MT KENYA A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE :PART 2

I have not felt so cold in so long. My hands were frozen , my feet were frozen even my thinking capacity was frozen but i would not give up. Darkness, rain , fear, sweat, tears...honestly we needed to get to our destination and quick. However there had been that one very bright spot where we had stopped to make phone calls and we were giving tall tales back home. You know the way you keep people at home, so interested in what you are doing for the sake of,...!...that way.

We had a really good guide. Maybe i mentioned earlier that his name is Steve. He was the funniest person i ever met. At some point when he noticed we were soooooo tired he offered the kindest advice of going back down the mountain. However, when he saw our determination to continue he started to advice us to live because frankly for first time climbers we were doing not so well.

I like to say every once in a while, that day the mountain made me. It changed me completely from the inside out. I have a certain respect for something that can unmake me so deeply then remake me again. We are walking and its dark. We have what look like torches out but they are not helping. This time we are walking down rather than up into a valley. The camp is like not too far away. There is a sense of desparation here. the only comfort is that really we are not the last ones ... there is one more behind us and we know this because someone way behind us was flashing a torch...a sign of life. Seemingly out of the blues a man appears. He is a guide . I absolutely hate him right now. He is passing us like the earth belongs to him. So easy. He says he thinks we are ok and we will make it. An angry frustrated tear drops down my face. I cant even feel it. I am too cold.

For the longest time, we have been hearing the river. Finally its within our sights. God, that seems good. We will live. With some alien burst of energy we cross it , on a tiny bridge made of some wood and then there is this stone. Oh Lawdy....that stone...its so invitingly flat. Our bodies give in and we sit down. The guide as tired as he is , is still giving us fantastic wisdom..." dont go to sleep he says"...honestly my mind tells me....this is a line from a horror movie...who says such things on a mountain. It turns out he is serious and makes sure we are disturbed enough to wake up and walk

We had not anticipated the wind. I had always imagined in class when they said windward it a was a small wind thing that would not hurt a fly. But this was different. Its coming at us as if its on a revenge mission. its full of cold finger like sharp things and i think that is my imagination. But in the state we are all in , we can be forgiven for creating wild imaginations.

In such moments when the spirit is willing but the body is not, its a one foot in front on another affair. Slowly but surely and painfully we are making our way to a destination that seems to move itself the closer we get. its dark , really dark and the one light remaining is conspiring to go off too. Lord have mercy. Then we come upon it. The sign that reads Mackinders ...i cant read the rest but i assume its trying to tell us that our destination is near. This is a historic moment and we should all be celebrating this milestone. But we cant.

We are stepping in water, moving because we must move. Finally we find this outcropping of rock. Its enough , we cant move anymore. (for those who have climbed mount Kenya, and this is a little embarrassing, that rock signified 5 minutes to the end of the journey round 1)... We sit...too tired and too frozen to speak. Our guide cannot convince me and my partner in tiredness to move another inch. Everything seems too heavy even the clothes on our back. ....nope, not moving.

You know how the earth conspires to save you when you cannot save yourself....I dont know what you call it but there are moments i swear you See God. Here we say (and this is direct translation) - that God comes and does not send another. Anyway just as some form of sweet sleep threatens to make a home in our eyes, a man wearing pink appears. Me i thought he was an angel. Who wears pink in the cold of the night , on a mountain top.

I am looking at my friends - because that is what we have become and i am assuming i am telling her, this is how people die. How do angels appear out of nowhere? the said angel, goes ahead and hands each of us a cup and proceeds to put in steaming hot something that looks like tea. I am too tired to care. I put it in my mouth and it comes out sideways. My goodness i had not realized i was that frozen. I am telling you, that was like the best tea i have drunk in all my ears. It brought and painfully both feeling and energy to go one last mile.

He tells us as he lives for the one person out there, far away...Just climb over this rock and you are home. I cried then. two hot streams of sour water pouring down my face. We are here. We climbed those rocks like our life depended on it because it did. and then, there was nothing. I'd expected a house . I'd expected a welcoming committee.......it wasn't too far off but have you ever been tired?

Well we would not give up now. We walked on , practically running. Last mile, last mile ......last .......there is that house in the near distance....there is a light....there is hope, there is a door....there ARE PEOPLE.......we are home. Home at last.

IT HAS BEEN 12 hours ...this is day one. We are alive, we are cold , we are well. There is a visible sigh of relief from everyone else. I just need to change. I just need to eat. I just need to sleep.

MT.KENYA A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: PART 1

WE made it to the top!!! That was like music to my ears...buuuut , lets go back in time a little. What top are we talking about? Every once in a while, a person challenges themselves to achieve impossible goals or so it seems. Mine was to climb Mount Kenya. I had stared at it all my life, I had dreams about it, fantasized about it, and then one day , i got the offer of a century. Lets put it this way, it was no longer going to be the history of the Mountain but about me making history on that mountain.

its the second highest point on the African continent and is easily accessible from my home location , Nyeri. Point Lenana , at 4,890 is described as "trekable" I'd practiced for months, walking long distances , up and down the hillsides in the surrounding , building up my strength, both mental and physical. I was sure that the mountain had never seen someone like me. I felt fit , i was gonna do this. Besides i was doing this for a good cause. I would be playing my part in contributing to the welfare of the children at Metropolitan.

The morning of the climb all courage left me. It opened a little tap at the bottom of my feet and left. I was asking myself impossible questions like , do i know my fellow climbers, am i going to fit into the group, will i like them, will they like me, do i have enough strength not to drag the team down? Fear....Gosh

Fast forward...luckily we had this awesome co-coordinator. The moment we got into the vehicle to drive to the Narumoro gate, it felt like we knew each other from centuries ago. We made friends , we made comrades , we made companions. I can do this i whispered to the wind. I can do this.

It had rained and therefore where we were supposed to be driven we walked. The first leg of the climb and i was lugging behind. Geez , id never known i'd feel heavy. The rest of the crew made walking look easy. But we made it all right. I was feeling up beat like a real climber. So this was the famous Met station. The sign was reading 10km to Mackinders. Easy peazy...i tell you i will never think like this again in my life.

The next task was to climb up to Mackinders. It looked like we could do it , no problem, but we were climbing up and i am not used to up. There was a light drizzle and i had fallen behind. The good thing is that somehow i had myself a partner in the crime of slow. We were gonna do this. The forest was nothing short of something I've read in a book , probably about magic and it was on a flying carpet. I did not think passing trees and pulling myself through that route could take the breath out of me like this. I have never liked being last , but last i was. I love our guide. He even had a nice biblical name , Steve. he never left. After exiting the forest and severally wanting to turn back, we finally got a rest. A rest and a small something to eat because climbing mountains is bound to reduce your stomach size.

Next, we were entered the moorland. Gosh...Woiiiiiiiii.. The rest of the crowd dissapeared out of sight
Me and my friend kept going. I've heard it said that you conquer the mountain, instead , honestly the thing conquers you. At some point it had stopped being my friendly neighborhood mountain. It had become the one thing that could remake me in various angles. My energy deserted and i started to really hate my bag and everything else i was carrying including my clothes. Soooo heavy....Every foot step felt like a burden and every stone became a hill. Lifting one foot in front of another was becoming a living day mare.

Yet we climbed. Climb we did. This up business could be really be tiring. Finally we met with the other half of the group and for about an hour we rested. That felt like a piece of heaven. I think when they say 10km they are telling you in a nice way, ten thousand!!! Haiya all this walking and we are not yet there. You know there is the temptation always to eat like a pig. Bad idea. The extra weight is so not worth it. I think this mountain needs more water than they let you know on all the tourist sites. Drink like your life depends on it because it literally does. Water here means life. It means oxygen because , that is the little secret that keeps mountain sickness at bay.

So we are past the break . The other people again who are light footed are way out there, i can picture them being like little mountain goats skipping all over the place happily and i must be the hulk with all this weight, my very own body being to blame on weighty issues. I was literally dragging my feet and i felt like crying for my mother every other two minutes. At Lunch point , which we reached 3 hours late, our guide actually suggested that we could go back down. That people quit here, that it is okay. I was like ...ohhhhhhh meeeeeee.....priiiiiiss ....Never!!!!. I suppose he was very dissapointed at my no , though he was smiling loudly.

Up we pulled our bodies, up and up , the higher we went, the rainier , wetter and colder and more emotional. This in my opinion was more of a spiritual journey than a physical one. I was not conquering my physical inabilities, i was  conquering my inner limitations. It reminded me of this one time somewhere in America when i climbed a zip line and i decided not to quit. I am scared of high places and all things wood, but i never turned back...so why should i quit at home, So we kept on. The three of us making the best team i have ever seen in the world. We tried different methods of walking , sometimes almost crawling, and now darkness was coming in.......