Lesson from the top: What doesn’t Kili you will only make you stronger

It was around midday, on day three, that I finally mustered the presence of mind to ask myself what the hell I was doing. The sun was overhead, somewhere, hidden behind the fog and angry clouds. In its absence, the cold wrapped itself around us like a jealous, possessive lover, covering us in a depressing wet blanket.
We were at Lava Tower, 4600 metres above sea level, on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro. When proposed by a friend four months earlier, I had quickly agreed to the idea of climbing Kilimanjaro; I could use the exercise and another feather in my cap.

The months had flown by, whittling down to weeks, days and then the dreaded hour, on day one, when, delayed and keen to catch up with my fellow climbers ahead of me, I had walked 11 kilometres in the dark through a dense tropical rainforest in just over three hours.
Now I looked down at the sheer drop of ice-and-rain covered rocks we were about to descend and thought of all the more pleasant things I could be doing instead. Like reading a book, nursing an ice-cold beer, or watching stupid people climbing mountains on television, from the warm comfort of my sofa.
The guide, ordering us to begin our descent, interrupted my thoughts and we were soon on our way, to the lower altitude Baranco Camp to allow our bodies acclimatise, before continuing with the climb the next day.

The question, of why man does stupid things like climb mountains, kept gnawing at me throughout the rest of the week. I thought of Moses carefully making his way down Mt Sinai (a small hill, I’ll have you know, in comparison with Mt Kili) with the 10 Commandments; did he wonder why the damn stone tablets hadn’t just been delivered to him by camel? Or in a dream as he slept in his warm tent?

Generally speaking, progress throughout the history of mankind has come from man throwing himself against nature by, for instance, building ships to navigate the seas or taming animals for food and labour. Yet, apart from going to collect stone tablets there is little functional value in climbing mountains; the real reason, apart from the pursuit of vainglory, is that mountains represent our struggles with ourselves.
Unlike the seas, which ebb and flow, mountains are resolute and immovable. They tower over the landscape like mute and temperamental landlords, allowing a few to reach out and touch them, but never to move them.
They are, at once, reminders of our own fragility and vulnerability in the grand scheme of nature, but also a reminder of the ability and tenacity that man can rustle up when push comes to shoving one foot forward, cold and tired, in thin air, towards the summit of our goals.

That’s where we found ourselves on the evening of day five, lumbering up towards the summit and trying to gain more than a kilometre in altitude in a five-kilometre climb. Dear Reader, it is by far the hardest physical thing I have done (and makes climbing Mt. Kenya feel like child’s play!).
Every breath was laboured, every step painful and measured. With the summit visible ahead of us, a second member of our foursome party sat down and asked that we go on without her. No chance, we said, and the guide, the excellent Eligious Minja (make that Religious Ninja!) grabbed her by the hand and hauled her to the top.
I followed gingerly up to Stella Point and then, fuelled purely by adrenaline, hauled myself up to Uhuru Point, the highest point in Africa, on the top of the world’s highest free-standing mountain.

We had defied gravity, below-freezing conditions, treacherous terrain, wet tents and endless physical pain to achieve our objective. As I watched the sun set over Africa, atop the eerily quiet mountain the answers came to me; if you set an objective, set your mind to it and are willing to work hard for it, one step at a time, you can achieve it.
It will be tough, it will be painful, it will leave you feeling aches in places you didn’t know had muscles but I learnt this week that what doesn’t Kili you will only make you stronger. Here’s to you reaching the summit of your dreams!
Mr Kalinaki is a Ugandan journalist based in Nairobi. [email protected] &Twitter: @Kalinaki