Before our next big journey, we stopped back briefly in Montreal to enjoy some snow and ice. We enjoyed big bowls of noodles, skating with friends, and chilly runs on mont royal.
Then we spent time in Porto! Espresso climbs, gym puppies, and abandoned buildings.
We snuck in some final prep runs in Porto – terrified, to be honest for what was coming. Beach, city trails, stadium loops, and some snacks (ofc) did not dissapoint.
And then we did the big run! It was misty and the quads were in pain after the first downhill (with 9 hours still to go). We spent the last 4 hours running next to juju, the winner of the woman’s 100km. She ended up out pacing us but it was a wild experience to be next to someone accomplishing such an amazing feat.
We were taken on tiny muddy trails up and down valleys, across streams and up ancient farm walls, through remote towns with mini churches, and over Portuguese peaks (not so high but still chilly!) with windmills roaring unseen behind the mist. The relentless climbs were broken by aid stops with chicken noodle soup and brownies.
And then we made it to East Africa!
We started in Kenya, luckily we had brought our climbing gear all the way across the continent…. so we got to go outdoor climbing outside of Nairobi! We ran in Nairobi in the city park [forest], around Mount Longonot despite warnings against water buffalo, and in Naivasha. In Naivasha we crossed groups of cows being herded by Maasai shepherds, towers of giraffes, and many dazzles of zebras. We were stupefied by the nature in Kenya and the wonderful people we met. Entering the Rift Valley was mind-blowing!
Gabi had an ML conference in Kigali, and we made our way to Rwanda for the week. We were recommended Lake Kivu by Gideon, Gabi’s colleague, so we drove to east Rwanda from the airport. What was supposed to be a 3-hour drive turned into a 9-hour drive – we drove up to Virunga National Park on the northern border of Rwanda where the Gorillas are :O The country is filled with lush green rolling hills.
Spending the weekend at Lake Kivu was surreal.
- We learned about cows that swim with fishermen between tiny islands on the lake for food, but we didn’t pay the $7 extra to go and see them swimming.
- We learned about large methane deposits at the bottom of the lake which are extracted for energy. It is possible that the methane could bubble up and kill all surrounding life :O
- We learned about fishermen singing in a lost language only maintained in the fisherman’s songs – it’s a mix of Kinyarwanda and Congolese, reportedly created by fisherman who had saved Rwandan women from exile on tiny islands in the lake and taken them as wives.
- We could see the Congo just across the lake – people in some ways, were very connected to the Rwandans across the lake (many Rwandans fled to Congo during the genocide) but in other ways living in a completely different reality.
Tanzania and Moshi felt like an old friend. We were taken care of from landing by John, one of our guides. He along with 11 other porters and guides began our journey with us up Kilimanjaro. They were not impressed with our weather gear but thank goodness after we started in pouring rain, the rain stopped! And we had a completely rain-free journey from there.
Walking to the first and seccond hut was pure fun. We went reeeeally slowly to acclimatize which meant we spent a lot of time checking out the flowers and the other folliage. The guides knew the names for every flower and animal that we could spot. We saw monkeys, orchids only found in Kilimanjaro and a tree hyrax.
At the second hut (Horombo 3720m) we spent two nights to acclimatise. We had a whole eating hall to ourselves as it was a down time on the mountain and we spent the time reading, writing, drawing.
The final cabins were the Kibo cabins at 4,720m.
Below the next cabins it was starting to get quite difficult. The weather was incredible, but was starting to get cold and moving was getting harder. Just walking infront of the group to get the photo below, all the guides began to say ‘hey don’t go so fast’ and my heart rate jumped up.
When we were at the cabins really all we could do was breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. We all had headaches and couldn’t eat. Even going to the bathrooms was difficult.
The whole time we were treated with glorious views of Mawenzi (the jagged younger brother of Uhuru Peak) and we even saw a serval – a fox like cat that is not usually seen in that season or during the day!
We arrived at the cabins in the afternoon and tried to sleep before the 3am wakeup for the summit.
In the middle of the night we began our ascent. 5km and 1173m of elevation took us 7 hours, the descent back to Horombo another 5 hours. Kisa almost didn’t make it up, she needed oxygen at halfway to Gilmans point and threw up 2x :O Ivan threw up at the summit and received much less attention from the guides. Just getting one foot infront of the other was one of the hardest things we’ve done in our lives.
The summit was incredible, breathtaking! The glaciers were magnificent and the crater expansive. It was a very special experience and filled us with wonder for the world, nature, and our amazing team who had absolutely no trouble at all.
This was the dream team! We wouldn’t have made it to the top without these guys. Even though we weren’t able to eat any of their delicious east african food after getting to the Kibo hut.
