The Roof of Africa
In fact, most days are busy days on the continent\'s highest mountain during the climbing seasons from June to September and November to March. Like pins to a magnet, trekkers from all over the world are drawn to Kilimanjaro, the Roof of Africa, an internationally famous landmark and a World Heritage Site. The routes most people take up Kilimanjaro are not technical climbs; you can walk to the top without need of ice axe, ropes or crampons. The only thing you do need is a physiology that will cope with altitude. Kilimanjaro, at nearly 6000 metres, is substantially higher than our Aoraki/Mt Cook (3764m) and it\'s the thin air of altitude that creates the challenge. At the beginning of our six-day adventure, our chief guide, Peter Mtui, gives me the key to a successful climb - two simple Swahili words, "polo polo." Slowly, slowly. Hundreds of trekkers make it to the top of the volcano\'s highest peak, Uhuru, each year, but thousands more do not because they suffer terribly from altitude sickness. The temptation is to try to cram the climb into just a few days in order to save money - five night trips can cost upwards of US$750 per person, of which US$430 is national park fees. But there are risks in doing so - at best you just won\'t make the summit, at worst it will kill you. Just a few days after we summitted, a chap died in his sleep at our highest campsite, Barafu. The Kilimanjaro massif lies in north-eastern Tanzania, just below its border with Kenya. Local Wachagga people have stories about spirits on the mountain who jealously guard piles of silver and precious stones. It was said illness and severe cold would punish anyone who tried to reach the summit. Which shows they knew a thing or two. The main mountain arose about 750,000 years agao, a late arrival in the Great Rift Valley. It has three main cones, Shira, Mawenzi and Kibo. Kibo was the last to stop growing, about 300,000 years later. The mountain\'s shape today is the result of erosion by glaciers and landslides, and occasional eruptions and explosions from parasitic vents. Its main peak, the mecca for most trekkers, is Uhuru on Kibo. This summit was once called Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze, after a German emperor, but when Tanzania gained independence in 1961 it was renamed Uhuru, meaning \'freedom\'. Kilimanjaro\'s forests and height make it more than an important landmark for the people who live around its base. Rich soils and a moist climate make it one of the most important water catchment areas in Tanzania and the country\'s most fertile area. It suffers huge pressures from those who live around its base for the wood, soil and water resources it offers, and a major challenge facing the national park\'s managers is how to protect the World Heritage site from the increasing demands placed upon it. Some of these pressures come from the many trekkers who visit each year - official figures quote 12,000 in 1989 and there are probably many more now as Tanzania\'s tourism has expanded. For the millennium dawn alone, 1000 people booked to welcome in the new century from the top of Uhuru. The lack of sound management of people impacts was the most disappointing thing about our Kilimanjaro climb. The World Heritage site is groaning under growing piles of rubbish and human excrement, its lower tracks are turning into erosion prone mud slides and its upper slopes are becoming ever more de-forested as trees feed cooking fires for the thousands of annual trekkers. Given that the national park must take in a revenue of more than NZ$2 million a year in park fees alone, it is frustrating that these do not seem to be used to help preserve this special place. But for all that, Kilimanjaro was an experience to remember. Our route, from Machame Gate, via Barafu high camp and out through Mweka Gate, was not the shortest, nor the most popular. But it was the most scenic, passing through the mountain\'s complete range of landscape and vegetation zones. These changed markedly as we climbed, from grazing and cultivated coffee plantations, through montane forest, to heath and moorland, and finally highland desert. At this highest alpine zone, summer comes every day with 40 degree Celsius temperatures, while winter freezes every night. Kilimanjaro\'s plants have evolved to cope with the extremes of temperature. A feature of the moorland zone, between 2800 and 4000 metres, is clusters of giant lobelias and senecios. Their shapes provide a weird spectre looming out of the mist along the sides of the trail. The endemic Lobelia deckenii grows up to three metres. Its stem is hollow and the flower spike has regular, spiralling leaf-like bracts that hide the blue flowers inside. It protects its sensitive leaf bud by closing its leaves over the central core at night. A slimy water solution is secreted which freezes, but the water below this top layer of ice remains unfrozen, as does the leaf bud. Using a different strategy, the highest growing senecio (Senecio cottonii), a small tree up to five metres tall, has leaves that are very thick and cottony. As they die they form a very dense insulating skirt around the trunk, keeping the cold from the delicate central growing shoot. Guides and porters are a necessary part of the Kilimanjaro package, as independent trekking has not been allowed on the mountain since 1991. Nearly 800 guides are now licensed. We shared our six days on the mountain with a cluster of two Tanzanian guides and four porters - a complex family grouping of brothers, nephews, an uncle\'s son and a neighbour, all under the direction of our chief guide, Peter. The porters carried all the food and cooking gear, including essentials such as camp chairs and crockery plates, and all the guides\' belongings. They thought we were mad for insisting on toting our own packs with clothes, tent and sleeping bags. It was certainly humbling to be working hard on an uphill stretch and have the porters go past in their economic stride, wearing broken-down gymshoes and balancing on their heads a tinker\'s assortment of packs, water cans, camp chairs, tents, bed rolls and baskets of fresh vegetables, fruit and meat. The porters earnt NZ$60 for six days\' hard graft; Peter netted $240, and his assistant, brother Augustine, $120. Payment was inverse to effort, the less they had to carry, the more they earnt. As we climbed it was our lungs and heads that protested most. Except at mealtimes; then it was our stomachs. A red and white checked tablecloth would materialise, then waves of food would flood in our direction. We dreaded the disapproving look Peter would give us if our plates were not emptied. The more we ate the less they had to carry the next day. Peter has been on the mountain for 18 of his 33 years, clocking up more than 250 ascents. Like most Tanzanians, he has little more than a primary education, but Peter\'s knowledge of weather systems and El Nino is profound. Four years ago, he says, a huge amount of snow covered the mountain, but everything is changing, the snowcap is shrinking and the hanging glaciers receding. This is bad news for the farmers who rely on her water for their lives and their crops. For much of our climb we could not see the mountaintop; wet mist shrouded the valleys and enveloped the peaks. But in the evening, the clouds lifted and our day\'s hard efforts were rewarded with a spectacular view of the flanks of the mountain, with its snowcap lit by a full moon. The last push for the top began at midnight, from our highest camp, Barafu, at 4600m. Frost crystals on the rocks and tents glistened in the moonlight and we could see the faint torch beams of other climbers snaking their way slowly up the mountain. For a time it was wondrous and beautiful, and then it became just hard work. The actual summit was almost anticlimactic after the sweat and slog of the climb. We did not linger long on the cloud-shrouded top, buffeted by fierce and freezing winds. It probably would have been different if the room had had a view, but we left before the clouds did as hypoglycaemia and altitude sickness took their toll. Four weeks and several animal safaris later, it was with a wry smile that I sat in our South African Airways flight on the way home, and noted that it took the Boeing 747 just 13 minutes to reach the altitude we had toiled for five days to attain. And ordered another wine. Travel Facts We flew to Tanzania on South African Airways (SAA), via South Africa. Five SAA flights a week connect Sydney and Perth to Johannesburg, one of the airline\'s 16 international destinations on the African continent. Two flights a week connect Johannesburg with Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania. Everything you will ever need to know about SAA can be found on its website - www.saairways.com.au. Our Kilimanjaro climb was organised through Swala Safaris. Visit their website, www.safaris-tz.com. © Marieke Hilhorst/ORIGIN NATURAL HISTORY MEDIA |