Thither & Yon

With less caffeine in my system and a pair of Benadryl in my belly, I slept like a baby and woke up feeling practically perky when Mandela came knocking at 5am.

Nyla, too, looked much restored after a good night’s sleep. It’s amazing what a little distance from the suffering of trail rain can do.

We set off at the gloomy hour of 6:10am, pointed toward the Baranco Wall where a few extra-early risers could be seen as specks of light already high up among the rocks.

Yona had been recruited to carry Nyla’s pack. He would stick to her like glue, joining the chorus of pests constantly reminding her to drink more water.

For our first trick, we had to make our way across several gorgeous mountain streams that had inconsiderately formed icy caps on the rocks we were meant to use for crossing.

Having survived that first trial, we began our attack on the Baranco Wall itself. This is a put-your-hiking-sticks-away-and-use-your-hands kind of hike. Half-climb, really. Ledges are narrow and footholds occasionally precarious. I can understand why many hikers find it to be one of the highlights of the route. It’s a kind of obstacle course, and achieving each new level leaves you with a solid sense of accomplishment.

We the trail to ourselves for about thirty minutes before a smattering of porters started filtering their way up. Here we are with our tiny little backpacks, patting ourselves on the back for getting over a particular group of boulders, when a porter with 30 pounds on his back and 40 pounds BALANCED ON HIS HEAD comes trotting through like a mountain goat with no gravity and no worries. These men (and small handful of badass women) are superhuman. It’s literally awesome to watch them.

“About how long until we reach the top, do you think?” I asked Niko eventually.

“Maybe forty minutes?” he ventured.

“Right then,” I said. “I’m going to take a wee break now.” We had arrived in a place with a wide, shrubby shelf and ample opportunities for privacy. I crunched my way across a field of needle ice and enjoyed the most scenic, peaceful wee of the trip. (It’s a “wee” here and not a “pee.” I think we have the British to thank for that? Or maybe Bluey?)

Forty minutes later, give or take pauses for several porters, we spilled out onto the top of the Baranco Wall, an ocean of clouds filling the vast spaces beyond our mountain ledge. Everyone took off their packs and brought out their snacks and breathed in the nearly-14,000-foot air. We were all getting pretty good at this.

But miles to go, miles to go.

The next leg of our morning voyage took us downhill. And down and down.

“But I earned all those uphill feet already!” Nyla said. Her tone was more jaunty than despairing today.

“Acclimatization!” Dustin said. We would spend the whole day bobbing up and down like corks between 12,800 feet and our eventual destination at 15,200.

Today was the first day the peak of the mountain felt really close. We kept stopping to take photos, because every twenty feet, she somehow looked more beautiful than the moment before. I instituted a photo tax: every time you stop for a photo, you have to take a drink of water. Nyla may have called me names.

For the moment, the trail was gentle and everything was perfect. The mountain shone down upon me, and I heaved a happy sigh. This is what I love, ambling in the shadows of beautiful peaks. At that moment, I felt no desire whatsoever to scratch and claw my way to the summit. Why should I suffer for 16 hours (or even 11) to go to a place where the mountain could no longer hold me in her arms? For me, mountains are not for conquering, but for adoring.

A moment later, I found myself considering the possibility – feeling more real after yesterday – that all three of us might not make it to the peak. What if altitude got the better of Mama Simba? What if she really did only make it to Stella Point? What if she got to basecamp and couldn’t face the dire, 11-hour summit day? Would Dustin and I go up without her?

Of course we would. She would insist, for starters.

What if it were Dustin who woke up on summit day with low oxygen and the mountain heaves? Would Nyla be willing to leave him behind to go to the summit? Would I?

I had a hunch that if Dustin couldn’t go, Nyla might see that as permission to tap out as well. In my imagination, I was suddenly the only one with the oomph left to tackle the summit, and here I was thinking that I don’t even like summits that much. Would I leave them both behind and go up on my own?

After another ten minutes of pole-pole-ing along in the shadow of my beautiful peak, I decided I would. I would abandon them at basecamp and creep with Gideon up the final 4,000 feet to the top of my mountain. It would not be a conquering, but in act of worship.

It never even crossed my mind that I might be the one physically unable to summit.

Several ups-and-downs later, Karanga Camp appeared as we came over a rise.

“Gonna make us walk all the way down to that river and then all the way back up again?” I asked Niko.

“Mmm, yep,” he said. Nooooo, we wouldn’t want to follow the slope around when we can do more down and up again.

“Do we keep going?” Gideon asked after we’d finished lunch. The porters had set up our whole camp here already, so that if we decided to stay we’d be comfortable right away. Have I mentioned lately how they’re the best?

“I vote we keep going,” I said.

“I think we should,” Dustin said. “Mom?”

“Let’s go!” Nyla said. “I’m doing great!”

My tummy had become musical some time yesterday afternoon, so I didn’t pay it a lot of mind as it murmured and gurgled at me throughout the day. Aside from being rather noisy, everything seemed okay. About an hour away from Barafu Camp, though, it let loose with a particularly festive rumble and something shifted. It’s that shift from Okay to Not-Okay that every body knows and dreads.

“How not okay?” I asked my tum. Thankfully, the answer was not “dive behind the nearest bush immediately,” which was really good since we’d come to a place with a distinct lack of bushes.

“Niko?” I said. “I’m going to need one more wee stop before we get to camp, whenever you spot a likely option.” A wee stop. Yeah…

Ten minutes later, he found a patch of promising boulders and I marched off with my whole roll of toilet paper (instead of my habitual three squares) to do the unavoidable. I really wasn’t looking forward to digging a hole in these rocks.

We do our best with the options we have. At least I had toilet paper.

The march up the final slope into Barafu Camp was a doozy. It’s one of those slopes that promises you you’re almost finished, and when you get the the spot you could have sworn was the top, you find out it was fake and you still have another 200 feet to go. At least twice.

My bod had kindly allowed me to make the full incline without any panics, but wanted me to know that business again needed to be attended to ASAP. I considered offering Dustin and Nyla use of the toilet tent first, but the gut was insistent.

“I’m sorry, Omari,” I muttered as I beelined for the toilet tent.

The toilet wasn’t ready yet.

Bottom lip trembling, I looked back down the slope to where the public toilet sat, 200 feet below. Possibly not 200? It really felt like 200 as I pole-pole’d myself back down. Even in dire straights, pole pole is the only available option at 15,000 feet.

I hadn’t thought to bring my headlamp. It was still daytime. Turns out the public toilets don’t have windows. That was one seriously dark, sad, smelly little cubicle. At least there wasn’t a line.

We do our best with the options we have. At least I had toilet paper.

I crept my way back up into our camp and crawled into our sleeping tent, clawing at my pack to find an Imodium. I’d been taking precautionary Pepto since last night, but clearly something bigger was required. By the time Dustin returned from checking us in with the National Park Service, though, I was a wretched little ball of unhappiness.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. I was curled up on the tent floor, having not even unrolled my sleeping pad to cushion me against the rocky ground.

“I am dying of dysentery,” I moaned. It wasn’t just my guts, my whole person felt wrong. We discussed how well medicated I was, and whether anyone else’s guts were out of order (nope).

“Are you going to lay here and rest a bit…?” he asked. Dinner hour quickly approached.

“Only a minute. I’ll come over soon.” By now, Dustin had helped me inflate my sleeping pad, so at least I wasn’t bruising up my already-abused backside.

Digestive woes are not a sign of altitude sickness. Whatever ailed me had gone in through my mouth and, I hoped, would finish making its way back out ASAP. I certainly wouldn’t be summitting a 19,000-foot mountain in this condition.

“What are you going to tell Gideon?” Nyla asked when I arrived in the dining tent, feeling a millimeter better for the Imodium and a trip to our toilet tent, which I now appreciated triple-much.

“How’s everybody?” Gideon asked, arriving just then. Nyla shot me an alarmed look, as if maybe she’d accidentally given away a secret. Nope. No secrets on a hike like this.

“I’m not so good,” I told him, then recounted all my gory details.

“Imodium is okay to fix the problem now, but maybe you should take some Cipro. It will treat the reason for the problem.” Ciprofloxacin, I learned over the next half hour of research done on a very spotty data signal, is an antibiotic that can be used to treat “problematic” diarrhea. I had two reasons for reluctance: 1) I don’t like taking antibiotics “just in case,” because I don’t want to be part of the problem. 2) I didn’t want to believe my issue was “problematic,” even though all signs pointed to an ongoing issue.

Finally, I caved and decided to take the pills. More specifically, I decided to take the azithromycin my doctor had prescribed me for exactly this possibility. Cipro might have been better, but I knew for sure azithromycin wouldn’t mess with my penicillin allergy, and even if the instructions said it would start to fix me “within 2-3 days,” if I had any hope of going up this mountain in ten hours time, this seemed like the best course.

For the first time on the trip, I didn’t feel like eating the beautiful dinner Emanuel prepared. I slurped the broth off two bowls of soup and nibbled half-heartedly at a pile of really nice mashed potatoes and a few veggies and beans. Meat had disappeared from the menu yesterday, and that was fine with me.

“What are you going to do?” Dustin asked as we zipped into our sleeping bags half an hour later.

“Wake up at 3am and see how I feel,” I said. “If I can’t keep it together overnight, we can talk about options again in the morning.”

“I could go up with Mom tomorrow, and then you and I could go up on Thursday if you’re feeling better, like our original schedule had us doing. We’d just have to go all the way down to Mweka Camp after.”

“You’d go to the summit twice for me?” I mumbled. I’d have snuggled up to him in appreciation if I’d been less tightly wrapped.

“In theory,” he said.

I know “I love you” when I hear it.

We shut off the headlamps before 8pm. If the gods of digestion were kind, we could have 7 hours of sleep before starting our summit attempt.

• Starting Elevation: 12,900 feet (3,900m)
• Ending Elevation: 15,169 feet (4,623m)
• Cumulative Gain: 3,312 feet
• Cumulative Loss: 1,289 feet
• Approximate Miles: 5.4
• Average Pace: 1:25’55”/mile
• Swahili phrases learned: “moto” (hot – as it “maji moto” [hot water] or “moto! moto!” [fire! fire!])