I’ll consider today the start to our Africa trip. We arrived late into Amsterdam last night, and got a hotel in the airport. I know right? Stayed in the airport, how disappointing. So this morning we had a wake up call for 7:50, we woke up, looked at our watches, and freaked out. 9:00. Our flight boards at 9:05!! We grabbed our stuff and ran out. Damian addressed the front desk lady “ We were supposed to have a wake up call at 7:50.” “ Ok, I’ll take you off the list!” So cheery. Damian told her “Its 2 hours late!” And we stormed off. Then, running to our gate, I had an epiphany. “Damian, our watches are on Russian time, its really 7:00”. I almost felt like going back and apologizing to the lady. Our hearts slowed down, and we met up with Ryan McClean, one of Damian’s friends. I’ve met him a few times, done some things in the Wasatch with him. We boarded our flight, and headed to Tanzania. On arrival, nighttime, we checked through customs. Only an hour and a half long process. There was so many people in the little building I thought it would explode. Africa, I guess. But it went well, we got our visa’s, our bags, and exited the building. Immediately dozens of local men were upon us,  holding signs in our faces. We found our man (Vince) and headed to the car. Coolest trucks & jeeps ever here-- built for some rough ground. Too bad it was night; we didn’t get to see any terrain on the 2 hour ride to the hotel. We got there, and felt like we were in Africa. African art all over. Tall skinny human sculptures guarding the doors, huge snakeskins over doorways, and on the walls. Then we met Fernando, the little furry weasel. Fernando Grajales, from Aconcagua. Close friend of Willie & Damian, and party mate with Ryan. At once I knew this trip would be awesome. All these guys are hilarious together. I can’t really explain it,  it’s mostly crude humor, so sorry.

Nice wake up again, and out into the morning sun. Typical camp morning (except that were in Africa!!). Porridge, toast, mate, conversation. And what I said earlier, is totally true. This whole time has been a comedy. They can’t seem to say anything unless it has comic value. Pretty fun. The porters packed up and left, we have 12 porters, and I don’t know what they are carrying. Damian and I are carrying all our stuff, Ryan and Fernandito have 1 small bag each, plus our food. Pretty wild. On the way up we stopped at a cave for some bouldering, learned that the rock here is very sharp, and continued to camp. The whole walk took about 3 hours--we have nice days here. Had more bouldering at camp, then set up. All of the camps so far have been like American campsites. Picnic tables, shelters around the latrines, etc. We sat about all afternoon drinking mate and talking, relaxing. The whole valley below us was swathed in a sea of clouds. It was amazing, a blanket at clouds around our island of a mountain. Sunset brought spectacular views, making me feel like I was in southern Utah. The rock formations looming all around, dyed a deep red by the bloated African sun, their shadows stretching grotesquely over the dusty ground. For some reason I always enjoy sunsets immensely, so this was superb. Just relaxing among friends, feeling like nothing could hurt me. Just letting the light wash over me felt so good, to enjoy so much being exactly where I was.

Ryan woke us up today,  pretty chipper in the mornings I’d say. I think we had breakfast, then started packing our stuff. Damian and I were finished in 10 minutes, so we started on the food. By 10:30 we were sitting, waiting for lunch before we set out. Damian decided to drop a bowl of rice on his crotch, so we decided to leave. We drove all the way around the mountain almost, then the route we are climbing will bring us back pretty much right to the hotel. The drive was really cool. Dirt road through the jungle. We drove through “villages” which pretty much consisted of 5-10 huts. It is extreme poverty. There is nothing except tin or wooden huts, poorly made. The people survive off of what they grow. It was straight from a movie; the poverty, the people, everything. And it’s amazing how they survive and how the kids wave when you drive by. What seems so extreme to me is everyday life for them. They know nothing else. We stopped to grab some beer and Coca-Cola for the trip, then unloaded when we reached the park gate. It seemed like chaos, 30 guys running around with bags everywhere.  All in the dirt. One thing that makes this different from other trips is the lack of buildings and floors. Everything gets dirty. Not a big deal, but its different. The guys cracked a beer before we left and packed up the rest. Then, tragedy struck. Apparently the beer was terrible. Fruit beer. So they unloaded the stock, and we left. Immediately everything got dusty. The dust was 2 inches deep sometimes, it penetrated everywhere. Thick coats of it lay on your pants, on your legs, shoes, socks. So we wound out way up through jungle farmlands, into thicker forest jungle, then up into higher ground. We hit camp 1, chilled, ate dinner, and were in bed early, kind of disappointed at the lack of elephants.

We woke up today to a beautiful sunrise drifting over the camp. All I had to do was roll over to watch the giant fireball creep above the horizon. Once we left camp it was another easy day to School Hut, the highest camp on our route. It is surprisingly chilly up here, and I barely brought any clothes either. Huge boulders are all around, like we’re in a giant nest of eggs. This morning, the sea of clouds still hides the plains below--we are an island, cut off from the visible world around us. At dinner we sit inside the mess tent, along with everyone from our staff that can fit themselves in. They all just sit quietly and watch us eat and laugh. Tomorrow we head up, so we got our clothes ready and hit the sack under a blanket of stars.

Wake up call at 3:30 am? Just 5 more hours please. A quick breakfast and breakdown of camp, and we started up the hill. Damian and I carried all our stuff: tents, sleeping bags, the whole works with us, because we are headed straight down the other side after summiting. We plan on skipping the camps on the other side and walking all the way out today; this will gain us a day for safari. A long line of headlamps proved we brought up the rear of the climbers this morning. With Mars shining brightly behind us, we quickly gained ground, losing our assistant guide in the process. We hit the edge of the crater, then ran along the ridge to the summit. The locals try to follow, and the tourists swore under their breath at us. Somewhere in here we lost our guide as well. On arrival at the top, 2 and a half hours after leaving camp, we partied and drank mate, waiting for the sunrise. All of us were in tennis shoes, and light gear (rock climbing pants, light jackets and windbreakers) We felt the temperature drop, but paid no attention to the ice on the ground. Fernandito rode around on Ryan’s back (the true Kilimanjaro summit) while Damian and I worked on our dancing. Our guide Vince joined us, we saw the sun crest the ridge, and started down in a dead run. At this point Vince lost his breakfast, so he slowed down and we met him at the Kibo huts. We were the last to leave a high camp this morning, and the first ones back. We started the trip down, everyone laughing and joking, but that soon ceased. We realized we underestimated the walk. 30 Km later all of us were asking for wheelchair accessible terrain. Apart from making us all feel old and beat up, the walk was incredible, once in a lifetime. The start was like a moonscape, flat ground dotted with distant rocks, then it continued down though high alpine vegetation, alpine desert, miles of just bushes, then dropping below the clouds, we continued through high forest and all kinds of jungle, with colobus monkeys jumping overhead. It’s hard to believe that this morning we were standing in our whities at 19,500 feet. A few days work in one. Our bodies beat, we retired to the hotel beds after long showers.

Safari today! We woke up early to load the van, and headed to Arusha, an hours drive away to meet our safari driver. We met him and started the drive to the Ngorugoru crater. While driving through these foreign countries I always feel like I’m watching through someone else. Sitting in the car, you drive through people’s lives, seeing hundreds of people and what they are doing. Do those old men sit there every day? Does that woman carry bananas to the market every morning? You just get a glimpse of millions of things. Seeing the poverty, the people, the towns, the animals. This is what makes you feel like you are in Africa. Then, we were safari-ing. Roaming with the wildebeasts, watching the zebras, hippos, gazelles, birds, lions, hyenas, and buffaloes all living together. Just like the TV. Yesterday we summited Kili, today we’re watching giraffes. Well, we didn’t see a giraffe until the drive home, but still. It was crazy, to see all the animals that you only read about, or watch on the nature channel. Here in Africa the Masai tribe lives in the wild as nomads. Their huts dot the landscape, and the cow herders are seen along the roadways, and off in the distance. The men all wear bright red robes, to look like fire to a lion, and they carry long spears. Nowhere else will you find a 6’5” guy with a quarter pound earring, a red robe, and a huge spear. I couldn’t believe this was all happening. On the way back home we stopped at a Masai marketplace. Crazy. Immediately we had 10 people trying to sell wares. Damian tried to get them off his back by speaking Spanish only. The response? “Ah, que tal amigo? Quieres?”. So they spoke Spanish, too. I was temporarily Russian. Thousands of Africans were packed all around, buying, selling, preaching--it was totally crazy. Unfortunately we got no pictures, for the Masai don’t like their pics being taken. We didn’t argue.

Today we had to drive to Kenya. 8 hours in a bus completely full of people rattling down a dirt road through the desert. One stop at the border, and we kept going. From the border on, there were signs everywhere warning not to leave possessions in the open. I guess Kenya has an extremely high crime rate.  Talking with an Englishman last night, he said to close the windows on the car driving through Nairobi so that people won’t reach through to grab things. Nairobi proved to be a bustling city. Cars everywhere, vendors banging on the windows. Skyscrapers tower over markets filled with clothes, food, scrap metal, and all kinds of different things. Here we changed vehicles and drove to Maru Moru. Sleeping the whole way didn’t help me see the scenery much, though. We arrived at our lodge late in the night and then turned in, still sore from our descent the other day.

Woke up & ate breakfast at our vacation lodge. The Naru Moru River Lodge, a perfect kid’s vacation spot in Africa. Fernando felt right at home. A challenge course, all kinds of activities, pretty cheesy.  Little pygmy deer ran around while monkeys sang to accompany our packing. We organized all our gear, got 3 bags ready for porters, and prepared our packs. All the animals kind of made me feel like I’m in a zoo or something. Exotic animals just a few meters away with a soundtrack playing of birds, frogs, and monkeys. But it’s all real, I have to keep reminding myself. We stopped in a small village for kerosene on the way to the park, where when I was guarding the car, more vendors attacked me. “No I don’t want a switchblade, no glasses, no necklaces.” They assured me that they made all the jewelry by hand. Right. Then one man wouldn’t leave me alone. He traded a bracelet for my pencil. It’s funny what people value here. A pencil to us is no big deal at all, but it’s hard to get those things in Africa. When he asked if I had any small things from America, I said no, I didn’t have any American souvenirs. I didn’t think he meant something like a pencil. Just how we view what’s valuable in different parts of the world is crazy. Driving into the park, another regular African event occurred. A family of elephants was crashing through the trees, roadside. No big deal to the porters, but we freaked out, racing to get our cameras and agitated with excitement.

We crawled from our tents this morning damp with dew. The grass we camped on is what I would think of a moorland being like. Last night the fog only showed us soggy bushes and wet grass. Now this morning the land revealed itself. Bright blue skies domed over African vegetation with long hill sloping up to the rocky outposts of our mountain, Mt. Kenya. A beautiful tower of rock posted in the distance. We packed up and started the long approach. We wandered through desert, wet desert, scrambled through muddy ravines, wound through giant African pineapple shaped trees, finally arriving at the base of our climb. Here we were joined by Hyraxes. These little guys are the closest living relatives to elephants. They are like 2 furry soccer balls put together with comically small legs and paws. They always carry really dignified expressions on their faces, which doesn’t quite fit with how they hop around and lay in piles on top of each other. I immediately liked them. Afternoon clouds gave us some snow on the equator, and we watched our peak get battered by winds with fog whipping around it.

Early wake up was too early, so we went for 5 am. Still freezing cold. We had a small breakfast, grabbed our climbing packs, and started the scramble to the base. The sun slowly rose, catching Kenya on fire, and melting the frost on all our rocks. On the approach I felt strange, tired, like I couldn’t catch my breath, which is weird, because I am fully acclimatized. I thought nothing of it, so we started our climb. It was amazing. This is why I love climbing, and the mountains. We had technical pitches and scrambling pitches--a perfect alpine rock climb. Pitch after pitch fell below our feet. I was on a rope with Damian, Ryan was with Fer. We came to one pitch that I will always remember. I was in a hanging belay, watching the others tackle a traverse onto a layback over a block, hanging hundreds of feet over an exposed face. Then it was my turn. I cleaned the belay, and worked my way out onto the face, cleaning protection. Just hanging over Africa was what was amazing. Concentrating on the rock face while behind me the sun gazed upon us. Like the whole world was watching me, spread eagled on a face so far above the ground. Breathtaking. That pitch was actually a mistake, we got off route, but I was glad for it. Then, (on route) we followed beautiful rock up chimneys, over blocks, up the peak. Then at 4:00 pm, 1 pitch below the summit of the 2^nd highest peak in Africa, weather turned us back. This gave us 10 raps down in the dark.  I had one teeny headlamp, so everyone else was shining their lights to try and show me the way a little bit. The cold crept in, and the hours stretched out, until finally at about 9 we were at camp. And I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t stand up, was dizzy, nauseous, and couldn’t focus on anything, so I went straight to bed.

Bed proved to do nothing for me. I began to hear crackles coming from my lungs when I would breathe. Laying down, it was like I was drowning from the inside out. All night I forced myself to stay calm. If I freaked out, I couldn’t breathe at all. So trying to control my breathing left me awake all night. At about 3 in the morning, Ryan called Damian over. Something was wrong with me. Damian confirmed that my lungs were filling up with fluid, and we needed to get down, pronto. They all packed up everything, and we started down, me carrying nothing, just trying to walk. A long day ensued, trying to focus on getting down, coughing up bile from my lungs. Hardly being able to walk any uphills, I struggled. Everyone else was great, helping me along, giving me lots of support. Finally, we were at the car. Down at the lower altitude I felt a lot better. So we continued our journey all the way to Nairobi. Now I could eat, and drink pretty regularly, but I think we will go to the hospital tomorrow.

Relaxed at the hotel today doing homework, reading, packing, repacking...just itching to get home. Ryan and Fernando got back from Mombassa about 4 pm, and we went out on the town for dinner. Nairobi doesn't strike me as the place you want to be out at night though, people lurking on every corner just watching you walk by.  Pretty creepy. 

Ryan flew out this morning, we flew out late this evening, so we went to an elephant orphanage and saw 15 baby elephants, all rescued from the wild, and one baby rhino...fiesty little guy.  After that we went to the airport with about 10 hours to our flight. This called for some serious siestas and food.

After a tediously long flight home, we finally made it. SLC. Most beautiful place on earth. Home. Just flying in I could hardly stay still seeing my mountains, the trees that I know, the streets that I drive...all the familiar things.  Then my family. Seeing them and my girlfriend Ashley at the airport is the best sight ever. Familiar faces at last. It just felt overwhelmingly good to be home, indescribable. We went from the airport to an infectious disease specialist who took another x-ray and check up. He concluded that I was fine. This is good news for the upcoming trips: Carstenz 4 days from now followed by a little extracurricular in Tibet, climbing and skiing Cho Oyu and Shishapangma. Big daddies. Driving home was bliss...the cool air, the familiar climate, all the things I know, it feels good...great.