Well, we made it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro!! It took us 7 days to get up and down, and was an experience we’ll never forget. It’s tough to describe how we felt when we finally reached Uhuru Peak at nearly 6000m above sea level (mostly we felt cold). We’ll go into much greater detail in a separate post next week (we also still need to describe the awesome week we had in Kampala, Uganda the week before our climb), but we’re heading out on a Tanzanian safari tomorrow and we’re too tired from the climb to type any more!
While we were hiking we came up with 1 or 2 “tweets” every day. Basically, it’s what we were doing/thinking at random snapshots of our trek in 140 characters or less. We wrote these down in a little notebook we brought along and then typed them up below. Hopefully, you’ll find these at least slightly entertaining 🙂 If something doesn’t make complete sense here either a) we were suffering from moderate/severe altitude sickness, b) we’ll explain it in more detail in our next post, or c) I tried to be cleverer than I actually am. Either way, on to the lamest form of social media since Friendster…
Day 1:
Erin (Dinner time): Dinner day 1 and I already can see my breath and can’t feel my toes. It’s only downhill from here. Actually it’s only uphill (get it?).
Brian (Dinner time): Day 1, feeling good. King Kong ain’t got shit on me!
Day 2:
Brian (Morning): E’s idea of a good day isn’t making it to the next camp or avoiding altitude sickness, but if there’s popcorn at evening tea.
Brian (Evening Tea): Altitude is starting to take effect on E. Spent 15 min walking back down mount. looking for glove that was in her pocket!
Erin (Tea): Todays highlights: woken up w/ cup of coffee in tent, exotic scenery, popcorn at tea. Lowlight: losing my glove… in my pocket!
Erin (Dinner): More highlights: pico served in avocado bowl, watching sunset over mountains from tent, perfect view of moon over peak, ginger soup.
Day 3:
Erin (Lunch): “Lost” my glove… AGAIN! Very forgetful lately. Like J. Foxx says: Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-altitude.
Brian (Lunch): Climbing Kili is giving me a glimpse into old age. I’m always tired, always grumpy, and have to pee every half hour.
Erin (Dinner): Note to self: holding breath to go in outhouse is NOT a smart idea at high altitudes!
Brian (Dinner): Note to self: make sure all of Erin’s gloves are attached to her jacket from now on.
Day 4:
Brian (Lunch): Remember that movie Cliffhanger with Sly Stallone? What a great movie!
Erin (Tea): Good news: don’t need to hold breath to use outhouses at this camp. Bad News: it’s because they have no doors!
Brian (Dinner): We’ve learned a lot about each other on this climb. Most importantly that E can change any song lyric to include Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Erin (Dinner): It’s freezing! Should have invested in one of those two people sleeping bags!
Day 5:
Brian (Dinner): Now this is how climbing Kilimanjaro should be… 2 hours hiking, 8 hours napping.
Erin (Dinner): Just finished dinner. Breakfast’s in less than 5 hours. We signed up for this??
Brian (Breakfast/11pm): Well after a few hours sleep now it’s time for a 9 hr walk straight up then straight back down… seems slightly pointless.
Erin (Breakfast/11pm): FML.
Day 6:
Brian (6am/Summit): Trying to reach the summit of Kili is like walking on the beach. Only it’s -17C, with a 45 deg incline, howling wind, and you’re holding your breath.
Erin (6am/Summit): Wait… there’s no elevator down to the bottom??
Brian (Lunch): Ugh… going down sucks too…
Erin (Lunch): Contrary to what I was convinced of hours ago, my toes and fingers suffered no permanent damage from the cold!
Day 7:
Erin: We made it! Time to set sight on new goals: hot shower, cold beer, flat (indoor) bed.
Brian: As Shania Twain made famous and Erin is constantly singing: “Looks like we made it, look how far we’ve come my baby.”
Runaway Bride... and Groom 