Circular Reasoning on Kilimanjaro

Our family at Shira 1 basecamp with Uhuru peak in background. 

The rainy season came in earnest in the past week with some help from the tail end of cyclone Kenneth. Yesterday early morning, we had such a torrential downpour that there was extensive flooding in Arusha. The small stream in a deep gorge at the back of our compound--spanned by a sturdy steel bridge of about 15 meters--had a flood tide rushing down about 6 am and completely oblitered the bridge. The waters have gone down and the remains of the bridge can be seen at the bottom of the gorge about 20 meters downstream. This will be a challenge for teachers living at Joshua Foundation to get to the school which is on the other side. The next closest foot bridge was also demolished so walking to school will now require several extra kilometers of travel--on muddy roads as the rainy season continues. These issues seem like minor inconveniences, compared to the extreme suffering in Mozambique, where the cyclone hit directly. 

Where the bridge and gate used to be.

That was not even the biggest adventure of the week for our family, though...

 April seems to be a season of holidays here. I am currently home from work for International Workers Day. But last week we had a long weekend as well for Unity Day, right on the heels of the 4 day Easter weekend. We were in town for Easter because of our many engagements at church and enjoyed Easter Sunday with our friends the Gingeriches and Taylors at a local nyama choma (BBQ) restaurant. It was our last goodbye with the Gingeriches who started their return to Canada the following day. We will really miss them in our small group.

Oren on the fairway.

Easter Monday was a holiday and we spent a good part of it at Gymkhana playing golf. (For our family, 9 holes can take about 4 hours.) We had a good time, and I thought we had improved significantly since our first outing with Dave Sack earlier this year. David is particularly good at driving and at hitting long shots off the fairway.

The kids were out of school the rest of the following short work week and Rebecca did a good job keeping them out of trouble with some play dates with friends (Taylors and Halters). One of the highlights was a robotics/coding camp run by a Korean woman who has a mission for giving kids in Tanzania computer literacy and coding skills. David and Oren went and met up with several friends from school (Abraham and Ezekiel). David built a lego robot with programmable sensors. Oren also programmed a lego robot and coded a video game. They came home very excited about doing more.

On the following weekend we planned a special family get-away before school started again this past Monday. We left Thursday evening after work to a place called Simba Farm Lodge on the slopes of West Kilimanjaro. It is a guest house on a very old dutch farm that is still active today. The children of the original owners run a lodge in the old farm house and some other cottages on the property. It is a bit pricey but includes some wonderful amenities like 4 course meals made from freshly harvested vegetables, dairy and meat products from the farm. We were served directly on the private veranda of the guesthouse where we were staying and every bite was delicious. The kids never enjoyed healthy meals so much!

Private candlelight dinner

We arrived after dark after a 2-hour drive from Arusha and had a bit of difficulty finding the place, but managed to get there before 8pm. We had our first meal there, but could not really see what kind of views we had from the cottage since it was after dark. We knew we were about 6000 feet or higher on the slopes of Kilimanjaro so were anticipating some great views in daylight.  We went to bed fairly early because we had planned a day trip up to gate of Kilimanjaro National Park for a hike on the Shira Plateau, which is about half way up Kilimanjaro. Friends of ours told us there is a nice loop trail up there with some spectacular views of the mountain.

Simba Farm cottages and gardens

When we set out that morning driving up, we were a bit worried about weather as it was quite foggy. We registered at the gate and then took a guide with us to the start of the hiking trail on the Shira Plateau. I could see a map set up on a display plaque, showing several circular trails between 7 and 23 kilometers. I asked the guide (who only spoke Swahili) which one we were taking, and he only smiled. We had told the rangers at the base camp who chose him we wanted to do a 4 hour 10 kilometer hike. But I was not sure which loop that would be as we started walking at 10 am.

I was glad we brought our rain coats because about 20 minutes into the hike it began to drizzle, then started pouring hard after an hour. I was a bit worried because the kids were already complaining. Rain had soaked through their coats into their fleeces and they were getting very cold. I swapped rain coats with Oren, since mine was gortex and completely water proof. We trudged on for another hour and were about to turn back when we looked ahead and saw the Shira 1 basecamp. This is a camp for hikers who are climbing to the top and where they stay on day 2 (of 7). We had not started from the base so it was not a long hike for us. As we arrived, the clouds began to clear and the sun peeked out -- a relief because we were all drenched to the bone and our shoes and socks were full of water. The camp is at 11,500 feet, so we could feel the altitude and the cold.

We stayed there and got a great view of the Kibo dome (where Uhuru peak is located at the top), when it popped out of the clouds for a few minutes. We did snap some pictures of our family at the camp in front of the peak. It did not look 5 days away. At this point, the guide asked us if we wanted to continue (tuendelee?) or turn back (turudie). We were surprised by the question because we wanted to finish the loop and said we would continue.

As we walked another 5 kilometers we started drying off, which was good. David, however, was starting to get altitude sickness. He had a bad headache, nausea, and was needing to urinate every 2 minutes or so. This was concerning because I could see we were still ascending, probably close to 12,000 feet at this point. I was anticipating veering left and cutting down to the car any time. But since there were clouds hiding the peak it was hard to tell which way we were going.

At one point when we crossed an emergency access road the guide told us we would be back to the car by 11 (saa kumi na moja) which is 5pm in our time. We were confused about that as we continued up the trail. David was really suffering after another 2 kilometers and we asked the guide where the car was. We were expecting to arrive at it at any minute. He looked surprised by the question and pointed very far down the hill in the opposite direction, toward the first base camp and said 'pale' (there). "How far?" asked Rebecca. "9 kilometers," he replied.

We were stunned and realized in horror that he had not been going in a circle path at all. Instead, we had hiked almost to the Shira 3 basecamp! We were quite upset, having walked 12 kilometers already and realized we had 9 to get back to the car, with all of us exhausted from the thin air and David getting sicker by the minute. But we simply had to get back. There was no easy way out of this. We stumbled down the 2 kilometers of rough path to the access road then walked along it for 7 more kilometers, having to cajole, bribe, coerce, and sometimes carry David along.

Rebecca and I were muttering the whole way about how irresponsible the guide had been, thinking that a family of wazungu out for a jaunt on Kili for the first time would want to take a 21 kilometer hike above 11,000 feet! We realized that he had never assumed we were going in a circle and when he was asking if we should continue or return, he was going in a straight line toward the summit and not a loop. I had not realized that our assumption that we were looping and our request to continue (to get back) was actually taking us further from the car. (We debated if this was a cultural misunderstanding, or just starting with the wrong premises.) I would normally expect a guide to play more the role of the expert and advisor rather than deferring judgment to us, when we clearly were not equipped to do a 21 kilometer trip at high altitude. But power imbalances being what they are, he just let us be in charge.

We got back to the car dead tired at about 5:15pm. Rebecca could hardly walk another step. Oren was kind of a machine that did not stop walking, and David, weirdly, got a second wind in the last 2 kilometers despite the bad headache. We did thank God that it did not rain hard again on the way back because I don't know how much more difficultly we could have endured.

We drove back out the gate and signed out. The rangers had been worried about us and were about to send out a rescue vehicle. Fortunately, we were out the gate before 6 or we would have been fined. We drove the short descent back to Simba Farm and crashed in our room. Dinner never tasted so good. (Fortunately they had also sent a bag lunch with us when we went up. We did not run out of food or water.)

The next day we were all incredibly sore, but did take a short hike from our cottage down to a stream. It was a good thing to do to get the lactic acid out of our legs. Surprisingly the kids were quite resilient and had no complaints about going on another short hike.

We stayed at the lodge until late afternoon, and even took a dip in their freezing pool before heading back. It is great to see the kids interact when there are no options for screens. They had a great time playing together at the cottage when we were not out hiking. David also enjoyed seeing the livestock that they kept at the farm.

We headed back toward Arusha and could see heavy rain on Mt. Meru. We are glad to see the rainy season is finally here although we did not appreciate it on our hike, or the destruction it wreaked on the bridge on our compound.

Some Bonus Photos from the past week.

Dying Easter Eggs with our next door neighbors

With Gingerich's on Easter Sunday