Black toes, the visitors that stayed six months

The following is the description of today from the tour company's info site:

"DAY 8 DESCENT - MWEKA CAMP TO MWEKA GATE TO MOSHI dec 14

Hiking Time: 4-5 hrs
Total Distance: 12km
Starting Altitude: 3100m
Final Altitude: 1980m
Habitat: Montane Rain Forest
At a much lower altitude than the last few mornings, today you will wake up full of oxygen and ready to descend the short hike to the Mweka Gate. Enjoy the forest on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and upon arrival at the Mweka gate, successful hikers will receive their summit certificates (gold for Uhuru Peale, Green for Stella point).
From the Mweka Gate you will continue down into the Mweka village for lunch, normally a muddy 1 hour hike. Upon arrival to Moshi in the afternoon, relax, or have that much-deserved shower and congratulatory beverage."

My toes are destroyed.

I borrow Andrew's nail clippers to give them a trim hoping that will be enough to stop the pain, but it isn’t. After breakfast, our crew gets together and Isa 1 makes a speech saying we are the best and all that bullshit he has to say. Then they sing us the Kili song to which we join. I don’t miss the oppurtinity of crying. It is an emotional moment. Then we hug each one of them saying thank you.

We set off for the final walk. I have too many layers on. My toes are hurting like crazy. I lag behind as usual, not only because of the pain but to watch the rainforest we are walking through. The youngsters don’t care much about trees and flowers. They just walk on chatting to each other. I enjoy some chatting for a while but get tired after a while. It’s me and Hussein once again. We talk about plants and flowers, stopping from time to time to admire them. Towards the end, I can not walk anymore because of pain. I ask Hussein if I can take my boots off and walk barefoot. He refuses with such determination that I can not fight it. "You are my responsibility. You can not die until we reach park's headquarters" Then I try walking backwards, but my team is already down the road and I don’t want them to wait for me. It gets warmer and more humid. I take my top layers off and tie them around my waist. I have about 4 layers around my waist now. Then I unzip the lower part of my trousers and let them hang down my ankles. I am left with woolen socks and thermal bottoms. Another fashion statement by Aylin Ayar!

We finally see some monkeys in the forest. Wildlife had been quite limited so far: some over-sized crows that hang around our campsites waiting to nibble on our left-overs and some rats whose caves we invade to have lunch in a sheltered position.

We arrive at the park gate! Finally it is over. I take my right boot off never to wear it again. I hate those stinky, filthy, wet, burnt boots. I take off the duct tape around the sides of my socks and put those pieces together under my right sock to make a “shoe”. I can’t get enough of fashion statements.

As we wait for our stuff to be put on top of the bus we watch around 50 half-naked Tanzanian men take half-showers around sinks. Air is full of testosterone. I sign myself off, writing my name, age, where we I am from, my occupation (retired), my passport number (I have to make that up because I don’t have my passport with me), and our guide’s name for one final time, I am officially through with it all.OH!

We get on the bus and go back to Springlands hotel. Life is at its usual pace back in civilization. There are people who have just come back from the mountain, looking dirty and tired but with an air of pride and there are those who have just arrived, people looking fresh, but a bit scared, people who do not know what to expect. They look into our eyes, a bit shy but full of questions. How difficult was it? Is there something you took with you that you did not need? What is the most important thing to take? (an umbrella!) did you make it to summit? All those questions we had echoing in our brains only a week ago.

It is time for shower, one of  the most memorable showers of my life. Feeling clean again, wearing clean clothes.. What a bliss. 
I have a few clean t-shirts in the bag that I left behind, but the rest, everything I took with me to Kili stinks. We all put everything out in the sun to dry. All those clothes, socks, underwear and boots that got wet and stayed wet for a whole week happily dry in the sun in a few hours. They still stink but at least they are dry. I put them all back into my “Kili bag” never to open it until I go back home.

We meet our crew for the certificate ceremony and a few beers. We exchange e-mail addresses and hugs. 
We're off to the beaches of Zanzibar, the whole team.

ANAYAYA and I

Zombies of summit

The following is the description of today from the tour company's info site:

"DAY 7 BARAFU CAMP TO SUMMIT TO MWEKA CAMP, Dec 13 frıday!!

Hiking Time: 7 hrs to summit, 7-8hrs descent
Total Distance: 7km to summit, 23km descent
Starting Altitude: 4550m
Summit Altitude: 5895m – Uhuru Peak
Final Altitude: 3100m
Habitat: Stone Scree, ice capped summit, Alpine desert

At Stella Point you will be rewarded with a breath-taking sunrise (weather permitting), which we enjoy while taking a short rest. From Stella Point the trail is normally snow-covered, and every step of the 2 hour ascent to Uhuru peak is challenging. At 5895m, Uhuru, which means “freedom” in Swahili, is the highest point in Africa. Take a few minutes to appreciate your accomplishment, as this is day to remember for the rest of your life!
The time you will spend on the summit will depend on the weather conditions; the temperatures range from just below freezing at midnight, to between -12 C to -23 C just before dawn. We start back down the same trail, and descend back to Barafu camp. Here you will have a well earned but short rest and collect the rest of your gear. We then head down the rock and scree path into the moorland zone, reaching the forest, and eventually arriving at Mweka hut in the late afternoon.
Today is the longest, and the most mentally and physically challenging of the trek. But a day that will stay with you forever, as you conquered the heights of Kilimanjaro."

No time to sit down, watch, enjoy, celebrate. We have to go from 5,739m to 5,895m. Not as easy as it sounds! The weather is beautiful. We set off together but I can not keep up with them. Hussein carries my day pack. He asks me how I am. I can not reply. I want to say I am OK but words don’t come out of my mouth. Also, am I OK? NO! I do the thumb up move but he doesn’t believe me. I take 3 steps and I have to stop. I start feeling dizzy. He says "we should go back..." I think.. if I push myself, will I die? Is it worth it? But I’ve made it all the way up here. How can I give up right now? Will my stubborness be the end of me on this mountain top? Then he finishes his words. "...or we go very slowly." 
I pick that choice. We walk very very slowly. I close my eyes and walk. Very often we sit down and wait for my heart to beat slower but it takes longer and longer for it to beat slower. I lose hope, then I force myself again. "Come on Aylin", I say to myself, just like in the song.. "you can do this". The trail goes on and on. 

People who have already been to summit are returning. They all look content. They  say it is right around the corner to encourage me, but that corner never comes. The views are fantastic. I don’t have the energy to take out my camera. I say “on the way back”.. there is a glacier on my left that has very intricate patterns that shine under the sun. It looks like the Taj Mahal of Kilimanjaro. On the right hand side, is the crater, but I don’t really know that it is there, so I don’t look closely. Only after we come down and I see a post card of summit that I realize it was there.

TAH MAHAL

THE CRATER

What looks like a 15 minute walk, takes more than an hour. The final 20 minutes, Hussein is holding me with one hand from my back like a puppet to keep me up or to keep me from falling face down into snow. I have the blank, fake eyes of a puppet. My gaze is fixed at one point in the horizon. I feel like a robot, like a human being in a sci-fi movie whose soul has been stolen by aliens. I am nothing but my own shell. I am a zombie.
My feet are moving forward. Slowly. He literally leads me to Uhuru Peak. On the way, I meet my team. They say they tried to wait for me up there, but were sent back by the masses of people there who were qued to take photos in front of the Uhuru Peak sign post. They say it was also very difficult for them to walk this last part. Excuse me? Go back go back.. Did you say crowds? Did you say "masses of people"?
I am putting my life at risk here on this mountain top with the only goal of summiting it and what I find at the top is crowds? Crowds who que for "the photo"?

I MEET MY TEAM AS THEY ARE RETURNING FROM SUMMIT

Just as I reach Uhuru Peak, the clouds come back and cover everything. Only 10 minutes ago, my team took photos at this point and the sun was shining with a clear blue sky behind. The second I arrive, everything is foggy grey and snowy! Hrrr.. well there is no need to be ungrateful really. I have made it. If I let my feelings overcome the moment, I would definitely start crying, but the moment is pressing! I have things to do. 

MY TEAM'S SUMMIT PHOTO

MY TEAM'S SUMMIT EXPERIENCE

AND MINE!

IN FOG

First, a photo on my own, then one with rainbow flag, then one with the print-out that I had been trying to keep dry, unsuccessfully, for a week that thanks Eressos Sourtoukes walking group. Once those are done, it is time to go down and start breathing better with every step. There is no moment of celebration, no moment of feeling proud, appreciating what you have achieved, no moment to look down on earth from the highest free-standing mountain. 
(And certainly no psycological relief from your burdens as some fellow climbers may suggest. This belief is based on the main belief that you would leave your burdens, "your baggage" behind at places with high altitude. All of the above is luxury and romantic bullshit at that moment. You can not breath properly, you haven't slept for two days, not showered for five, you have walked all night long, your water froze, you haven't eaten in a long time. That's why, two days after all this mayhem, at a bar down in Moshi town, when a South African boy who summited on the same day that we did walked up to us and said "Man, I left a lot of baggage up there", we all thought he forgot his day pack.)

We set off. Of course there is nothing left to photograph on the way back. Everything has disappeared behind the clouds. I see other struggling people like me with that empty expression on their faces. I can not say anything to encourage them. I don’t have the energy to speak.

My team is already on its way so it is me and Hussein who have to walk back all the way to basecamp. Well, as it turns out, it isn’t easy at all!

3,5 hours of sheer torture again. The steep hill that we climbed all night long is now ahead of me to climb back down. New muscles are in action. I am tired, hungry, sleepy, and still oxygen deprived. The trail we made last night is slippery so I have to walk in snow, make myself a new trail. I try to go fast. I fail, because I don’t have the strength to go fast. I go slow and it seems like it will never end. I fall many times. We stop many times and rest. It goes on and on. Hussein says we will soon see the camp. 45 painful minutes pass until we do. Seeing the camp does not solve my problems anyway. It is quite far away. And don’t forget the sweet surprise at the end of each day.. a very steep descent is between me and the camp. (And did I say the end of the day? Well, it’s not. After basecamp, we have another 3-4 hour walk.) I tell Hussein lines from Turkish melodramas like “leave me here, you go save yourself” or “I can not anymore” or “I want to die” and he says he can not let me die until basecamp because I am under his responsibility.

Finally we arrive. I go to my tent and fall asleep for a short time with my feet outside and my body inside. I can not find the strength to take my boots off or zip up the tent door. Then we eat something, possibly soup again, pack up, and get going again. I can not believe I will be walking again!  Another 4 hours! We have already walked 13 hours that day. Who do they think we are? Androids?

The walk down is through some barren land first and not so steep, but then we get to a trail with uneven steps. It gets very painful. My toes hit my boots really hard and it hurts a lot. My knees also give away after very very painful hours on an ever-ending trail. Every corner seems to be the end of it but it is not. 
"Why am I doing this?" “When will we be there?”  
The answer is almost the same every time: 40 minutes. I ask if it is German 40 minutes or African 40 minutes. They reply "African 40 minutes!" with pride. That means 1,5 hours. We are actually at a very beautiful spot. There are pine-like short trees around us as far as the eye can see. We pass by many different flowers and weird plants with fruits on them. It could have been a pleaasant walk if we had not been walking for 14 hours! Of course it rains, our faithful friend, but we don’t mind it that much because it is over. The stress of summit is gone. We are near the end.. the end that never comes.

4 hours later, we arrive at camp. It’s wet and very muddy. There is no comfort, no luxury, no celebration. We are all very tired. Just like the rain that has never abandoned us, milo and popcorn don’t either. This is our last feast. Tomorrow, we will sleep in a bed at a hotel. We are a proud team because all of us made it to summit. I know what my team thinks. They were worried all along that I wouldn’t be able to do it. But I relieved them. I made it. We don’t have to say things like “it is not making it to summit that matters, it is the whole experience” or “my mother told me not to do something stupid, so I decided to stop before summit, because I wasn’t feeling well.” 
And I don’t have to buy a Kilimanjaro beer t-shirt that says “if you can’t climb it, drink it”.
We have dinner with soup and pasta. I go to bed with my hot water bottles again because we are still at 3,100m. 

Summit anxiety of chewbacca

The following is the description of today from the tour company's info site:

"DAY 6 KARANGA CAMP TO BARAFU CAMP, Dec 12

Hiking Time: 4 hrs
Total Distance: 4 km
Starting Altitude: 3900m
Final Altitude: 4550m
Habitat: Alpine Desert
We begin the day trekking through the alpine desert of the Karanga Valley. Our porters will stop to collect water along the way, as there will be none further on. Here the temperature will grow colder as we follow the trail climbing through this empty and dry landscape up to the Barafu Camp. 
The two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi can been seen from our camp, at 4550m. Barafu is the Swahili word for "ice", and the camping area is on a ridge in a narrow and exposed flat area. Here there are ever-present powerful winds blowing down from the mountain peaks.
In preparation for your final ascent the same night, you will familiarize yourself with the terrain before dark, and prepare you equipment and thermal clothing for the summit attempt. Sleep may be difficult, but you will lie down after dinner to rest for the 1345m final ascent. (Hiking time: 4 hrs).

You will be woken in time to leave camp at around 12am and after a warm drink and a light snack, you will begin the most difficult though most rewarding day of the trek – your hike up to the top of Africa. Climbing through the dark, you will ascend northwest on rough scree passing between the Rebmann and Tarzel glaciers. After approximately 6 hours of slow but strenuous hiking, you will reach the rim of the main crater, Stella Point, at 5685m (Hiking time: 8 hrs)."

We wake up to a dryish morning. It even gets sunny for 15 minutes! Everybody puts their wet clothes out on tents and rocks in hope of getting them dried, but 15 minutes.. nowhere near enough. We put our damp and smelly clothes back into bags. By this time we haven't had a shower for 4 days. We don’t change the first 2 inner layers of our clothes, just socks maybe. No one has seen their own bare skin for days. We stink. Our clothes stink. We do not dare to put clean clothes on because we are all saving dry clothes for the summit hike. Being clean is not a priority. Being dry is. 

Our camp with all of Africa below

It is a short walk to basecamp, 4 hours or so. I don’t remember much of it except the snow. I don’t take a daypack with me, just some water. When we arrive at basecamp it is still snowing. Snowing hard. Snowing like you are at a ski center.. without the luxury. We register and start waiting outside. We squeeze ourselves under the thach of the registry office. It is quite crowded because this is basecamp, all climbers from all the routes meet here to attempt the summit. Normally our porters arrive at the camp site before us and we find our tents already set up but the snow storm slows them down too.  We are freezing because we are in wet clothes and boots. After a while, they invite us inside the small hut (with no heating and not much heat-insulated, I must say, a wooden hut with a tin roof and quite over-crowded inside with bunker beds).  We gladly go in. We find a place (quite limited, I must say) to sit among the bunker beds. Our guides bring us milo and hot soup. Some other climbers that we meet offer us chocolate and other treats. 
It is not fun to pee in the snow. 
It is very cold outside and our crew is waiting for the snow to stop to put our tents up. 

It is a very strange kind of waiting, because normally, you wait in torturous conditions for something better. You wait in the rain but what you wait for is a dry home. You wait in the cold for a fireplace. You stay up all night but you get your sleep in a dark room on clean sheets. 
In our case, we wait in the cold with wet clothes for our muddy and wet tents which will be set up on snow. Is there a promise of warmth in this waiting? No. Is there a promise of dryness in this waiting? No. Is there a promise of sleep in this waiting? No.When you take the promise out of the waiting, what are you left with?
And to top it all, we wait for about 2 hours in the ice-cold hut. 
That same night, we will start our summit hike and the weather is not helping. 

That spot in the back is me

Finally they call us. They say tents are ready. We go to our tents and change. I send my boots, my rain gear and my gloves to be dried in the kitchen. We rest in our tents for a while, but it is not possible to sleep because of a group of chit-chatting American girls who are very happy, positive, and loud. They are so lively that it is annoying. When we meet at the dining tent to have a light meal, we all swear at Rachel although none of us has seen her, but we all surely heard her voice.. and the voice of her best friend who constantly called her to ask this or the other.
We all hate the Rachel character!
We have a common enemy. We are satisfied. 
We  go to bed again in clothes that we will do the summit walk in. None of us sleep that night and anyway we wake up to “vater for vash” just before midnight. It feels so surreal that you feel like you are in a dream. 
The day/night has come. The Summit. You either do it or you can’t. 

I have about 8 layers on top and 5 at the bottom. Plus hand and feet warmer pads. We put our head torches on and start the ascent on snow in the dark very slowly. We follow each other in a line, not talking except maybe once or twice when we see a shooting star. The moon is out and bigger than half, so it is not pitch black. It reflects on the snow covered route we have ahead of us. 
We only hear the crick crack sound that our boots make on snow. I see the head torches of people who started before us up in the distance. It feels like there is no end to this climb. Isa 1 is leading and he wants me to be right behind him. He also carries my day pack:) I just have my camelbak which freezes after a while. 
One hour passes. We still have a long way to go. My heart is pounding like crazy. I have to stop from time to time to catch my breath. I ask whether that light at the top is a torch of someone or a star. They say it is a star. At least there is some hope that this climb is not forever. 
On the third hour, I start getting nervous. I tell Isa1 that I want to be behind, not right in front. He doesn’t want to let go of me because he knows I am the weakest link but I insist. I say either we give more frequent breaks or I want to be behind everyone, because I need to stop to catch my breath and I don’t want people behind me to wait just because of me. Everybody is already struggling to keep a certain pace and I don’t want to destroy their hard-earned rythym. Isa 1 says if we stop more often, sleep will take over. He has a point. I haven’t thought of that. Yes, among all, we are also fighting sleep. No food, no sleep, damp clothes, hiking through the night, lack of oxygen.. 

The daily questions I ask myself start popping up: Why am I doing this? When will we get there?

Isa 1 and I almost shout at each other at that point. We are both very tense. He has the responsibility of so many people. I am just being stubborn. I want to do what I want to do! So he gives up. I move to the middle of the line not all the way to the back, so that nobody loses. I am in front of Andy now who is ready to catch me if I fall and I hear his encouraging sentences from time to time: you're doing great Aylin..
I scream "zanzibar" from time to time to motivate myself with the future, dry, hot beaches that I will relax on. Everybody agrees. We each make our individual moany sighs or choose to suffer quietly. If you closed your eyes and listened, you would think you are in one of those tent hospitals in World War I. Morphine is scarcely available. 

Among all other moany noises, I make one that attracts the attention of Andy and Andrew. They call me something like "chewy" after a character in Star Wars. Later, I look it up and find a lot of Chewbacca sounds on You Tube, including tutorials.  Well, if that's what Andrew and Andy meant, they have a point.

6 hours later, I ask the team to tell me something positive. Andrew says the sun is about to rise. I can not disagree. That is definitely something positive. I don’t know how I did it but there I am, still alive, still managing to put one foot in front of the other, still hanging in there. The prospect of sunrise gives us some hope, everyone starts to  move slightly faster with excitement which doesn’t make my life any easier. I am really struggling with the lack of oxygen. 
As soon as it gets lighter, the Stella Point appears above us, but it is not easy to get to. The hill gets steeper, the altitude higher. Everone except me is more excited, faster.. I lag behind a few minutes. I find everyone happy up at the top. Finally we can rest and watch the sunrise.
But no!
Isa 1 says we should move on and get to Uhuru Peak.. our goal. I see the sunrise with the corner of my eye. We turn away from it and go on walking. 

STELLA POINT AND SUNRISE

STELLA POINT GROUP PHOTO

TENT-EYE VIEWS OF TODAY:

HIGH AND LOW-LIGHTS OF TODAY

Like goats on barranco wall

The following is the description of today from the tour company's info site:

"DAY 5 BARRANCO CAMP TO KARANGA CAMP, Dec 11

Hiking Time: 4-5 hrs
Total Distance: 8km
Starting Altitude: 3950m
Final Altitude: 3900m
Habitat: Alpine Desert
Today we tackle the Great Barranco Wall – an imposing face above your camp. A steady climb up the eastern wall takes us just below the Heim Glacier, where we may have some awesome views of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Our trail continues down into the alpine desert of the Karanga Valley, where we finish this acclimatization day at Karanga Camp at 3900m. (Hiking time: 4-5 hrs)."

I feel quite good. It must be diamox. I actually enjoy Barranco wall. My goat DNA comes alive and really has a ball. The fact of the matter is, it is not as scary (and as perpendicular) as it looks. Anna starts crying right before we take off. We all try to calm her down. We look out for her all the way up the wall. I see her cry and climb at the samet time. It is heart breaking. I know they are family, but at that moment we all feel like one big family. The wall has its dangerous moments but the guides are very careful and protective of us just like we are of each other. We climb together like one entity, minding each other, minding every step.

ON THE WALL!!

After the wall, we walk at the same altitude for a long time. The views must be amazing but all we have is rain and fog. Then we descent to a valley only to climb another “wall” that doesn’t get mentioned in any info on Machame route. The well-kept secret! 

THE SECOND WALL OF THE DAY

Each day ends with an unpleasant surprise like this. There is either a difficult ascent or descent. Today is no different, but we make it to camp. 

We sign our names on the camp book as we do every day. 

During milo and popcorn feast, we give a medal to Anna for her brave attitude that I cut out of a cardboard box.  

The weather clears a little so we go out to see what is around us. The snowy peak is behind us as usual, but in front of us, or right under us, is Moshi town, Mount Meru, and AFRICA. As far as the eye can see. Clouds and setting sun play light games over the whole thing. It is sunning. 

I wish we had more of these clear moments. I wish it was drier and clearer. The hike to 6000 m is very challenging and demanding as it is. You do not need the rain, the snow, and fog on top of it. You want to be able to lift your head and look around as you climb and say to yourself that it is beautiful. But no. We walk with our heads down, because it pisses down with rain and we would get wet if lift our heads. And what is there to see anyway? Just the fog. Nothing else as you can see in the following photos:

This momentary bliss is of course followed by rain. We never get a clear and dry day, let alone an hour. 

NOW YOU SEE ME

NOW..

..YOU DON'T!

But we adapt to our conditions. After the initial shock, two nights of really bad sleep, one day of moaning about how dirty we are and three showers of rain, we are better at sleep, nobody minds the unhygenic conditions in our tents or the kitchen tent and we are used to being constantly wet. Except me.. I send my boots to kitchen along with my rain gear to be dried over fire at night so that I start with dry boots the next morning. Andy still wears plastic bags between his socks and boots. Meg moans every morning when she has to put the wet boots on, but then she lives with it. Everybody is suffering except maybe Andrew because his boots are the only real water-proof boots within 100 miles.  
Dry boots are everything at that moment in our lives. 
And I have them.. 
OK they burned my boots too while drying but they are just burn marks, no holes no problem..

tent life: