Life in Africa is a couple steps off the path that you’re used to taking, combine that with a 7 day camping / hiking trip up the continent’s highest mountain and you have got yourself a real situation.

Probably the first thing that jumps out at you being here is that the people are a little musky. Everyone wears their body odor like a badge and maybe can’t smell it or doesn’t care. But every local that passes you get the full effect of their particular and unique scent. Our support team for the mountain had a cornucopia of smells on the way to the mountain so you can only imagine what was in store for us on the trail. Every porter that passed, every time someone talked to you it was impossible not to smell.

The eating ritual around here is something else. When I go camping I would just like to eat a hot dog roasted on a fire and call it good. That will not pass on this mountain excursion. Every time we had to eat, which was breakfast and dinner, we had to be seated at the table!! No exceptions. Goudez, the assistant guide with his English vocabulary 145 strong, would insist. It always went something like this:















Goudez: Hello…..Guys…….Hello……
Craig: No!!….
Goudez: Fine…. I am Fine OK…come ..Ok
Craig: No. leave me alone !
Goudez: Yes Come it is necessary you eat
Craig: I am not eating today… your food is gross
Goudez: Ok I bring tea…..Ok tea here… yes
Craig: I don’t want any tea. I have an F-ing headache.. beat it !!
Goudez: Yes good I bring tea…. Fine

No matter what you said or did, this Goudez character would persist until you sat at the silly table in the middle of a campsite at 12,000 feet. Every time the table was set with plates, bowls, silverware, salt and pepper... the usual right.. Then sugar, Instant coffee, hot water and tea. Then there were always the items we never used, such as the peanut butter, the margarine, the Palestinian quick oats (which I knew profits supported the PLO), the cocoa, the tang like drink mix called mola, some jar of black paste we didn’t know anything about and of course the marmalade jam made of some type of mango. Don’t try to tell these guys that you don’t need all this stuff at every meal they will resent you.

At altitude your appetite at least cuts in half.. Mine was totally gone. It was always another argument with Goudez when I left the table about how I didn’t eat enough.

We kept the average amount of porters around for a camp which is 4.5 per person. I was a little shocked when I found out we had 7 porters and 2 guides going along. Until I realized the necessity of them all. For example, you need one guy to carry the outhouse even though every campsite has 10 or so you need a portable one that is nice and clean. Then one guy carries the tents, 3 of them. You have 2 guys carrying personal stuff for the climbers, that was Paul and Saimon.. they were my favorites. Then you have Christian carrying an aluminum box full of food. Then the two others are carrying all the dishes camp stoves, kerosene, dry storage food and other misc items that are necessary such as table and chairs.

The funny thing about these guys is they just love every minute of this hike. They are all excited to have a job for a week and are celebrating. You would think they have special skills and taking hiking very seriously, but no, they are a drinking and smoking bunch of jokesters who stay up late at night laughing and carrying on with 4 or 5 per 3 man tent.

These fellas love to carry stuff on their heads.. there is not doubt about it. I tried my best to explain using actions and examples about the benefits of a pack with a good waist belt. I just didn’t seem to get through to them. Most of the waist belts won’t fit snug on these guys anyway because they all have about a 24 inch waist. So they put all the backpacks into duffle bags and balance them on their heads all the way down the trail.


The trip up the mountain was great. It was like hiking on another planet, actually when we were walking around on the rim at 19,000 feet I was telling my Dad I can’t believe we can even breathe up here in outer space. It is quite the spectacle when the sun finally comes up and you can see that you are walking on the highest spot on the continent. I swore I could see the oceans on either side but then again I was a little weird in the head at that altitude.

I have to give props to Dad for sticking to it up the hill, I hope when I am that age I have enough tenacity to do something that extreme.

Next stop the safari… Hopefully we are not in tents any more… Dad believes we are in fancy hunting lodges with verandas.. Who knows we will have to wait and see.