Jul
After climbing Kili for seven days, we took one day in Moshi to recuperate and do as little as possible, to recharge mentally and physically. After an 8-hour bus ride to Dar es Salaam, we began, on June 30, our four-day volunteer project at a small school for about 130 children in Mbagala, a village on the edge of Dar.
The school, known as Bibi Jann, after its co-founder, Jann Mitchell Sandstrom, comprises kindergarten through third grade, and a number of its students, radiant and lively and all from the rather impoverished local village, have been orphaned by AIDS. Bibi is the Swahili word for grandma, and a number of local bibis work at the school and with the children to provide a sense of community, maternity and good ol’ fashioned home cooking.
Roadmonkey team member Jolie Altman, right, with a local bibi, during our volunteer project at a school near Dar es Salaam.
Roadmonkey’s mission at the Bibi Jann school was straightforward: Our 10-member crew had four days to make the school a brighter, better, healthier learning environment for the kids.
Specifically, we would build 25 new school desks…
Work boots not required: Roadmonkeys Jo Ellingson (left) and Stef Levner, with George, Bibi Jann's English teacher, building desks on Day 1 of our volunteer work at the school.
…paint four classrooms…
Paintmonkeys: from left, Julie, Christine and Rollie, working with locally hired men from Mbagala village, painting the school's kindergarden classroom.
…add, at the request of the teachers, instructional murals and English words…
Bibi Jann English teacher George inspecting progress in one classroom.
…install natural gas cook stoves to replace the more expensive and environmentally destructive wood charcoal stoves the school used to cook kids’ lunches…
Two natural-gas stoves -- a waaay more environmentally friendly, and cheaper, way to cook school lunches than burning wood coal -- that Tanzania Roadmonkeys bought by collecting tax-deductible donations from their own social networks.
…and install a virtually maintenance-free purification system to provide the schoolchildren clean drinking water for the first time!
Roadmonkey Susan Patel with the A.J. Antunes UFL 420 system, bought by Roadmonkey through tax-deductible donations gathered by our expedition members.
In all, the 10-member Roadmonkey team raised more than $11,000 in tax-deductible donations to fund our volunteer project at the Bibi Jann school — a wonderful testament to the group members’ dedication, hard work and teamwork.
Women at Work: from left, Rollie, Julie and Susan, of the Roadmonkey crew, after a day of painting classrooms at the Bibi Jann school.
We took breaks, too, to spend time with the children, an energetic, welcoming and thankful group of people whom we were honored to have a chance to meet and work for.
Why we did it, part 1.
Why we did it, part 2.
After our fourth day of work, all of us were exhausted but gratified, knowing we’d given the school, the children, the teachers and Tanzania our best collective effort. What a way to spend your summer vacation…
Roadmonkey at rest: With Bibi Jann school teachers, construction workers, painters, plumbers and bus drivers.
Jun
Perhaps the hardest single physical test any of us have ever endured…and accomplished: At 9:30 am, June 26, 2009, all 10 Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy expedition members reached the top of this extraordinary mountain. At 19,345 feet, or 8,894 meters, we’d made it to “the roof of Africa.”
8 Roadmonkeys, with Tanzanian guides, on Kili's summit, after a 9-hour grueling climb that started at midnight.
Jun
The Roadmonkey team has reached Barafu Camp about 15,000 ft., or 4,600 meters, after 2 days of short but very strenuous hikes up hills and back down into valleys. We came through some light snow and are overlooking a cloud layer below us that has been just stunning to have as a backdrop for our climb to the summit later this evening.
Day 4: A short, spirited hike into the valley of the shadow of...Kilimanjaro's summit.
Backtracking one day, yesterday we reached Karranga Camp, a pleasant, short day hike from the previous camp. Arriving with legs still fresh, we had a lovely breakthrough sing-along of sorts with our guides and porters after they asked us to share their lunch of Ugali, the Tanzanian staple made from maize, and a beef sauce. Despite their huge workloads, the porters arrive at camp each day seemingly impervious to cold or fatigue; they manage to assemble and welcome us with songs as we arrive.
Group sing-along: Porters and Roadmonkeys, harmonizing in Swahili.
So on this day, after the communal meal, the porters and guides began singing, and we all climbed onto the largest rock we could find, and sang along with them…in Swahili. Whatever. It was a genuinely gratifying bonding experience.
from left: Susan, Jolie, Rollie, Gerald (one of our mountain guides), Stef & Christine, after dancing in an impromptu conga line.
Okay, back to the present: Today, June 25, we reached our camp at about 2pm. We just had lunch and are resting now for an early dinner at 5pm. Then, we will sleep or try to sleep, until 11pm, whereupon we will wake and gather our gear to begin climbing at around midnight, for around 8 or 9 hours, until we reach Uhuru Peak. Uhuru (”independence,” in Swahili) is the highest point in Africa, at 19,345 ft., or 5,896 meters.
And so we begin our toughest day at midnight.
Illinois in the house: Jolie "Mother" Altman, originally from Highland Park, and Paul "Roadmonkey" von Zielbauer, born & raised in Aurora, chillin' at 15,000 feet. (photo: Christine Burke)
Many of us are feeling very fatigued because we have not gotten much sleep, and despite our excellent guide from Tanzania Journeys (our guiding company), and our porters who have all been magnificent, generous and gracious hosts and assistants and helpers, many of us are feeling the effect of 5 days of hiking and lack of sleep and generally putting our bodies to a mental and physical test that i daresay most of us haven’t ever quite experienced. But we remain in anticipatory high spirits.
As they say in Swahili, Hakuna matata. “No problem.”
Our excellent lead Kilimanjaro guide, Goodluck Charles -- yes, that's his real name -- and Roadmonkey expedition co-leader Stef Levner. (photo: Christine Burke)
Look for another post from the peak of Kilimanjaro in about 12 hours.
Goodnight and best wishes,
Paul
Jun
Today, our group is hiking for another 8 hours, ascending about 600 meters (or about 1,000 feet) only to go back down 500m to set up camp, as the rules of climbing at this height require that we sleep lower than our peak daily altitude, to avoid illness…and to camp where there is a source of water, to avoid not having any.
Breakout the sunscreen: As we climbed above the cloud layer, the rays became intense.
Our group is well fed, our porters are excellent, our guides are knowledgeable and we are in high spirits as we head into Day 3, with Mt. Kilimanjaro’s peak and the glacier directly in front of us.
We walked about 8 miles spanning the length of about 8 hours, moving from sort of a high desert region with small shrubs and the stubbly, hardy, rock-clinging flowers, into an area called, somewhat cinematically, the “Lava Tower.”
Lava Tower is a very tall, very vertical frozen spray of rock underneath the glacier that tops Mt. Kilimanjaro; we had a very satisfying lunch of hearty vegetable soup (we were so impressed with the daily soups that Tanzania Journey porters made that our group asked the cook for his recipes, to create a “Kilimanjaro cookbook the guides can sell themselves). In fact, Mt Kilimanjaro is a volcanic mountain – the tallest peak in Africa, formed by a volcano.
Think your job's tough? Kilimanjaro porters have our eternal respect, carrying unbelievably heavy loads, up insanely steep inclines, at ridiculously high altitudes.
After lunch we passed through a narrow chute in the ridge line leading up to the peak. We then descended, because part of the strategy of climbing Kilimanjaro is to climb higher each day than the elevation at which we sleep to avoid altitude sickness. We walked downhill for about 2-3 hours, a fairly steep downhill trudge through rocks and a new kind of desert landscape with giant, cactus-like trees, although they really are not cacti at all but enormous flowering desert plants unique to this area.
Descending after ascending, past Mr. Cloud, toward Barranca Camp.
Walking downhill, as our group found out, is actually more difficult than walking uphill because you’re using different muscles in your legs to constantly arrest your fall. Climbing downhill is also much harder on the knees than going uphill. It was another endurance test but our group remained in very good spirits, as we each were mentally comparing the gut-it-out nature of our Day hike to this one.
We camped at a camp called Camp Barranca, at about 10,000 ft, overlooking the lights of Moshi, the market town where we began our trek, far down in the distance. Behind was the peak of Kilimanjaro.
Straight outta Star Trek: descending back down into a cloud, past Kili flora that grew increasingly exotic.
We woke up this morning and had our usual breakfast of porridge and eggs. Now we will begin another climb uphill, although all of our climbs are up-and-down; no climb is all uphill or all downhill. We will go further up the mountain than we have been at any other point and then descend a little bit further, to almost the same level we are today to prepare for our final approach to the summit in a few days’ time.
from left: Stef, Julie, Susan & Jo, all current NYC residents, sharing a light moment over breakfast.
For the most part, our group is in very good spirits. Our knees and legs and heads are holding up and no one has had any serious maladies at all – a few cuts and scrapes and bruises from falling down in the mud on Day 1 and Day 2. Absolutely nothing serious, and we in fact had a nice round table discussion with our guide and the 30 porters we have who are carrying all of our gear, our food, our tents except a small pack that each of us carry with our water and clothing and hats and sunscreen, etc.
Getting to know you: Before dinner, our guide, Goodluck Charles, in dark cap at left gesturing, translated questions and answers between Roadmonkey expedition members and some porters.
So we were able , through our guide, to have a translated discussion, and they were asking us about where we come from and what we do back home. We in turn, were asking them about why they chose to become porters, and the elements of their job, which are by accounts all very tough. We’ve all been commenting how difficult their jobs are and how hard they work to carry a lot of weight up to 19,345 ft.
After this enlightening discussion, we had a nice meal and of course we were, as usual, asleep by 9pm, knackered by not only the accumulation of fatigue but also the increasing cold and thinning air.
Good night for now,
Paul
Jun
We woke at 6:30 am, took quick note of our hilltop campsite in the new daylight, and after a breakfast of maize porridge, coffee and tea, eggs and sausages, began our Day 2 hike at 8:45 am.
Christine Burke, stretching, was the first Roadmonkey out of her tent.
We would spend most of the next 9 hours walking through spectacular upland rain forest backlit by a brilliant morning sun; then over more desert-like moorland, filled with rocks and shorter flora of a heartier, darker-green variety; and finally around a mountainous ridge, along a trail on which each step produced a small, dessicated puff of earthdust.
Walking from out of the rain forest and through a spectacular scene with the sun shining through the trees and the moss, and a constant hum of insects around us made us feel as if we were in the exotic land that indeed we had come to experience.
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Our walk lasted about an hour until we took a break at the top of another hill and then we began a descent, then a climb into a high desert plateau full of volcanic rock and large green shrubs sized as tall as a man, and pockets of small white arctic-like flowers. Enormous vistas went on for miles on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.
Rain forest gives way to more desert-like moorland.
We had lunch along the trail. We have about 33 porters for the 10 of us, and after eating a lunch of baked chicken, fruits and vegetables, we began what would probably be our longest day – an exhausting 14km climb up to about 10,000 feet. A couple in our Roadmonkey group ran out of water at about 3 o’clock , and had to walk the last two hours up and down some steep slopes to reach our camp site and rehydrate.
Comin' round the bend, Kili's peak comes into view...sort of.
The camp site is called Shira-2, a high-desert perch that provides at once a downward view of the pillowy cloud line shrouding the world below us and an upward look at the (increasingly & disturbingly meager) glacier receding like a midlife hairline around Kilimanjaro’s summit. The summit, impossibly far above, gives us a visual of where we need to go, lifting our collective spirit after an exhausting, very physically and mentally challenging Day 2 climb that seemed it would never end.
Do a little dance: Roadmonkeys (from left) Susan, Christine, Jolie and Julie celebrate reaching our camp, after 9 hours hiking, with our team's effervescent porters.
But end it did, with a spectacular sunset at cloud level that we, from our tents, were looking down upon, watching orange bruise of the sun turn clouds below us first into pink gauze, then purple before giving way to night, with Mt. Meru (the second highest peak in Tanzania) in the distance.
Sunset above the cloud line: A long day rewarded in breathtaking fashion.
More soon from this increasingly wild, tough and challenging six-day climb up one of Mt. Kilimanjaro’s toughest routes.
Paul
Jun
Before beginning the hour-long drive to point where we’d begin climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro’s Lemosho route, the 10 Roadmonkey expedition members asked our guides, from Tanzania Journeys, to stop at a convenience store in Moshi for water and snacks.
Jolie, Rollie, Susan, Christine & Stef: Before we started pooping into wood boxes for six days
Then Team Roadmonkey left from our ranger station and hiked about 3 hours through some very green rainforest at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro.
We passed very fresh signs of elephants – namely, large piles of dung along a narrow trail made very slick from recent rains. The beginning of the trail was very difficult and very steep, and many of our group members were quite exhausted by the end of the first hour.
We thought, at the time, that this was rigorous. We knew nothing.
But then the trail leveled off, and after a bag lunch under a canopy of trees in a meadow, we arrived at our hill top camping ground where we found about 20 other Kili climbers and their porters and guide.
Day 1 trail break: When we were still clean and untested
By about 8:30, all of the Road Monkey group was in their tents and asleep, exhausted from jet lag and a full day’s climb.
Paul
Jun
Hi everyone,
Today, most of Roadmonkey’s Tanzania expedition team members – from New York, San Francisco and Colorado – begin their journeys to JRO, Kilimanjaro’s airport, in northeast Tanz.
Here in New York, the weather is soggy and slightly chilled. Not a good sign as one heads into the airports here with three huge bags of gear. This could be flight-delay hell.
When I’m away from a computer, I will be updating our group’s progress, or lack thereof, on Twitter, @Roadmonkey_inc. So keep up with what we’re doing there.
More soon…
Paul
Paul von Zielbauer, director
Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy
