QBLOG #39 Pole! Pole!

Pole! Pole! (pronounced poh-lay poh-lay and always said twice) is Swahili for Slowly! It was the theme of our trek up and down Kilimanjaro. Every porter or guide we met would greet us, "Jambo! Pole-Pole!" (Hello! Slowly-Slowly!).



Day One: Arusha, Tanzania 5:00am - 29 Aug 06
I wake to a familiar sound. It is the Muslim call for prayer being sent throughout this small town. It is eerie and beautiful in the same moment. At 5:15am, maybe 5:30, I'm not sure, a response is heard to the call..or maybe it is the end of prayer time. It is quiet for awhile. Then the sound of a rooster's cock-a-doodle-doing breaks the silent air. Silence again. 6:00 am and the church bells ring for the Christian call to worship. Morning has broken to the sounds of chanting, ringing and the crow of a rooster urging all to wake and begin the day.

Our guide (Thaddeus), Assistant guide (Florio) and porters pick us up at our hotel. It is now 9:00 a.m. We begin the drive to the Marangu gate, park Headquarters for Mt. Kilimanjaro. We arrive at around 11:00a.m. We organize ourselves, rent hiking poles and register at the park office. We are off on our 5 hour hike to our first stop at 2720 meters (8900ft), Mandara Huts. The hike is through Tropical forest. It is humid but fairly cool. Winter has just ended and Africa is in its initial throes of Spring. Eddie spots some black and white haired monkeys in the trees. It was an incredible sight! Slowly, we move on. We stop for lunch. Lunch consists of a butter and carrot sandwich, cookies, banana, a muffin, peanuts and a small orange soda.

The climb through the forest was not steep, yet it has taken much of our energy. As we encountered other hikers coming down from their trek they bade us "good luck" and also "Pole! Pole!" or "easy does it". We are not sure if in fact these are greetings or warnings. We break through the forest and arrive into a sort of desert environment, similar to that of what you would see in New Mexico or Arizona. 4:00pm we arrive at Mandara Huts. We are above the tropical canopy of the forest and above the clouds. It is absolutely magnificent.




We move to our assigned hut which we share with two other trekkers. Ben, an English lad in his early twenties and Andrew who is Polish and in his mid to late 30's. Ben has a bout of food poisoning. We offer words of comfort, medicine and a good luck to him. Andrew speaks little english and keeps to himself. All of us collapse into our respective sleeping bags for a small nap. We are roused from our sleep an hour or so later. It is dinner time. We gather in a larger hut were there are 20-30 other hikers already in the middle of their meals. Dinner consists of some fruit, bread and a type of stew that we pour over some buttered pasta. Coffee and some water. After dinner Eddie and I opt to take a hike around the Maundi Crater, the remains of a once active volcano. The clouds are below us. It feels as if we could walk out onto them. Dusk comes and we head off to an early bed. We are exhausted.

I wake at 2:00 am as mother nature calls me to get out of bed and run for the toilet. It is freezing cold. As I begin to head back to our hut I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of sparkling lights below and a sky filled with diamonds I feel I can reach out and pull from the black velvety background they lie against. I breathe in the air and pause a grateful moment and give thanks for all that is before me.

I breathe one more time and take it all in. I am a bit overwhelmed with joy. I take one more view to record in my memory. I am satisfied. I head back to the hut and quickly fall back to sleep. More mountain will greet us tomorrow.

To be continued....

Robert