Kilimanjaro Climb

In 1988-89 I took two months to do some traveling and mountaineering in East Africa. I kept a diary which unfortunately was stolen along with my backpack while I was shopping for a used car in S Minneapolis shortly after arriving in the United States. I am going to try to reconstruct this trip as well as I can from memory.

Waking up while overflying Mt. Kilimanjaro.
An omen for a successful trip?

I booked a trip on Egypt Air from Brussels to Dar es Salaam at the beginning of December 1988. As I awoke early in the morning, we were just flying across Kilimanjaro, I even was able to snap a picture. I then took the bus to Moshi at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Loading buses in Dar-es-Salaam

The bus was a heavy-duty contraption, not unlike North American school buses. One of my neighbors was a man from Zaire, we talked quite extensively about various things, in French, which was at that time still better than my English. I took in the landscape consisting of uniform scrub land, on this long trip on very rough roads. One thing that struck me was the omnipresence of people, I do not recall seeing many towns, but there were folks walking along the road everywhere. The only other memorable thing during a long and restless night was, when the bus hit a particularly nasty pothole, being ejected from my seat with such violence that I hit my head on the luggage rack which was a good half meter above me.

Kilimanjaro from Moshi

I was relieved when we finally arrived in Moshi, Kilimanjaro as a backdrop. As I was leaving the bus, tired and sore, with my two packs (one mountaineering and one general touring), a passenger behind me was trying to empty the pack I was carrying on my back. I noticed and chased him off.

I headed to the YMCA and rented a room. I started immediately to check out the possibility to join a party heading for Kilimanjaro, one that like me was interested in traversing the mountain rather than going up and down on the Marangu route. The Y had an agent of the National Park on site. He told me he would put out a word that I'd like to find some companions for an unusual adventure. The next morning somebody knocked on my door. It was a balding man of sturdy built, a bit older than me, who introduced himself as David. He, his nephew Timothy Hamilton and his colleague Daudi wanted to tackle Kilimanjaro via the Western Breach in a variation of the Machame Route.

We hit it off immediately. David, a missionary of a small protestant sect, native Tanzanian with NZ family was easy to get along with. When I heard his vocation, I was a little concerned because of my agnosticism. I should not have worried, he did talk about his beliefs but was in no way proselytizing and seemed to respect my own world view and personal philosophy.

Daudi and me, on first leg, from Machame Gate to Machame 
Camp. Note the thick lichen in the trees behind us.

We came to an agreement on the price and the next morning we headed for the Machame Gate with our group of guides and porters. in a couple of Land Rovers. We started our hike through the rain forest covering the slopes of the volcano. The large trees were covered by thick beards of lichen and colorful flowers shone on the dusky forest floor.

David, followed by Tim and Daudi,

emerges from the rain forest on the
home stretch to Machame hut.

It was strange to have my pack almost forced off my back. I understand the value of hiring porters and guides to the local economy, but it still felt like cheating from the perspective of personal accomplishment.

David and Daudi, breaking fast at dawn.

Towards the end of the day, the trees started to be farther apart. Machame Camp consisted of a hut constructed of galvanized sheet metal. Writing this in 2010 and doing some research to reconstruct our route, I am amazed how crowded this looks. When we did this in 1988, we were the only party coming from this side at this particular time.