Spotting Kilimanjaro

Jutting out almost 6,000 meters above the Tanzanian plains, you’d think spotting Kilimanjaro would be easy.  It’s not.

I already knew this, mind you.  Last July, Bruno, his niece Lucile, and I had spent 4 days patiently waiting for Kili to appear on the horizon, at Lion’s Bluff Camp at the Lumo Community Sanctuary in Kenya.  She never showed herself.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, that Kilimanjaro wasn’t plastered across the sky upon my arrival to Moshi, the biggest city at the foot of this infamous mountain.

“Your best chance of seeing Kili is at dusk or dawn.  The rest of the time, she’s shrouded in clouds,” replied any local I asked.  The internet said the same thing.

So we were up at dawn, scanning the skies.  Near dusk, we would cease whatever activity we were engaged in, and again look north.

Nothing.  Not even a hint of her.  Just dark, thick cloud.

I’ll admit, I was a bit discouraged.  I really wanted to see Kilimanjaro this time.  We were in Tanzania, after all!  And we’d headed inland specifically to photograph her silhouette in the skies.  How long were we going to have to wait to attain this goal?  Moshi wasn’t nice enough to keep us here forever.

On a tip from some locals, we decided to head to Lake Chala, 55km from Moshi, and still within range to see Kilimanjaro when the skies finally opened.  There was the possibility of swimming in the lake, hiking on a crater, and spotting elephants.  We were sold.

Straddling the border between Tanzania and Kenya, this lake is an incredible geological phenomenon.  A 2,000 year-old crater formed by the caldera (think “cauldron”) of an extinct volcano, it is almost 100 meters deep.  This is very deep for such a small lake.  [This fact we ascertained through internet research, as the owners and employees here claim the lake is 3,000 meters deep, and the deepest in Africa; but this can’t be true, can it?]  The water is crystal clear – and sometimes a magical turquoise – its underground source the glaciers of Kilimanjaro herself.  And the walls of the crater are high, steep, and covered in green forest, giving the lake an air of privacy.  If you were to drive in the area, you would see only hills and never imagine that such a precious sight could be hidden behind such lackluster mounds.

“Where exactly is Kili?” I asked Mwambo, the manager.  I was almost embarrassed to have to ask where such a gigantic landmark was, but we were truly stumped.

We parked our Toyota at the campsite, pointed firmly toward Kili.  We were determined not to miss an opportunity to spot her, should she decide to unveil herself.

In the meantime, we kept ourselves busy, for there was much to do at Lake Chala.  We climbed Leopard Hill to watch another fabulous sunset (I wrote about another amazing recent sunset here).  With the twinkling lake behind us, and Kilimanjaro obscured by ominous rain clouds, we were once again spoiled with a kaleidoscope of colors in an endless sky. 

We didn’t spot any leopards on Leopard Hill, but that in itself was not strange – leopards are a very rare treat in the African bush.  What was strange was that we hadn’t seen any elephants.  This was an elephant corridor, after all, and not far from Tsavo West National Park in Kenya.  Where were the elephants?

At the restaurant that night (as we ate, for $6, heavenly veggie lasagna and roasted veggies made by a gourmet chef from England), we learned that there was a sort of war between the locals and the elephants.  The hungry elephants had been dining on the locals’ crops, and so they retaliated and began poaching the elephants.  Five weeks before, when a young ele was killed right by the water hole in the resort, the elephants had been scared off into Kenya and hadn’t been spotted since.

Wildlife and humans have trouble living together – a common theme throughout Africa, unfortunately.

So, no elephants at Lake Chala, but a hike around the crater rim awaited us.  The circumnavigation of the crater reminded me of a recent hike around Mt. Longonot, an extinct volcano in Kenya.  This hike was much less strenuous, but its path was far from straightforward.  On the Tanzanian side, the forest was so thick and thorny it was difficult to walk through.  I had to concentrate all my efforts on getting my sizeable butt and bulky bag through tiny openings in the bushes.  The numerous scratches on my arms and legs show that I didn’t do so well.

And we swam in the lake.  A 25-minute walk down the steep rim led us to a platform built by the lodge.  We spent three full afternoons picnicking on this platform, with the deserted lake before us.  We would dive into the pleasantly cool and clean water, me feeling slightly nervous about the large dangerous creatures I imaged lurked in the depths of this deep lake.  Sometimes we shared the platform with a few other tourists, but mostly it was just us and the syke monkeys, who feasted on the fig-like fruit of the tree above us.

Every morning and evening, we scanned the horizon.  Most of the time, Kili was covered in a curtain of cloud.  A few evenings, early on in our stay, a small section of cloud would thin out and we would catch a glimpse of… well, we weren’t really sure.

“Is that Kilimanjaro?”

“It can’t be.  It doesn’t look like her.”

“I know.  There’s no snow.”

“Wait, let me check the GPS.  We’re pointed in the right direction.”

“What’s that big mountain in front?  That’s not Kili, right?”

Our conversations, muttered quietly over a map, a pair of binoculars in hand, demonstrated to us that this business of spotting Kilimanjaro was not as straightforward as we had thought.

Finally, on our penultimate morning, the clouds faded away entirely and revealed what surely had to be Kilimanjaro.  It was the right direction.  Her roof was flat (sort of).  But there was hardly any snow.  We eventually spotted a tiny speck of snow on the edge of her southern peak, but the rest of her face was grey and rocky.

She didn’t look at all like the photos I’d seen, with her mushroom-cap of snow, big African game at the forefront.

Our first full view of Kilimanjaro. Barely any snow makes her difficult to recognize, doesn’t it?

Disappointment sunk in.  I had dragged Bruno inland several hundred kilometers to see a mountain he’d already seen (and climbed!) and the view wasn’t even that beautiful.  Not only that, but seeing that the blanket of snow she is so famous for (“Snow in Africa? How unusual!”) was missing was yet another heartbreaking example of the far-reaching effects of global warming.  (snowball effect: Lake Chala itself is said to have lost several inches of its water level in recent years).

Thankfully, the disappointment was short-lived, as the birds began to chirp, the colorful lizards scattered as we walked, and baboons raced through the campsite.  We had come here to see Kilimanjaro, and she was a disappointment, as many things are when longing is high and expectations are built up.  But, in coming to Lake Chala, we had experienced a place we would never have visited if not on our hunt for Kili.  Lake Chala was an unplanned destination, but an incredibly rewarding one.

On that morning, staring out at a nearly snowless Kilimanjaro, a lesson – one that I know, but often forget – was driven home.  The best moments – in travel, but also in life, in general – are not the ones you plan for, but the unplanned moments that happen while you’re waiting for your plans to fall into place.

In other words, “life is what happens when you’re busy making plans”.

The morning after that lesson was driven home, I received another surprise.

“I can see Kilimanjaro,” said Bruno, always first out of bed.

“HMPHF,” I moaned, savoring a few extra minutes of bedtime laziness.  I’d seen Kili, and it hadn’t been that great.

“There’s snow this time.”

“Huh?,” I popped open one eye.

“There must have been a snowstorm yesterday.  She’s full of snow.”

I burst out of bed and raced outside, just in time to gaze at snow-covered Kilimanjaro for a few minutes before the clouds engulfed her once again.

And this time, she was perfect.

Mt. Kilimanjaro.  This time, I can tell it’s her!

Breakfast with Kili.

The best shot.

There are two reasons I was dissuaded from climbing Kilimanjaro.

The first is that it is much harder than you’d think.  At almost 6,000 meters, you face a very real possibility of altitude sickness.  If you escape AMS, you’re still going to have nausea and fatigue from the lack of oxygen.  The last stretch to the summit is particularly difficult because of its height and steepness.  When Bruno climbed this last bit as a young, fit 30-year old, he could only walk 100 meters at a time, before sitting and resting for several minutes.  He says he wouldn’t have made it to the top without the encouragement of his guide.

In fact, half of those that attempt Kilimanjaro don’t make it to the summit.  Knowing myself, I would fall into the unsuccessful half.

The second reason is the cost.  For a 5 or 6 day hike, it costs somewhere between USD$800 – 1300, including park, guide, and porter fees.  We spend that in a month of travel, so it would have been difficult to justify that cost.  Of course, if climbing Kili had been a lifelong dream – something on my bucket list – I would have climbed.  But to do it just because it’s there and it’s what people do is not a good enough reason for me.

No, I’m happy to have gazed at her from the comfort and beauty of Lake Chala.  It’s still something I will remember and cherish forever.  That’s enough for me.