Kilimanjaro

McHale and I climbed our first mountain. It was very difficult. Kilimanjaro is 5896m, it took us five days to climb up and a day and a half to get down. The air is so thin at the top that it almost hurt to breathe (but in my case that may have been due to the constant bouts of bronchitis in college).

In Arusha we found a reputable tour company and booked a 6 day/5 night trip up Kili. Our group consisted of the two of us and a Frenchman named Georges, who was traveling alone for a month, plus a guide, asst guide, cook, and six porters. The first few days were relaxing, about 6 hours of hiking per day, we made friends with other tour groups, including some German journalists and a boxer. One afternoon we walked through a hail storm. When hitting the rocks it made a sound like the clinking of glasses, quite eerily. And it hurt when it pelted against our skin. And it leaked into our tent.

Day 5, midnight. We start for the summit. It's dark, we only used the light of the moon, no flashlights. It's cold, the air is so thin. A six hour hike to the peak, we arrive just as the sun was rising. Such a clear morning. It was beautiful. For most of the hike it was so cloudy that we couldn't even see the summit, but when we arrived it was clear.  That's when I took one of my favorite photos ever - the (now dwindling) glacier at the summit.

We were absolutely exhausted when we arrived at the peak, using all of our energy to get there. Our water had frozen. We nibbled on chocolate for strength. And then we had to go down.

It's almost as difficult to get down a mountain as it is to climb up. Hard on the knees. We descended from the peak a bit unconventionally.  Imagine skiing. But in tandem (arms hooked around one another's waist), on soil covered by a thin layer of snow, and without skis (but with hiking sticks for poles). Basically we dug our heels in, leaned back a bit, and skied down. When you do not have a partner it's very easy to fall (I have something that resembles road rash on my elbows to prove it, though my butt is fine b/c I had ski pants on), but in tandem we never fell. One person can always support the other. After two hours we were back at camp for tea and a short nap before descending to 3100m for the night, from which was supposed to be a two hour hike to the gate.

I mention that it was supposed to be a two hour hike back to the gate only because it wasn't.

An hour from the gate Georges slipped and broke his leg (the ground was a damp clay, very slick). Of course no one in the group had any medical training. The porters carried Georges down the mountain (very slowly) while McHale and I now had luggage to carry down (which we did, very very slowly) and about three hours later we were at the gate waiting for an ambulance to take Georges to the closest hospital. Fortunately he had a first aid kit with some opium painkillers because the ambulance was a van with a stretcher in the back. They didn't have any medical equipment, not even a band aid.

He screamed at every bump in the road. We had fashioned a splint, but that didn't do much good. Once at the hospital it was "pay and wait". Nothing like “ER”. No orderlies, no soap in the bathroom (nor toilet paper for that matter), no potable water. It took the whole day, but cost less than $100.

We were helped quickly because we were white. When we arrived to the hospital, everyone insisted that we should see the white doctor, a Dutch woman who was working there. We were helped by another doctor, because I think the Dutch doctor specialized in tropical diseases, not broken bones. But there was definitely the feeling of priority.

Georges had broken his leg in two places, each of the two shins bones had snapped, but one closer to the knee and the other near his ankle. They had to cast his leg twice because the first time they didn't set it properly. The second time they did, with the help of valium and McHale and I pinning him down on the table. That's not an exaggeration. I was sitting on the table (not bed) that he was lying on using my arms and chest to pin him down his arms and chest. McHale was pinning down the rest of his torso and his thighs. He was convulsing and screaming. It was horrible to watch.

The X-rays (which I managed to convince the hospital to let him keep) looked like it would heal properly, but he was still in a lot of pain and returned to Paris within 48 hours. McHale and I helped take care of him, bringing him food, arranging medicine (a penny a pill for the valium), and walking him to the bathroom (he never got crutches).