My Kilimanjaro experience

“You should write about it.”

I was advised, several times, when I returned to Dubai after hiking Kilimanjaro in January 2023.

I have a habit of jotting down things every now and then. A vast majority of my jottings are incomplete and unseen by any human eyes other than mine, though I do occasionally publish. I had all the best intentions in the world to write about my Kilimanjaro hike experience, but here was the problem - I just couldn’t decide what to focus on.?

As a person who has lived in coastal areas in tropical climes all her life, the first-ever experience of high altitude and sub-zero temperatures can be a good topic. Closely connected to that is the lack of knowing in advance how much training and preparation is enough before embarking on something that you have never done.?

Should I write about the experience of camp living? Of sleeping like packed sardines and foregoing the normal rules of personal space? Of the dilemma of choosing between going to pee at night versus staying put inside the tent, because getting out of your tent means that you have to kit up (gloves, jacket, winter hat, head torch, shoes), literally crawl out of the tent and then crawl back into a sleeping bag which has rapidly cooled down to an uncomfortable level in those few minutes you were away?

Of the simplicity of living out of a duffel bag for a week? Of learning that a number of things that you carried in that limited duffel bag don’t matter at all? Of not showering for a week? Of the sufficiency of just two wet tissues to clean yourself? Of how much your body and mind can adjust to when limited by resources? (And that last bit genuinely gives me hope for the future of humanity.)

What about that feeling of shocked enlightenment when you get to know that your power bank has died because you didn’t give it sufficient warmth at night? The sheer happiness when your guides borrow another power bank from someone else and give it to you to charge your phone?

Or about how the joint hiking experience with your friends connect you together in a way that nothing else does? Or that special camaraderie amongst the hikers that you keep meeting on the journey? Or the bond for life that you forge with your crew? How the single purpose binds you all together despite dissimilar backgrounds??

Or how about how you huff and puff while your crew carry 20 kilos and walk up like it’s nothing? How you keep (and have to keep) sipping water while they only drink from camp to camp? The power of habit and necessity!?

What about the sheer joy I experienced while climbing the Baranco wall? (Note to self, consider taking up mountain climbing). The exhaustion and exultation of being outdoors the entire day? The serenity of watching the clouds sail below you while sitting together on a rock chatting about this and that??The overwhelming sense of relief when you finally shake off your boots, crawl into the tent and stretch on the narrow thin mattress at the end of a long and difficult hike?

The simple beauty of the rhythmic Kilimanjaro songs that your crew keep singing to keep motivating you??

The curious lack of wandering thoughts in my head during the entire hike, surprising for someone who quite often finds it difficult to quieten her brain even for a short span of time? (Is it from a lack of oxygen up there, I wonder!)

The extreme mental and physical exhaustion on the summit day? How every inch of your body is aching? How your nose keeps running that at some point you simply stop bothering to wipe?

The breathlessness that you experience at high altitude even from minimal exertion? How walking just a few hundred meters seems to take forever on the summit day??

The strange effect of snow-blindness on your sight and therefore, your perception??

The very real and serious conversation on the summit day that one part of my mind which was intent on reaching the top was having with the other part which seemed super-worried about survival (and therefore wanted to stop ascending with immediate effect), while an objective part of my mind watched and listened in utter fascination??

How vividly you experience every moment of those seven days and how they will be forever etched in your memory, while on the ground, weeks fly past at lightning speed?

About the alluring addiction of hiking and mountain climbing which, despite all the struggles, makes you start planning for the next one as soon as you hit the ground??

How the warm reception(s) I received on my return from my family, my friends and my Nishe team surprised me (didn’t expect that at all:)) and deeply touched me (and embarrassed me)??

About how a lot of these experiences have parallels to our life, as a friend who was listening to me talk about the hike pointed out??

I was blissfully unaware of any news while on the mountain, and then I descended straight to the Adani story. While chatting with a nephew on the Adani story, he whatsapped - “Welcome back to real life”. I responded - “you mean, welcome back to fake life?”?

Which life is real and which is fake? Is it the one week on the mountain with nothing other than basic survival in mind? Or is it the life that we are living on the ground, forever running around fixated on umpteen things?

I guess you have learned by now I still haven’t decided what topic I should focus on.?

So here I am.

#kilimanjaro #mountainhiking #nishe #challenge