificates were awarded. Some tears and sobs broke through. Far away the crater cone was just a mound of black and white.

One of the hotel guests said it looked easy. "But you have been kissed on the cheek by clouds the rest of us have only seen from below" -- Gloria Bliss 

Buz Donahoo studied architecture at the University of Miami, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. After working as a designer in Santa Fe and San Francisco, he returned to Florida to open his own practice. He began planning explorations of pre-Columbian ruins in Latin America for colleagues. This evolved into Condor Adventures, a small company that offers outdoor-oriented journeys to remote and exotic destinations. He lives in Winter Park, Fla. and is writing “A Ticket, A Pack & A Chart,” a book of anecdotal memoirs.