After the cars were loaded, we set off to the Lemosho trailhead of Kilimanjaro. The first 1.5 hours of driving was on paved road. We passed through a small village along the way to wait for the truck carrying all of our supplies, 30 porters, 1 guide and 2 assistant guides. Once all of the crew had arrived, we continued on an unpaved road for about another 1.5 hours to the main park gate.
Our first impressions of the group was that everything was extremely organized. The night before we took off, Vale from MEM came with Jamaica our guide to the hotel. Vale went through all of our gear with us to make sure that we had everything we needed for the mountain. If we were lacking something, we could rent it from MEM. We were all limited to 10kg of baggage. The reason for this is that each porter can carry a max of 20kg up the mountain, and that includes their stuff as well.
At the main gate where we registered, all of the supplies that were to be carried up the mountain were weighed, so that the supplies could be distributed equally among the porters to carry up the mountain. After registering at the main gate, we headed completely offroad through the forest to the Lemosho trailhead.
As we arrived at the trailhead, all of our porters were already there getting the gear organized. Waiting for us were 8 chairs. We were asked to sit down and were served a box lunch. As we later saw, whenever we had longer day hikes, we would always get this box lunch that we carried. It contained some roasted chicken (best chicken I ever tasted!), a sandwhich, mango juice, glucose cookies, fruit (banana or orange) and sometimes a chocolate. Really tastey food when you were up on the trails.
After lunch, we met all of the porters and our guides. Jamaica is our main guide. As we learned throughout the trip, he is an amazing person. He was a guide, philosopher, doctor, herbologist, psychologist and a real humanitarian. He was born in a village outside of Moshi, but now lives in Moshi. He started his career on Kilimanjaro at 14 as a porter. At that age, however, he found the work to be too difficult, so he did not return to the mountain until 22. At that age be again began as a porter, but began to learn from the cooks and guides on the mountain all that he could. Soon he was a cook on the mountain and then became a guide about 8 years later. He has been successfully guiding groups up Kili ever since. He guides about 10-20 groups per year. I can truly say that without Jamaica we would have never made it up the mountain. He took care of us as if we were his own family. This attitude of caring also reflected on the way he cared for the porters or as he called them 'my boys'.
In addition to Jamaica, the porters and assitant guides were the reason that we were able to climb Kili. Our first impressions of the porters were very sad. As we sat on our folding chairs eating lunch, we felt horrible as the porters were oragnizing the gear and working hard while we relaxed in the shade. Many of the porters had very poor gear. It was old and torn, and their shoes were patched and appeared not to fit properly. However, they all seemed incredibly happy. Our relationships with the porters developed as we climbed the mountain, and they all touched our hearts. They were so kind, generous and always smiling. They took great pride in their work and did everything they could to make our stay on the mountain as comfortable as possible. I'll describe them more later as they came into our story.
So, after lunch, we headed off with Jamaica in the lead, establishing the pace and JJ and Moshi (our 2 assistant guides) leading up the rear. The pace was very SLOW. The motto for the trip was "pole, pole" (pronounced poley), which means slow, slow. Justin and I are used to hiking pretty fast, so at first it was a bit annoying to be going so slow. However, as always, Jamaica knew what he was doing, as the pace really enabled up to get to each camp feeling good.
Once we arrived at the first camp, (2500m) our tents had already been set up by the porters and our gear was laying on a tarp. We pointed out our gear and it was brought to our tents. In addition to our tents, there was a large dining tent that we ate all of our meals in, a tent in which Abel cooked all of our meals in and the porters tents. After putting away our gear, we went into the dining tent, where a long table and chairs were set up for dinner. There was freshly popped popcorn and hot tea waiting for us on the table. This wonderful arrangement was waiting for us as we arrived to every camp. Soon after sitting down, our 2 waiters Shabe and Meki came in to make sure that all was well. They served us every meal with such a smile! The food that Abel cooked was amazing! Every dinner we had a delicious soup (carrot, cucumber, zucchini, leek or mixed vegetable soup) followed by a main course. We definitely did not lose any weight on this trip!!! After the meal, Jamaica came and talked to us about what to expect for the trip. He thanked us for coming to the mountain. He reminded us that by coming there, we are providing jobs for these porters and guides. They are all very proud to be porters and guides, they love their jobs and want to do the best they can with them. I think that put a little bit of peace
in our hearts and looked forward to getting to know everyone. (This is us in the dining tent)
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