On the 5th day after waking up from my failed summit attempt (YET TRIUMPHANT KILIMANJARO CLIMB) I was so sick. Keeping down food or water wasn’t an option. I remembered my contract for the climb including rescue fees and since I had been climbing up for 5 days there was no way in hell I could get myself back down in the condition I was in. So …rescue it was. Well, that’s what I thought until the news was broken to me that there was no rescue services at the camp where we were. We would have to hike to the next one. 😐
The porters packed up our things and we set off walking. I just so happened to ask how far the next camp was and someone told me 6 hours. “6 hours?, um no! I can barely stand up how the hell and I supposed to walk for that long. Where is the closest camp?”, I shouted as I threw my walking sticks up in the air. These cats looked at me like I was crazy as my meltdown happened in the middle of nowhere. They said there was a camp that was one hour away where there were rescue services. UM…. doesn’t that make more sense? I convinced them to go to this camp and get me some help. TWO hours later. We reached the camp. NO RANGER….NO RESCUE. The Tanzanian guys at the ranger hut just looked at us with a deer in headlights glaze and proceeded to make coffee. 😐 Then something occurred that I am not too proud of…but I can’t take it back now.
I got up off the wooden bench that I was lying on and walked toward the guys and used every curse word in the book until they got off of their lazy asses and used their walkie talkies to call the Ranger. After I was done speaking the room was quiet. Aggression when it comes to handling business is not a strong point of these people. I have found that out the hard way before….i.e. spineless fool that worked at the orphanage. Anyway, the ranger was at the next camp down the mountain and would meet us as we were walking. During this time, Frank, the original guide called one of the guys I was with to yell at him for not keeping with the plans of going to the camp he directed them too. He unfortunately was cursed out too. Lord forgive me!!!!
We finally make it to the next camp where the ranger was and what happened next had me feeling like I was in the Barnum and Bailey circus. They pull out a giant wheel barrel looking stretcher thing with one large wheel to take me almost two hours down to the bottom of the mountain. But instead of just putting me and my things on top of the thing a group of 30 men had to have a discussion for 40 minutes. I’m not even exaggerating. For 40 minutes the men talked about who was going to stand where to push the cart down, where the bag were going to go, how they would be tied to the stretcher, why you would tie them that way….etc. etc. In the midst of the chaos I’m lying there strapped down in this contraption and one of the ranger assistants had the nerve to ask me if he could take a picture of me with his phone. 😐 WHAT? Uh. NO MAN!!!!!!!!!!!
They finally got their ish together and six people dragged me down the mountain in this one wheeled madness. Did I mention there were huge rocks and steps and other things to roll over for over an hour? I started off feeling weak and nauseous but by the time I got to the bottom I also had a migraine, whiplash, and cerebral trauma. I think it would have hurt less if they had taken me up to the top of Kili and thrown me down to the bottom.
I can’t do anything but laugh about the entire situation now. If you had seen these shennanigans in person you would have peed on yourself from laughing so hard. Things like this only happen to me. I didn’t care how I got to the bottom I was ready to get off of that mountain so I could get better and exit stage left.
So ends my Kilimanjaro journey. Five of the most memorable days of my life and I still can’t believe I climbed that high above the clouds.
Next stop…………back to the hotel to scrape five days of dirt off of my body and to change my flight so I can get out of this Fantastic country 😐