Dik-Dik Lodge

Day 43 2/26/99: Descent to Mweka Gate (6840')

Mt Kilimanjaroshortly after sun rise at Mweka Camp at 6:47 a.m.

We had a nice clear view of the Mountain from our tents.

We packed up, tipped the porters, had breakfast, and said good-bye to last camp.

On the road again! Theresa and I left camp around 7:50 a.m. Theresa had a nice smile on her face. After all, it was going to be an easy 3-4 hour hike--3,500 vertical foot descent. It was going to be piece of cake, right?

Mweka Camp was right at the edge of the forest zone. We were now hiking in lush vegetation. There were lots of trees with "old man's beard" hanging down the branches, with rays of sunlight streaming down.

Oops. Don't worry. Theresa did not fall. She was just climbing over the a fallen tree trunk. However, the trail was very slippery. Today the hazard on the trail were all the tree roots that are growing on the trail. If one stepped right on the roots, then inevitable result will be falling on one's butt!

Wilderness Travel's brochure (now I'm reading it with a grain of salt :-) stated,

"The walk is fairly straightforward (oh yeah, according to whose standards--probably Anton's)

but steep in places (no kidding, I've seen steep slopes, but the trail was ridiculous at certain places)

slipppery if wet (certainly true. This was the reason that even though it was a relatively warm day, Theresa and I both kept my Gore-Tex pants on. We figured that if we were going to fall, we may as well keep ourselves clean)

ski poles are recommended (Theresa was thankful for her poles--I think she is going to bronze and frame them after the hike :-) Unfortunately I was able to use only one pole since my left hand cannot handle a pole; my left palm throbbed if I used it too much.)

Anton was the Wilderness Travel agent who made our travel arrangements as he was in charge of the African Operation. Prior to Alex, Anton was the trip leader for many Kili climbs. I was told that he was the one who wrote the trip brochure--well, I have few complaints about Wilderness Travel, but these two days of hiking have been very challenging and were not 100% accurately reflected in the brochure." Okay, I'm only nitpicking and whining. Actually, these two days hiking has been great, especially the last day of hiking toward the Mweka Gate as the hike through the forest was absolutely beautiful.

The picture does not do justice in representing the total experience as we hiked through the montane forest.

We caught up with the rest of the hikers who started a little earlier than us. We had nice conversations.

The going was slow as each of us carefully went down the steep and slippery trail. I could not believe that there were hikers who actually climbed up Kili using this trail. The "New Map of the Kilimanjaro National Park" states that the Mweka route is the most direct and fastest way to the summit, but is also the steepest and strenuous too. No kidding. I guess if one wants to commit suicide, then going up Kili via the Mweka route is certainly one way. :-)

Most outfitters and guides consider this Mweka trail as a descent route only. I agree. I'm glad that we were going down.

We heard birds singing in the forest and saw wild flowers blooming. No, I did not try the berries; Samia told me that they will be too sour for my taste.

Samia took this picture of Theresa and myself standing below this tree tunnel.

I took a picture of Samia with Theresa. It was funny that Samia always worried that I would get jealous when he was standing next to Theresa for photograph. I was not jealous at all.

Samia, Theresa, and I were all hiking merrily and chatting. It was during this time that I found out that Samia, my Tanzanian twin brother separated at birth, also liked Celine Dion. (In fact, I have Celine Dion's CD playing right now as I'm writing this WEB page!) He also liked Shania Twain.Click below to go to their fab sites.

This is part of the Mweka trail where there have been so many people walking on it, deep steps/grooves have been formed. Going down the trail was no problems--for tall people like Samia and myself who have long legs. It was a lot more challenging for Theresa, who have shorter legs! She did fall a few times; however, she did not kill herself fortunately.

We hiked. After 3 hours of hiking, the end of the trail is nowhere in sights.

We hiked.

We hiked.

We hiked.

We hiked. After 4 hours of hiking since this morning, we still don't see Mweka Gate. I'm going to send a mail to Anton about this...

Finally, after 5 hours of hiking at 1 p.m., Samia told me, "Look, Moshi town is right there toward your left."

I could not really see Moshi, but I believed him.

He was right. At about 1:10 p.m. on Feb 26, 1999 we arrived at the "Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park: Mweka Gate."

Theresa was happy to take off her gaiters.

Alice and Anne celebrated with a bottle of COLD coke.

Thanks to our cook for the past 9 days we have been well fed. I heartily ate a lunch of hard-boiled egg, bread, and grilled chicken.

Our cook even prepared a cake that said "Congratualation."

Samai, Theresa, and I celebrated our accomplishment. I gladly took off my Gore-Tex pants and gave them to Samia as a token of my appreciation. Even though this was a pair of The North Face Mountain Side-Zip pants that costed $319 ($295 + 8.25% tax) at REI and has only been used for the past four days, I thought whether Samia sells it or use it it would be more useful to him. Thas was really not the accepted way of tiping guides and porters; however, I bent the rule because Samia was my Tanzanian twin brother separated at birth :-)

The special story with this pair of pants was that I bought 90% of all our climbing and camping clothing and equipments at REI. Out of the more than 5 trips to both the Santa Clara and Berkeley stores and spending thousands and thousands of dollars, this pair of pants was the only thing that the cashier forgot to charge me. I don't normally check my recipts; however, in this case I was double-checking all the items and the receipts because my glove liners were missing. It turned out that the REI casher forgot to enclose the glove liners, but they also did not charge me. If not because of the problem with the glove liners, I would never have realized that REI did not charge me for the pants. So I actually brought them back to REI and paid for the pants. Was I honest or don't want to hike with a guilty conscious? You be the judge. No way I was going to take a chance and anger the spirits of Mt. Kilimanjaro by hiking with a pair of Gore-Tex pants that I did not pay for!

Somehow this is a special pair of pants, and somehow I feel it was right that Samia would get it.

At this point we said good-bye to Samia as he would not be coming on the safari with us. He was leading another group of hikers for African Environment up Kili in just a few days!

Alice and Lesley celebrating their accomplishment.

Theresa's boots brought her up and down Kili.

My trusty boots that brought me up and down. However, I still need to admonish them for letting me fall on the trail yesterday :-)

Lesley, Alice, Theresa, and Anne wondered when we can get a ride back to Dik-Dike Lodge for our long awaited hot shower.

Ede made it! She was "passionated" about passion fruits and had several for lunch. Look at how she rather sit on the ground and lean against a door rather than sitting on our tricky three-legged camp stool.

It was Norman's turn to come down the mountain.

Each of us has a Kilimanjaro survival story to tell. It's a personal story filled with ups and downs, twists and turns. It's a story of delights, surprises, and sometimes frustration. Each of us has accomplished something very difficult and at times seemed impossible. We all triumphed againt difficult odds.  Each of us has to overcome our individual shortcomings, whether it's physical, mental, or gastro-intestinal. Gastro-intestinal--I am not sure if this word exists in the dictionary?  :-)   Here were Liza and Lois. One of them had a very challenging time climbing down.

I'll give you a hint: it's not Lois--just look at the big, proud smile on her face.You just have to send a mail to Liza for details. :-)

Theresa signed out at the ranger's station at Mweka Gate. Gee, if that's what it takes to prove that we climbed Kili, we could have signed in at the Londorossi Gate 9 days ago, gone to Zanzibar for swimming and sunset cocktails, and came here to sign in! That would have been too easy :-) I could have skipped throwing up and getting blood all over my hand!

Norman was celebrating. For all the future trekkers who are reading this WEB in order to prepare for your trip up Kili, what's the most important hint I can give you? Do you really want to know? Are you wondering what mental motivation I can provide or a critical piece of clothing that you may need? None of these. Bring $20 for the end of the hike. Of course, you need to bring cash to tip the guides and porters. However, save a few dolloars to get one of these touristy T-shirts: "Just Done It" or "I Climbed Kilimanjaro" and some bottled water. You will be happy as we were thanks to Theresa for bringing the money.

So where were the rest of the group?

Charito made it too.

Liza, Lois, Anne, Theresa, and myself got our ride to Dik-Dik Lodge at 2:30 p.m.

We traveled on dusty roads.

Hey, it was the beginning of safari. Sort of. What kind of wildlife did we see? Actually we zoomed through a herd of domesticated cows :-) The car was moving so fast that I only got a picture of cow butts.

We made it back to Dik-Dik Lodge at 4:15 p.m. Let the party begin. It's time to celebrate. Yes, no more iodine or filterd water. It's bottled Kilimanjaro water for us now.

However, before we hit the hot shower, we decided to gather the dirty laundry since we needed some of the clothing for the safari and the cold weather in Germany. I felt sorry for the people who washed our dirty clothes, especially the ones that we wore at the "charcoal zone." Thanks to Dik-Dik Lodge for getting our clothes cleaned and ready the next morning. It costed only $110 to clean 6 coats, 24 pairs of socks, 17 under-shirts/pants, 2 pairs of shirts, and 4 t-shirts. I do think the $20 tip helped to ensure that our laundry was done the next morning.

Still not in the shower yet. We organized our safari clothing and gear. I also was happy that I was finally able to clean the inside of my duffle bag--it was so sticky because I spilled some water and Gatorade powders two days ago on the mountain! Thank goodness most of my stuff were in zip-lock plastic bags so the sticky problem was contained to only a few things.

It was so nice to return to Dik-Dik lodge. Here was a nice lightbox with a batik painting right above our bed. We enjoyed the hot shower--at least it was hot for Theresa when she took it. I think everyone took a very long shower and used up all the hot water. So I had a lukewarm shower; however, I was still happy to scrub down the dust, sweat, and grime with soup and water.

Here were Greg, Doyle, Lesley, and Brad. We almost did not recognize people with their clean faces, clean clothes, and cleaned hair.

Here were Anne, Ede, and Bruce enjoying some water and beer.

Here was Alice having a reunion with her husband Keith, who would be joining us for the safari portion of the trip. Lois was enjoying a glass of wine.

Theresa and I were enjoying our Safari Lager and Kilimanjaro Premium Lager. Safari Lager tasted better, but emotionally I liked to drink the Kilimanjaro Premium Lager--any way to extend and enhance my Kili experience is fine with me.

Theresa called her parents to tell them that we survived. The clock was ticking as it costed $15 per minute to call from here. Theresa's parents were not convinced that we were okay, so it took Theresa 2 minutes to tell them that we were really okay. The operator had problem connecting to Taiwan, so I called up my brother in California to tell him that we were okay.

Bruce brought a bottle of champagne and toasted Alex for his leadership. "Drink, drink, and drink." Of course, now we did not have to worry about "clear and copious."

I brought a bottle of  1985 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port to share. After decanting with the candle ligth, I poured the vintage port. Just think this bottle was produced and bottled in Portugal, somehow made it to California where I bought it, and it then made it to Amsterdam and Tanzania without breaking! No, I did not make the porters carry this bottle up and down Kili; this bottle was kept with the safari gear back at Dik-Dik lodge while we were on the Mountain.

We enjoyed the vintage port as I roasted everyone with their nicknames that I've created (and with Theresa's editorial approval).

We enjoyed the appetizer.

We enjoyed the main course.

So this victory dinner concluded our Kili climb. Read on for some of my post-trip reflections.

I promised that I'll shed some tears on our vacation. Well, my eyes were dry on top of Kilimanjaro's summit. My eyes were also dry when Medicine Man Bruce extracted the wood splinter from my hand. Read on to find out exactly what or who brought tears to my eyes...

Click here to read my post-trip reflections

Click here for our Tanzania safari and find out how many elephants we saw

Click here for the "Perspectives on East Africa" symposium and more about Jane Goodall and Cynthia Moss.