Africa Trip Diary

First Entry (Jan 18)

I have finally gotten my computer to talk to Kenya and am now on line again. I have been unreachable via email since I arrived up until now but am back for the duration (provided the phone lines stay up - infrastructure here is dodgy at times).

you wouldn't believe this place! it's wonderful. Since I've been here I've had many unique experiences. London was okay as a 15 hour sentimental blast from the past (that place hasn't changed a bit), but Kenya has been amazing! I climbed with a local at two areas south of Nairobi on Tuesday and there is so much unclimbed rock to develop here. I'm climbing with the local guru, Ian Howell, this weekend. Went to the Kenya Mountaineering Club earlier this week and met with him and other influences here to discuss the future of new route development on cliffs that have no established climbs. Todd Skinner and Paul Piana have been here recently and last year some Brits came through and put up some new routes that were unrepeated until my arrival. Exciting stuff. I have 60 bolts with me for new route development and hope to do some trad FA's as well.

As an American, it has been refreshing to see the way God works when individual people do not think of Him as a touchy or political issue, but as a real Being to have a relationship with. These people are beautiful, and God is real to them in ways that have inspired me.

Since I've been here I have seen Zebra; hung out with monkeys that reside right here on campus in the ropes course area ; shot the bow and arrow of a Masaii warrior (in return for letting him see how my computer worked - you should have seen his understandable amazement at the sports-bra-clad climber on one of my screen savers); gone for runs through lush and hilly green tea fields as a dozen Kikuyu children ran alongside shouting "jambo!" and asking for high fives (they were fast little buggards too!); raised a 40 foot telephone pole for the ropes course with no pole truck or pulley - just thirty natives and a rope; learned sixteen words in Kiswahili, and refocused myself on people instead of tasks.

All in all, I'd say that's pretty fine. Of course there is more, but it can wait. I am writing a very detailed journal (read, "book") on my laptop and will share it with you when finished. I'm hoping that Wieuca and Bracken can develop a life long partnership and I am looking forward to bringing my experiences to the missions committee when I return.

Selama (Peace),

- Marc

Second entry (Jan 19)

I hope you don't mind another long email again so soon after the first. This place is just a very inspiring one for writing.

I have gone to great lengths to eat the local food. Besides the food at the mission center (which is pretty much what I have back home except for the occasional Ugali and the vegetable dessert concoctions), I have been to one Ethiopian place and one market cafe. The market (where we were buying building supplies) would be a slum here, but it's strange how you begin to adapt to such things.

I have had no adverse reactions at all to the food and I don't really expect to (the desk is wood, and I am knocking on it now). I'm not terribly prone to such things. I don't drink the local water. No one does. I drink the water at the center which is properly prepared, and I drink bottled stuff on occasion. We have "chai," or tea, twice a day. Everyone has about two and a half hours worth of breaks throughout the workday and knocks off work at about 4:30. Better than banker's hours. It's a slower pace with no understanding of the rush job. It can be hard to acquire shipments and basic services because of this. Policies and laws are very inconsistently enforced, which is usually to one's benefit but sometimes hard to understand. You start to accept that quickly if you are wise, and just take on the "hakuna matata" mentality and roll with it. It's hard to accept sometimes that you don't get as much done in a day as you would have liked, but then you just decide that you are on a labor or supply mandated holiday until the next opportunity and you go enjoy the place (or you write books disguised as emails like this one).

Kenyans are pretty much receptive to anyone, aside from rival tribe members within the country. Even then, that's just what I have heard. I've not seen the first sign of that personally. They are a pleasantly passive people, for the most part, who light up when you speak to them. I have found their personalities to be friendly and their culture worth taking lessons from.

I felt very at home almost instantly. I have always loved new cultures. I have found only a few things in life to be fulfilling, since I have a very highly developed need for dramatic experiences. Travel has always been at the top of that list along with Christ, Susan, inner circle type of connections with people, climbing, and a very few other things. I am a George Bailey when it comes to (often painfully stifled) wanderlust, and I am richly blessed that God has so often found ways to fill that need without my having to become a drifting expat, as it would be so easy for me to do. He so knows what we need better than we do. I'm so glad he has closed the doors on many of the plans I have almost pursued, just so He could show me how what He really had planned would be well beyond what I sought to experience in the first place. I have seen that so often now that I just trust and wait, and then...wow! I won't say that the waiting is always easy, but it is always worth it. A pessimist would see this as rationalization on my part, but my Faith has as it's very roots the sure knowledge of His presence and caretaking in my life decisions. It's not just wishful thinking, because it is something I have found I can count upon in advance, without disappointment, and I have this abiding and absolute knowledge that I will always be okay and looked after. It's not rational at all, but I am so very sure of it.

The only real inconvenience has been the telephone system. It is always busy and is woefully inadequate. Everyone's business cards have two or three numbers printed just so you have something to fall back on if you don't reach them at the first dialing (which is usually rotary, btw).

I have learned about twenty Kiswahili words already and I have a good friend named Jonas who teaches me diligently. He was assigned as my assistant in building the climbing gym (what a luxury that is!) They appreciate the effort to learn their culture, and it is a rich and open one. Smiles go a long way here, and I have taken measures to rediscover mine (if you've never noticed, I have been told all my life that I look severe when I think I am just in a neutral expression).

My daily runs are a scenic high point (literally and metaphorically). Doing hills at 8,000 feet (I live at about 1,100 in Atlanta) is a bit sluggish but all-in-all I'd say I'm not really feeling the altitude difference at all (even during the runs) beyond the hill work. I can't wait to show y'all pictures of the tea fields I run through and the children who live in them.

We have a family of monkeys residing in our ropes course area. Actually, it is their area but they were gone for awhile during some of the louder work that was done before I arrived. Now they are back and so curious about what we're doing that they come right up to where we are working. The next tree, even. The leader is about the size of an eight year old boy. They will probably play on the ropes course when we are not up there ourselves - or maybe with us too. That'll be a sight. Last night around dusk I climbed up to a high place and watched them for awhile, making whistling sounds that drew them closer. I heard one get very close but never saw him. I am hoping that they will get used to me at those times when it is just us and maybe they will draw near enough to hand feed. I don't know if that's something they'll do, but who knows until you try. No known rabies in this area. No malaria either. We are so high up that everything is green, breezy, hilly, and pleasant all round. The travel guide books are a lot more conservative about hazards than the local expats tell me one needs to be. None of them I have met so far have ever taken anti-malarial pills, despite travels over all of Africa. Only one of them I've met - one of the more well established safari guides, has ever gotten it - and it took him thirty years before he did.

This weekend I'll be climbing in an area that has a lot of Giraffe. Last weekend some climbers counted twenty-seven there. Some babies were among them. It's really satisfying not to have to visit a zoo to see these kinds of things. I've always been a Discovery channel, TLC, etc addict, and I've wanted to experience all this first hand my whole life. It's fun when I know the facts about what I'm viewing. I've never been a tourist. That's just not the way to experience something for real. This is the way to do it.

La la selama (peace and good night)

- Marc

Third entry (Jan 24)

Jambo again from Kenya. Habari? (How are you?)

I have had a very hard time keeping up with journaling. There has literally been too much happening too fast here. I have made great progress building the climbing gym. I framed the wall today that will serve as the root wall for all the other framing. The design is very well laid out (he says, modestly) and I am happy with it. Today while I was building, about eight Kenyan children passed the squash court where I work. Like everyone else, they stopped to look inside (I make a lot of noise). Then they came in to get a closer look. I think they stayed for almost an hour. They were fascinated by the tape measure, taking great pleasure in the way it springs back into its shell. When I started to sweep an area clean in order to prep it for a new wall frame, one of the girls took the broom and swept for me. She must have been about six years old.

I have not seen the kids in the tea fields for a little while. I have been too busy climbing to run much. I reckon I am getting sufficient cardio from the approach hiking and the telephone pole lifting. I went to the best gym in Nairobi last night before the climbing club meeting and did a workout with Mike. It was my first exposure to Nairobi at night. A little dodgy, but Mike's Swahili didn't hurt. I hope to run tomorrow, but I may be working after hours for the next little while so that I'll have time to climb Mt. Kenya.

Last weekend I went climbing both days with the two Ians. I don't think I've really written about them much so far. They are the two most prolific climbers, and climbing legends, in this country. The first, Ian Howell, has been climbing for over forty years and did most of the development on Mt. Kenya, including carrying on his back all the materials to build the high huts on the mountain. He has climbed all over the world and was in the valley (Yosemite) during the golden age when El Capitan, Half Dome, etc were seeing their first ascents. He has been partnered with no less than Royal Robbins himself on first free ascents during that time. He now lives at the mountain club at Wilson airfield and I stayed there with him for most of the weekend. We had a three hour dinner in an Indian restaurant where I just soaked up the history that was pouring out of this modest man. I have always been intrigued by climbing history. There have been whole periods of time where that was all I read about, and have gotten so immersed that I completely forgot about the nature of the modern climbing scene. I think he appreciates that in someone my age very much.

The other Iain (not a typo) is still, at age 53, Kenya's best climber, with most of the hardest first ascents in the country to his credit. He's been the former Ian's main climbing partner for over 35 years. Perhaps his most notable achievement is the second hammerless ascent of the Nose of El Capitan. He is now the owner / operator of one of the most exclusive safari companies in Africa, "Tropical Ice." The name is an allusion to the fact that they have glaciers that are right on the equator here, due to the height of the mountains. He has also written a book about his walk from the summit of Kilimanjaro to the coast of Kenya at Mombassa. The journey was about two hundred miles long through croc country, during which he slept at night with the sounds of predators outside the tent. The book is on the shelves right now in America. I actually saw it before I left and almost bought it, before knew I would be meeting the author soon. I think it is called "In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro."

The three of us; Iain's two boys, James and Duncan; and an American expat named Dave; spent the weekend climbing. On Sunday we went to the Rift Valley, at the base of the Ngong hills (a la "Out of Africa," but on the other side from Karen Blixen's farm - more on that later). It is a wide valley bordered on either side by cliffs that run for miles. The vegetation in the area is amazingly thorny and the environment is pretty hostile, I'd say. The thorns can puncture tires. Having said that, though, much of the climbing was wonderful. The cliffs on the side of the valley we went to is known to climbers as "Frog," because it was developed by a French climber who didn't seem to mind the politically incorrect allusion to his nationality. Not everyone is as sensitive as Americans about such things when they are said all in good fun. Iain showed me many of his climbs, and showed me the climbs that two visiting Brits put in almost two years ago. These are the same two Brits who put in the climb at Nemesis that sat unrepeated until I came. One of their climbs, called "Masaii Burning" is reputed to be the hardest climb in Kenya, and is unrepeated. Its proposed grade is Aussie 29, that's the system in use here. That's roughly 13a/b on the American YDS scale, with trad climbing in the top section. I had planned to give it a go on Sunday, but the conditions were very hot and the basalt slick, so I stuck to lounging with the crew and climbing more appealing lines that day. As a whole, I ticked the fourth ascent overall and second onsight, after DeKlerk from South Africa, of two of Iain's climbs. One of them is his hardest personal ascent. I scoped "Masaii Burning" and plan to return for it before I leave.

More interesting to non climbers, the area we were climbing in is a habitat for Masaii nomads and many exotic animals. I photographed three wild ostrich as we went in, and got an excellent shot of a group of baboons as we left. One of them was on a blank cliff wall in a perfect climber pose (un-roped too, the little show off). As a bonus, there is also a very photogenic tree in the picture. the Ians said there were cobra in the area but I didn't see any. As for the Masaii, they would come and watch us climb and the Masaii boys would go to the top to look down at us. On one climb I did, they were at the top doing one of their guttural, chanting songs. It was a little surreal, but very interesting. Ian Howell ("Pin," as I will heretofore refer to him) said that you have to put your permanent anchors out of the reach of such boys, as they will take them if they are able. He said that he once found one of his carabiners lodged in the nose of a Masaii's cow! If I have not yet made the point sufficiently, the Masaii are a very different sort of people. I have since learned that it can be dangerous to photograph them, and that they think of all the cows in the world as their own. Pin, who is British, says that he doesn't think they lay any sort of claim to cattle with "mad cow disease," however. My Masaii friend, Licomba, was outside the campus today wearing a red Nike toboggan that matched his warrior shuka (robe). I should photo that for Nike, huh? I have also learned that to be considered a Masaii warrior, one must kill a lion single-handedly - with nothing but a spear. The method is to let the lion pounce, as they always do, and just raise the spear to their underside as they come down. Pretty, sketch, I'd say. I think they lose more Masaii than lions to such encounters.

At the end of the day's climbing on Sunday, I loaded myself into Iain's Land Rover and we all headed to his house in Karen, a town named for Mrs. Blixen. His land is actually on what was once her property. His house is a palace, and we spent the next several hours very pleasantly discussing everything we could think of over a wonderful meal that his wife, Lou - a doctor at a local hospital - prepared for us. One of the subjects on which Iain offered an opinion was the third world. He proclaimed himself a "third world person," offering for a reason the fact that in the first world it is too boring, because everything works.

that was the weekend. Today is Wednesday and I have spent the week building in the bouldering room. The Kenyans still have no real concept of what we are building. the climbing room inspires curiosity from all who pass and I show them pictures of the one I built back home, which helps. As for the ropes course, they surely think the poles we have erected will help prevent the occasional power outages in some way. When they first see it in operation, they will probably have to declare the day a holiday for Bracken staff, as they are sure to be down on the course watching us.

Isaac, a Kenyan who is one of the managers here at Bracken, came into the bouldering room to help me work and saw me drilling holes into a sheet of block board, which is a local substitute for plywood. He was transfixed and asked if he could drill one. I showed him how to make sure the hole was straight and he drilled. He looked up with such satisfaction and just asked, "may I do another?" I spent the next five minutes or so marking with X's where he should drill next. Pretty cool stuff.

We spent tonight (Wednesday) at Mike's house, from whence I have just returned. Mike is the HMIC (Head Missionary in Charge - of East Africa). We had about a dozen people over for dinner. Mike brought home a chef from Bracken who made us Mexican food. then all of us went to the den and talked, sang, and heard a series of three comedic routines from this guy who was there. He was in "Out of Africa" (his mom was the casting director) and is a great actor. It was funny.

Well, that's me caught up, I think. Glad to have it down in writing. Hope you enjoyed it. If anyone has any news from the States, please share it with me. I have heard a few Clinton and Jesse Jackson references, but know few details.

The most notable thing about this week is the following, and I will leave you with it. I had a conversation I had with one of the Kenyan guards (whose weapons are a bow and arrow and a stick) here at Brackenhurst. His name is Jackson, and he made a point to tell me yesterday (Tuesday) that he was very happy to have me, Pete, and "Mrs. Pete" here. He told me that he liked us being here and that he loved us very much. He said he would be very happy to receive from us letters after we have returned from the States. He was touchingly sincere, and went on like that, with me reciprocating, for some ten minutes or so. He has become to me the best example of what I mean when I talk of the warmth of these people, although most all of them exude this kind of vibe to one degree or another. There is a word in Swa that is used to address friends who have come to be thought of with a family-like affection. I shall now have to learn that word.

- Marc

Entry Four (Final entry for this trip)

            As you may have already surmised, I am back in America now, and have been for two weeks. My hopes of keeping you updated on the trip were dashed when I caught a computer virus in Kenya that I could not fix until I returned home. For any of you who may have gotten the virus from me, consider me deeply apologetic. I hope you have by now cleared it up, as I have with a little dose of the latest Norton software upgrade.

            Of course, after returning, I had so much catching up to do after a month away that I am just now getting around to writing this. So let me just dive right in.

            On my second to last week in Kenya I climbed Mt. Kenya, which turned out to be a six day trip. It is located about two and a half hours to the north of Nairobi, and sits at 17,058 feet. For a better frame of reference, the highest point in the lower 48 United States is Mt. Whitney in California, at 14,500 feet.

            Mt. Kenya and it’s more romanticized neighbor, Kilimanjaro, are the main mountaineering attractions in East Africa, with climbers from all over the world coming to experience or conquer them. When the first missionary explorers to sight the two mountains came back with stories of ice and snow at the equator, geography experts at the Royal Geographic Society in England dismissed these first accounts for years. What was to them a contradiction, is one of the things that makes these mountains all the more alluring.

            Kili is one the famed “Seven Summits,” which are the highest points on each continent. That is now its main selling point, as all of the technical climbing to be done has largely melted away, rendering it a 20,000 foot hike and of little interest to climbers who are not out to bag one of the big seven.

            By contrast, Mt. Kenya is known by many as a “mountaineer’s mountain,” with multiple spires that offer climbers their choice of summit experiences, each of them grandiose in its own right. The two main peaks of Mt. Kenya are Nelion and Batian. They are side by side twins that are only about 33 feet different in height, with Batian being the true summit. It requires technical rock climbing to reach either of these peaks, but there are unlimited areas for the hiker to visit, including the highest trek able point, called Lenana. This is a popular sub peak that can see fifty visitors per day, and that tops out just 700 feet lower than the true summit on Batian.

            There are four main approaches to the massif (the word for the mountain’s formation as a whole), each of them originating from different towns around the base. These towns lie at about 6,000 feet elevation. The most popular of the towns is Naro Maru, where the Naro Maru River lodge is situated. The River Lodge is a good starting point because there is a mountain shop there, run by a Kenyan named Steve. He has been there over twenty years and can arrange anything for you, from transport to the park gate, to storage for your extra gear, to porters and cooks if you like. Steve is an big, affable fellow when he warms up to you, and he is one of at least twenty Kenyan climbers we met who claim Ian Howell as their best friend.

            My schedule for doing the climb was very tight, because I needed to get back to Bracken to work with Gus, who arrived the day I left for Mt. Kenya. We would have only four days to work together even if I held fast to my proposed schedule. Gus is a builder from the States whom I have known for nearly eight years. He taught the first advanced course I ever took for ropes course facilitation, and we have remained good – if geographically distant – friends ever since.        Alpine climbing on the high peaks is pretty different from what I normally do, with Mt. Whitney being my only real prior experience. Although it is understandably easy for the general public to lump mountaineering in with rock climbing, several important distinctions between the two exist. Enough so to consider them distant cousins. For starters, big mountains offer such variables as unpredictable altitude sicknesses, many of which are quick and lethal; weather that can turn on you from one minute to the next with little or no warning; and uncontrollable (objective) hazards like rock fall. Because of these variables, trying to cram a mountain into a narrow schedule is optimistic, at best. I knew this, but had no real choice. I wanted to experience this mountain.

            My partners for the ascent were to be Dave Pagel and Dean (whose last name I never did catch). Dave is an editor for Climbing magazine and they are both from Minnesota. We had been corresponding via email for several weeks before meeting for the first time face to face in Nairobi. Dave described himself as an “everyman’s climber,” who had no illusions about his being one of climbing’s elite. No doubt he felt sure I would make that assumption based on his position at the magazine. I expressed in reply that it had been my experience that a person’s innate impressiveness was often in direct proportion to their level of modesty, and Dean nodded his agreement with regard to Dave.

            Dean was the younger of the two, a youth worker who lived out of his truck and had every other month off. He had spent this time over the last several years traveling and climbing around Europe’s Alps. This was the first time any of us had been to a developing country. I had been here for three weeks before their arrival, and so tried my best to answer their questions regarding culture, customs, and language. The first word Dave picked up on was “pole pole” (pronounced “po-leh”) If you say it once, it means “I’m sorry,” but when said twice it means “slowly.” It was his description of how he wished to approach the mountain so that he would acclimatize adequately. He would repeat the words often, as a sort of joke among us, over the next six days. His home in Minnesota is, after all, pretty much at sea level. He made it clear that neither he nor Dean could guarantee that they would be willing or able to move fast enough to fit my schedule. They told me that their pattern was to suffer mountain sickness until they were rested up and then they would be strong in the mountains. I understood this, but they were the only partners whose schedules had lined up with mine (several people at MCK had asked whether I could leave just a few days later so they could join me, but I could not), and our email exchanges had made me want to meet them.

            We took a taxi from Nairobi to Naro Maru, where we checked in at the River Lodge. They told us they were full but put us up in the staff quarters. We joked that our dirt bag climber exteriors had inspired them to separate us from the posh environment in the rest of the Lodge, and it wasn’t long before we started to think that we might be right about that.

            So we cached our dreams of having one last night of splendor and comfort as we settled into the concrete bunkhouse. There we sorted gear and the two of them gave me no end of grief for having brought too much cotton clothing. Dave was doing this ascent as background for an upcoming article, and ribbed me further by saying that there was a reason most people didn’t climb with him again after having been written about. I began to worry that he was planning to paint me in the article as the mountain wannabe that I was.

            We checked in with Steve shortly thereafter and arranged transport for the next day to the park gate. Dave and Dean hit their bunks early and I stayed up to eat dinner in the restaurant. The only place serving was the dining room and I was certainly not dressed for it, but hey, I was hungry for the last cushy meal I could hope to have for awhile, and my metabolism does not exactly hoard calories. I wanted to save for the mountain the meager amount of camp food I had bought.      

            The maitre’d was a Masaii in a tuxedo with the trademark elongated earlobes. His stuffy, condescending manner seemed borrowed from another place and his incongruous appearance reminded me that they call Africa the land of contrast. Of course, my appearance itself was clashing enough in the dining room, clad as I was in climber regalia, with a 30 foot hairdo and a dirt bag goatee that I had grown just because I had been away from my wife long enough to get away with it. 

            It was a beautiful night and I took full advantage with a walk through the grounds. The hyrax, which are about the size and appearance of a marmot or a big groundhog, were making the most otherworldly racket equal in volume to their closest relative, the elephant. I walked in the dark, down paths that had me wondering about the very real possibility of leopards, and started to think of home. How far away it seemed on a night like this, alone with my thoughts. I had never in my life experienced homesickness, but I knew it now. My wife of three years, and her wonderful family were on the other side of the world. I looked at the moon and thought how we shared at least that much at this moment, but quickly realized that even that would not yet be shining on my Susan.

            I sat down in a lawn chair and prayed to the only Being who was omnipresent, and bathed for a time in His familiar presence. When I resumed walking, my somber disposition had passed and I was ready to sleep.

            The next day we packed ourselves, three porters, an driver, and all our gear into a Land Rover, matatu style, and headed for the gate. Our plan was to hike the first 10K of the approach that day. We would go from 6,000 feet to 10,000 at the Meteorological (Met) Station. Dave and Dean had hired porters, and I jumped on that bandwagon. Labor is cheap in the third world, and at four dollars per day, it seemed a no brainer to spend the first two days with a nerf pack while someone else carried the big stuff. Besides, I rationalized, I would be supporting the local economy. Riiighhtt.

            On the way to Met we saw Colubus monkeys in the trees; gaping, elephant sized holes in the bamboo; and had one little monkey walk right up and greet us on the trail in hopes of a hand out. At one point, I backed off the trail a bit when I heard a guttural big beastie sound coming from the other side of the bamboo. Dave and I just tried to stamp our feet and talk loudly for the next little while, as even the most dangerous big game are often put off by a noisy pedestrian. We knew there were Elephant and Cape Buffalo in the area, and although we were keen to have a look at either of them, surprising one of these territorial behemoths has inspired the trampling or goring death of many a hapless soul. The last thing we wanted at that moment was to be found lacking in “hap.”

            Shortly before Met Station, Dave began to feel the altitude, and by the time we got there he was fully in the throes of AMS (Altitude Mountain Sickness). AMS is little more than the body adjusting to altitude, and is not life threatening like it’s big brothers HACE and HAPE (High Altitude Cerebral and Pulmonary Edema), but it is miserable by all accounts, characterized by headaches and one’s innards regularly seeking both exits for evacuation. Dean got him in the tent and he tried in vain to sleep it off. It was early afternoon and the hot equatorial sun beating down his tent didn’t help matters much for him.

            Dean and I spent the afternoon reading, writing letters, and talking with the collection of porters who were in their temporary residence at the Met Station Hut. It looked pretty comfortable in there, but it cost money to stay inside and I had already forfeited enough points on my guy card by hiring a porter.

            That night I slept through the Jurassic Park-esque scene of Cape Buffalo, the number two killers in Africa, sounding off all around our camp. They left buffalo patties within a foot of my tent, lest I attempt to comfort myself with thoughts that they were dreams. Dean made the observation that perhaps next time we shouldn’t camp on a “beast’s dinner plate, grassy as our surroundings were. The rumors about a leopard in residence never materialized, but the British Army squad who told us about it were plenty convinced of him.

            Sharing the camp site at Met were also an Israeli couple and a troop of sick Euro-teens who were demanding to be driven down to thicker air. They could have easily walked it in the time it took them to complain to the porters about the lack of responsiveness on the part of the drivers.

            Dean and I started early, about 7am, for leg two of the approach with three porters. We left Dave to rest and Dean planned to return to Met that night, following the axiom for best acclimatization, “climb high, sleep low.” We took all Dave and Dean’s things – including the bulk of their food, on up to Mackinder’s Hut, 4,200 feet higher, and named for Mt. Kenya’s first ascentionists. 

            The views between Met and Mackinder’s Hut began to show the elevation we were gaining, and the surroundings were becoming more mountain-like as we rose out of the forest. Still, it stayed surprisingly green for these altitudes, I thought, with the full observational power of all my sage mountaineering experience. Well, that was true in the High Sierra, in any case. I could say that confidently. In that area of California, the altitude I was at would have long since rendered the terrain lunar-like.

            We passed craggy rock climbing areas on the way up, like Hirax Castle. Now that looked more like what I was accustomed to. I imagined myself diverting there on my next visit. Before long we passed the British Army squad and their guide, John, who was the classic “old man of the mountains.” John was on his eighty-third ascent of Mt. Kenya, was in his sixties guiding young infantry men through the paces of mountain life, and looking none the worse for wear. I have always found such men to be the most inspiring sort, for their fitness through all the stages of life. They make no excuses about advancing years, and so are asking no quarter and offering none to the challenges they face.

            We arrived at Mackinder’s Hut and I set up camp as Dean prepared to head back down into the gathering mist that rolls in every late morning or early afternoon. He wanted to know what I had planned now that I was essentially partner less. I told him that I was considering a solo ascent of the main peak but had not yet decided. I reasoned that I could spend a day at Mackinder’s while I thought about it and for him and Dave. I had lived for the past three weeks at eight thousand feet, running on the hills in the tea fields, and I still felt like I was at sea level.

            Dean had his pack on and was ready to go as I related my thoughts about my climbing plans to him, and he seemed to be lingering. Finally he offered, with a look that held levity and concern, “please be careful.” It was not a parting phrase, as he did not offer his hand to shake but instead awaited my reply. I assured him that I was no fool, as he had no real way of knowing yet, and that I really would opt out if I thought that was the wiser thing to do. I’m not sure I convinced him of the soundness of my judgment but I knew at that moment, through his concern, that he and I had connected. That bond is at least half of the reason to do a mountain, or share in any adventure, and something you don’t get in the same way when you are clipping bolts at a sport climbing area.

            Once Dean had departed back downstairs, I went to my tent for food. I had skipped breakfast, not feeling hungry at 7:00am. I was now, after the hike up we had just done. I spent the rest of the day resting in my tent, talking to the Brits, writing to Susan, and reading “Atlas Shrugged.” It was a thick book to be carrying around at these altitudes. I should have brought “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” I said aloud, to no one in particular.

            I had set up my tent so that the vestibule door perfectly framed Point John, the most striking of the peaks. It was the last thing I saw before fading to sleep with the failing light.

            The next morning the Army fellows headed off at 2:00am for Point Lenana so that they’d be on top of the hiker’s summit for the sunrise. I heard them when they left, and faded back to sleep, comfortable in my bag.

            I set off myself at 7:00am to go to the same point, reasoning that I could at least get in some more acclimatizing by going higher. Solo travel of any kind was prohibited on Mt. Kenya, but I had been told by one of the rangers that up here that rule didn’t matter as much as it did to the people at the park gate. Perhaps he saw from the all the questions I had asked about the mountain on the previous afternoon that I was not approaching Mt. Kenya haphazardly.

            The route finding was fairly straightforward, marked as it was by rock cairns and well worn foot paths. But I wanted to see the base of Point John so I diverted my trek to look at it and had to climb through some deceptively steep scree to get back on course. The mountain all around me was growing more majestic with each of my steps, as they do. The landscape dropped off dramatically to my left as I clawed up through the scree and terminated into a light blue tarn, or glacier fed lake. Above the tarn, a trickle of water led the eye up a cliff atop which was the white expanse of Lewis Glacier. To the right of Lewis sits Point Lenana, and to its left the routes that lead to the summits of Nelion and Batian.

            I could see the hut that Ian had built near the summit of Nelion, and now had a visual picture to attach to the legends I had heard about his thirteen solo ascents with the building materials that had been air dropped onto Lewis Glacier strapped to his back as he climbed. Most people would not want to spend any more time than necessary at those altitudes and in such a forbidding environment, yet Ian had done construction work after all that climbing.

            The reason for having the hut is that many people take two days to summit. Especially if they are planning, as most do, to climb Nelion first and then pass through the notch between the twin peaks, called “The Gate of Mists,” to the true summit of Batian. Howell Hut is a shelter in which to spend the night and to use as a base for such an ascent.

            When I reached the ridge line after getting past the scree slope, I headed left and up to Point Lenana. I was making great time and taking many photos, and many people who had been there that morning were on their way down. I was happy not to have the prospect of crowds. They were leaving to avoid the gathering mist that might hold rain. I kept my eye intently on the mist as I continued, not feeling that they were particularly ominous today. In addition to food and an emergency mylar blanket, I had three layers of protective clothing, including a rain jacket, in my day pack. I was constantly on the lookout for a place under rocks to hole up if I needed to in the event of a deluge, and there was the prospect of Austrian Hut above if worse came to worst.

            I found myself wondering how threatened Ian would feel in the same situation, or Mark Twight who is known as a bold and extrme alpinist. I have always felt my capabilities to be high and that conservative estimates of the danger of an endeavor one reads about in guidebooks are written for the lowest common denominator of potential readers. I do not count myself among them and so pressed upwards. Still, I knew that I was not in my element so I kept a careful demeanor about the changing weather environment.

            When I reached Austrian Hut, there were three Kenyan guides there waiting for a group of Italian climbing clients whom they were to meet up there and guide to the summit. Most, if not all, such Kenyan guides are trained through the Wyoming based National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) on a scholarship program. I had met several of them before that day and had found them to be very sharp and very confident. I greeted the only one of them within earshot as I passed Austrian, the highest and last of the huts at which one can acclimatize before heading up a climbing route. He asked me about my partner and I said I was alone. He didn’t seem to mind.

            I would like to have stayed and talked with him but wanted to beat any potential moisture to the mountain so kept going. The guidebook said it should take forty-five minutes from Austrian Hut to the summit of Point Lenana, where I was headed. I looked at my watch. 12:26, it reported.

            As I ascended, the scenic jungle approach route of Chogoria stretched out to my right. Draped in a rolling mist, it had dramatic rocky outcroppings on every side. Bizarre, jagged teeth of rock shot upwards into points that resembled sharpened pencils stood on end. The view to the left was obscured by yet another lesser peak, around the base of which I was negotiating. At one point the trail I was on passed to the other side of this peak and as I came over the rise Lewis Glacier came into full view, now below me in a great white expanse that dropped off abruptly to my left into the tarn I had studied just half an hour previously.

            Above Lewis rose the North sides of the massif, and they seemed close enough to touch as I groped with my eyes for a good route that I would feel comfortable solo climbing tomorrow. It seemed straightforward enough but I found myself wondering if that was the fool in me talking. Or would it be lacking in boldness for me to think so? It had been done, by men with whom I felt kinship. But what kind of kinship? Kinship in terms of fitness? Yes, certainly that. But soloing was for wizened mountaineers whose experience helped them to read mountains and their ever changing hazards. I was a rock climber, who could read the smallest line of handholds up a seemingly blank face of rock. I acknowledged an expert’s proficiency with my ability to do that, but did that transfer to what I would need to do here in order to summit alone? Plenty of time to think on that one.

            The trail had turned to ledges above Lewis Glacier and I found myself wondering whether I’d be comfortable guiding people up this area, as many guides here do. It was known as a pretty tame summit but even still I could see a less than sure footed person tumbling onto Lewis Glacier. For myself, I felt fine with it and continued on. At one point the trail seemed to take an indirect path to the summit in favor of less steep terrain, and I say an expanse of rock I could climb instead to more rapidly gain ground. I climbed it, and found myself standing on the summit.

            The view was panoramic, with valleys spilling down every side below my position. All the approach routes except for one were visible from my perch and I snapped a few more photos as the mist gained ground from all four directions, and then I headed down quickly. I ran much of the descent, backtracking twice or thrice when I had misread the path. When I got back to Austrian Hut it was 1:02. Thirty-six minutes had elapsed while I made my ascent and then returned.

            All three of the guides came over to talk and I ate my lunch as we did so. They had watched the whole ascent and were congratulating me on a round trip of under an hour. One of them, Jimmy, had not only been trained by NOLS but had been to Wyoming for the training. It is a very rare thing for a Kenyan to have been outside the country, as the government requires considerable money for a passport and a written invitation from a foreigner for the Kenyan to visit them. That’s made difficult by the fact that Kenyans know few foreigners. Professionals can be granted permission to leave the country if they are attending a seminar of some sort, but must provide proof that they have a return flight. The need for such an invitation from a foreigner probably explains why so many Kenyans you meet want to be instant friends, but not always, as normally they do not ask for anything from you. And if they are seeking such an invitation, who can blame them for that when they know of the immense prosperity of America.

            I always tried to reply to their glowing estimation of America by letting them know all the things about Kenya that I found so alluring, and by telling them about my friends who had left first world countries to live in Kenya. I wanted them not to long for what to most of them was unattainable, and I meant what I was saying about their country and its people.

            Jimmy, Robert, and Cyrus were going to be going down to Naro Maru the same day I was, and we talked about sharing rides and dinner at Jimmy’s house. We exchanged cards and – yes – email addresses. One of them worked for Mountain Madness, a guiding company which is owned by a friend of mine in Seattle. It is the company that Scott Fischer owned before dying in the Everest storm of ’96, as recounted in the Krakaour book “Into Thin Air.” I had met Scott too once and had known Christine and Keith Boskoff, who bought the company after his death, for years. They lived in Atlanta when we were climbing together but after they bought Mountain Madness, they moved to Seattle. We had lost Keith just two years ago, but I still keep in touch with Christine via email. She now holds the female world record for climbing the most eight thousand meter peaks. There are only fourteen of them and they are the big prizes in mountaineering. She is ahead of most world class male mountaineers as well, with six to her credit, including Everest.

            I told Jimmy about knowing Christine, but he did not know who she was.

            When I got back to Mackinder’s Hut, Paul was waiting for me. He was the ranger there, another Kenyan technical guide, and was hanging out a window of the hut saying that lunch was ready. I made it clear, because you have to at such times, in as nice a way as I could that I had not hired a cook. He responded “No, I am offering you lunch.”

            I ate the chicken and vegetable broth he offered, thankful to have a hot meal, as I am no camp cook. I ate every bite, even parts I would not have normally, just to be polite. I tried to ignore the half used chicken carcass hanging from his wall. When we had both finished, he rose abruptly and announced, “and now, we will have tea.”

            Right on, I thought, and expressed my thanks.

            We spent the next hour talking about his wife, his three kids, and life as a Mt. Kenya ranger. I learned that in Kenya, there is no such thing as public education. Paul was working this job, that kept him so often away from home, to put his children into a good school. He told me of a stretch of winter he had once spent in this same hut during storms when there was no one else around. I could imagine the feeling of isolation he was trying to relate. Having said that, however, Paul was easily the thickest skinned Kenyan I met on the entire trip. By that I mean that while he was a gracious host, he was also capable of a rugged detachment that I more sensed than experienced. It was noticeable because I had not encountered this to any degree with another Kenyan. As always, I traded English for Swahili lessons.

            All the while, I had wondered where Dave and Dean might be. I had expected them to meet me at Mackinder’s today. Of course, I figured they were still sick and soon a ranger from a nearby station arrived to say that there had been a radio call from them confirming what I thought to be true. The ranger relayed further that they were planning to come up in the morning. 

            As I returned to my tent, I pondered what I might do about tomorrow, with the prospects for a partner looking grim. The ranger who had relayed the radio message was a technical climber and I considered offering him some money to go up with me. He and I talked for some time about that and other things outside my tent. He expressed that Kenyans do not climb for fun, just for money, and I tried to express my aversion to being guided. I was willing to offer him less than his usual fee – which I could not have afforded in any case – if he would go as an equal partner and without the responsibilities to which he was accustomed as a guide. He said he’d think about it. He had a cold, and I offered him some of my Bayer pills, which he accepted readily before departing.

            I settled into my usual afternoon routine of writing and reading, getting out of my tent occasionally to stretch my legs out. The Israeli had come up, sans his wife but with his porter, who made derisive remarks to me about his clients’ fitness for the mountains.       

            I resolved that the next day I would simply rest while I waited for Dave and Dean and then we would sort out some kind of plan for the following day. Still, I doubted that they would be ready to climb so soon. Acclimatization is a slow process when done correctly, and they were too savvy to rush it. There was no way I would push them, and no way they would respond to pushing if I did, but I secretly hoped that they would get to Mackinder’s and declare themselves fully ready after four days at 10,000 feet.

            Of course, I knew better.

            The next morning I awoke around seven and milled about for a while in my tent before deciding to meet them on their way up. I just couldn’t sit around doing nothing, and I could perhaps help carry their loads. So I went down unladen, with only water and a pile jacket.

            It wasn’t long after I left that I ran into a lone teenager coming up. He told me he was part of a large group that was behind him not too far. I asked him if Dave and Dean had departed Met Station, and he confirmed that they had, and that they were in high spirits. That was good news. As we talked a bit further, I found that he was intent upon doing the summit too. We talked about the possibility of us hooking up to do that, since the numbers of his group were uneven, but as we talked further and I got an idea of his experience, I felt less and less comfortable with that. His attitude towards the mountain, too, was a bit cocky.

            He said further that his group was a missionary team doing pastoral training with the Masaii. We talked a bit about what I had been in Kenya doing and were mutually pleased to find fellow Christians on the mountain.

            We parted company and I continued descending, soon running into the rest of his group. They too said that they wished to “do a little rock climbing,” and I tried in vain to explain the difference to them between climbing crags and the mountaineering they would need to do here. My concern deepened when they responded to my telling them about the rock gym at Brackenhurst by saying that they would love to go there and get some more training. Apparently they had only done a little top roping prior to this trip. The adult who was with them pulled me aside and thanked me for trying to talk them out of their plans. I asked him why he didn’t just forbid them to go if he felt this way, and he responded that he didn’t feel the authority to do so, and added that Dave and Dean at Met Station had let their feelings about the group’s preparedness be known, in technicolor terms.

            I could easily picture that, as the two of them - Dean in particular – were not inclined to mince words. I smiled to myself at the mental picture I had of that scene, and continued down.

            It wasn’t long at all before I met my two friends. They had evidently been making very good time through the vertical bog. It was very good to see them again after a couple of days of separation. Dave, in particular, is a jovial sort whose personality I had missed.

            They were indeed looking strong and my hopes revived a bit for technical climbing. Of course, doing so at this point would being here through Monday, which I was a bit loathe to do. On the way up to Mackinder’s we joked and talked politics, which proved to be interesting. Minnesota, Dave reminded me, was a state that even Reagan couldn’t find a vote in. I didn’t want to get into a full blown discussion about my views, and left it with just a few comments of my own  that had Dean ranting as we hiked the last hill. I just let him fly and Dave played the diplomat by saying how nice it was that we could all get along anyway despite our disparate views. I was happy to let it go, resolved to save the weightier discussions for when we would be at lower altitudes where our harmony was not as crucial, and for when our bonds might be deep enough to take the strain. Our still young friendships were none the worse for wear, as we were all adults who knew how to disagree.

            I resisted attempts by Dave on later occasions to re goad me. No doubt, anyone who knows me would be surprised to find me so reticent about voicing my views, as I normally enjoy discussing my views.

            We also talked about the missionary group of teens that had come up ahead of them. Dave and Dean both said that they had been excessively rude to the Kenyan porters and had generally made asses of themselves at Met Station. I was disappointed by that, as I knew that people often take such displays as representative of Christian behavior, no matter how illogical it is to do that.

            We arrived at Mackinder's to find them throwing rocks at wildlife, which I quickly put an end to, and making a huge racket for everyone to deal with. One of them had wandered off alone and wearing nothing but shorts and a tee shirt into higher altitudes even as the mist was rolling in. That’s an especially ill advised thing to do after the amount of altitude they had so quickly just gained. They had driven to Met Station the day before and had hiked 4,200 feet today.

            None of the rest of the group seemed to be too concerned about him until Dean went into the hut, where they were staying, and basically told them that they were fools if they didn’t go look for him. He had had it with them, as had we all – even me already – and he was enough of a hot head to say so.

            I agreed with and rooted for him.

            Soon a group of them took off to find their friend. He was the one I had first run into on my way down to meet Dave and Dean, the one who I had thought seemed a little cocky. Before long, they had all come back down together, with the errant one leading the way. He passed me and said he was sorry if we had been concerned. I just replied that we had been. He had reportedly gone on all the way to the summit of Point Lenana, an incredible altitude gain in a short time. While that’s pretty impressive I’ll admit, and I was glad he was okay, I was somewhat disappointed that the mountain hadn’t taught him any lessons that day. Worse still, was the false confidence his stunt was likely to impart to his buddies.

            I spent the rest of the day trying in vain to find other technical climbers at Mackinder’s to share a rope with me. The only real prospects were two Israeli soldiers who had come up and with whom we had spent the day and shared a few meals. They were tough, smart, and had had some multi pitch training in the Army. One of them was very willing to go but didn’t feel fully acclimatized. I didn’t feel right about urging him through that, and once again swallowed my selfish ambitions. They taste even worse with each helping.

            The Israeli soldiers were both on a one year walking trip around the African continent. Remarkably, they had not come together, but had met up in Kenya for this ascent. They both were worried about events at home calling them back for a civil war if Sharon were to gain power, as he eventually did. I sometimes find myself wondering where those guys are now.

            The Kenyan ranger I had talked about hiring as a partner remained in mind, although increasingly at the back corner of it. He was feeling worse from his cold and didn’t seem too inspired by the amount of money I had to offer. I couldn’t blame him, it really was a pittance. Dave kept goading me to offer him like a hundred US dollars, arguing that it would seem like nothing when I returned home. He was right about that, but I had no way to gather together a hundred US until I got off the mountain and he was unlikely to go for that.

            I still considered the solo option. I knew my rock climbing was more than up to that challenge, and I felt comfortable enough with my mountain skills to act as a member of a team but, I had to admit, not enough to risk a solo ascent of a route I did not know. That was a hard thing to decide, as I consider myself equal to any challenge, but ultimately I likened any such decision to do so as having too much in common with the cocky teenager’s stunt on Lenana, because Mt. Kenya was only my second mountain. I would not allow myself to think of a solo ascent as going out to “do a little rock climbing,” which is where my skills are.

            Predictably, I thought of Pin, who had soloed Nelion so many times. My ego prodded me with thoughts of “if he can do it…” but I knew he was a mountaineer and he had known this particular mountain so well when he made those ascents. I wanted the accomplishment and was not looking forward to telling Ian, whom I respect so much, that I was unwilling to solo it on this trip. Of course I knew that he would not think the less of me – and even if he would, I would never have been foolish enough to let something like that factor into the decision process - but it was my own desire to share an accomplishment with him that pulled at me.

            More and more, then, I resolved that I would go down the next morning, and come back here for the sole purpose of doing several routes to the summit with a partner who was like minded. I had learned the mountain well on my solo explorations, and would know just what the best plans would be.  

            In the morning I said my goodbyes to Dave and Dean, left them the food I had left over (including a can of peaches that was hard to save for them), and hiked out with the Kenyans I had met at Austrian Hut. They were going down with the Italians they had guided and were ready to leave Mackinder’s before I was. They left without me, calling to me that I should catch up to them. “We know you are faster,” they said. I smiled appreciatively at their expression of respect, and it bolstered my spirits.

Dave and Dean's story of this ascent can be read in Dave's article in the November 1, 2001 issue (#207) of Climbing magazine. I don't appear in the story despite all the time we spent together during the ascent. I have always wondered if that was due to the many political discussions we had on the mountain wherein we discovered the polar oppositeness of our views. Hakuna Matata, I guess ;-)

            On the way down, Cyrus more or less doubled my Swahili vocabulary, and taught me a bit of Kikuyu besides. We made good time and split off from the Italians, leaving them with Jimmy and Robert. 

            When we got to Met Station, the Italians had hired a Range Rover for the trip to the lodge and it would cost less to share that with them than it would be to hike to the gate and then hire a car to go to the lodge by myself. There was room if we went matatu style and Cyrus arranged it. The Italians were in a foul mood over something I didn’t understand, trading hostile sentences in their native tongue with Jimmy. Jimmy seemed just as irritated as they were.

            We made a very heated vehicle change near the gate where I played the part of innocent bystander. We ended up piling into the open bed of a pickup when the Range Rover driver refused to go any further with us. At the park gate, we unloaded yet again to settle up our remaining park fees, and a full blown porter dispute ensued between the Italians and the Kenyans, with Jimmy being the spokesman. He had had it with them and was gesticulating wildly in Italian towards them. Of course, I had no way of knowing who was right and who was wrong, and my opinion was not required in any case, but the net effect was that the Italians were refusing to pay their guide fees to Jimmy, Cyrus, and Robert. An incredible amount of money was at stake, even by first world standards, so I didn’t think Jimmy would capitulate to any degree. He did not.

            Jimmy switched to English and reminded them that they had promised not to be any trouble this time, that this promise was the only thing that had finally convinced him to guide them again, and that they were never to approach him about guiding again in the future. Cyrus explained to me that they had been trouble makers before, but I had kind of gathered that already for myself. Perhaps they were like the people I had occasionally encountered when I was waiting tables in college, people who would raise a stink about anything in hopes of getting out of paying their bill. But then, again, I had no way of knowing the full nature of the dispute.

            Before long, everything worked out enough for us to get back into the pickup truck and go to the lodge. We drove slowly past the pea farmers at the base of the mountain, and all the farmers and their families stopped to wave as we passed. I began to feel like we were in a parade of some sort.

            We didn’t go straight to the lodge, but stopped instead at a Naro Maru restaurant so the Kenyan guides could throw back a few Tuskers (Kenyan beer) after a long stint on the mountain. I battled one of the ever present cats for my plate of lamb and ugali. Nick, another Kenyan who as near as I could figure handled client ground transport for my guide friends, made it his duty to make sure I was looked after at the restaurant. Of course I realized that he wanted to score his share any transport fares he offered to arrange for me, but he went out of his way to show over and above hospitality in the process.

            Nick rode along with me in a truck he had arranged to take me back to the River Lodge for a bag I had stored there with Big Steve. On the way did his level best to convince me of the merits our collaborating on a Kenya to America strawberry import venture. When he finally gave up the notion, he changed the subject by saying that he could get me back to Nairobi more directly than Jimmy, Cyrus, and Robert could, as they needed to go to a market in the opposite direction before returning home. Nick’s offer sounded good, and I was anxious to see Gus back at Brackenhurst. You have to be careful of scams here, however, and I had only just met Nick so I asked him repeatedly for assurances that I would see Brackenhurst tonight for the money I would pay. He seemed to understand and convinced me well enough that he knew the value of repeat business. He repeatedly punctuated all of his assertions regarding the soundness of our bargain with the phrase “we want to make love, not war.”

            I just told myself that I knew what he was trying to say, but could not totally suppress my amusement. 

            At the lodge, I headed for the switchboard to try and reach Tony, who had driven us from Nairobi. I needed to tell him that I would not need him to pick me up the next day after all. Lillian was working the switchboard, as she had been the night when I had walked off my dinner to the tune of noisy hyrax. “Marc,” she said as I entered “You have returned from the mountain.” We talked for a short time before I asked her to ring Tony’s numbers. I got no answer, but gave her one hundred Kenyan shillings to keep trying throughout her shift and bid her “kwaheri.”

            Once back in town, the truck driver deposited me and Nick at the sidewalk café of a hotel he knew and off he went in search of his driver friend. The people who worked the café were friendly and brought me a succession of cold, orange fanta sodas. Sawa hasa – very fine. The expression was a new twist I learned from Cyrus on the way down on the expression sawa, which roughly means cool, very good, or okay.

            Locals dropped in and out for afternoon tea while I waited and we talked pleasantly. No less than three of them offered me their address and a place to stay the next time I visited. In time, Nick returned and informed me that the driver was making the rounds to fill his Peugot with other passengers before coming for me. He had arranged for me to be last so that I would have the minimum amount of time crammed in with the others and so I would have a seat next to the door. Full service, that Nick. For my part, I was in no hurry at this point. It was still early afternoon and I had but a two and a half hour leg of my journey remaining to me. I was comfortable and interacting with people of a culture that was foreign to me. Few things are as satisfying. 

            In the town, exposed as I was in this marketplace sidewalk café, I felt like a pop star. Despite the tourist traffic the town must get, the people there behaved as if they had never seen someone like me before. Every single person would literally stop in their tracks and stare. Children actually poked me and giggled as I used a pay phone.

            In time, the Pugeot compact station wagon arrived, already bursting with eight passengers. Nick waved at me to hurry out and I complied. We threw my bags in as Nick pulled me off to the side to arrange the fee. I knew what he was doing, up selling the driver and pocketing the difference. I couldn’t blame him for being entrepreneurial, and he had gone to a lot of trouble for me, so I thought for a moment about how to keep him in business without getting myself and the driver ripped off.

            I had arranged a price with Nick that allowed me to go all the way back to Limuru, via Nairobi, for one fee. Ultimately, I made sure both he and the driver heard me say that I had paid the last money that I would pay tonight and that I needed to get to Limuru for that money, but I didn’t let the driver know what I had given Nick. I figured, if the driver didn’t like the money he was getting, he had the chance now to speak up. He didn’t object, so I wedged myself into the car, and one more person bullied his way in at the last minute, insisting to go too. I was chuffed to lose the window seat, but at least the man was clean, as personal space was a lost cause. I was finally going to get a real matatu experience, complete with white knuckle passing lanes, a car with a questionable service record that was filled beyond capacity, and Moslem temple music blaring from a tape deck in the dash. After the second or third playing of the tape, I found myself actually humming along with the tunes. It was a good sight easier to listen to than any of the dozen versions of “Hakuna Matata, Down in Africa, and Money for Nothin,” I had grown weary of hearing on local radio stations.

            A woman by the right window sat reading a dime romance novel, like the others never even looking up when the driver went to pass another vehicle. I wanted to sleep but didn’t want to relinquish my ability to shout “Look out!” if the need for me to do so arose. Small wonder that Ian Howell wears his climbing helmet when he is a passenger on such drives. After a dozen or so passes I became more comfortable with the driver’s skills. That’s not a given here, where one encounters wrecks and stories of them with alarming regularity.

            We passed through no less than five road blocks on the way, but the police never exacted a bribe from our driver. The man sitting next to me, who had bullied his way in at Naro Moru, explained that the driver knew all the police on this road. He then volunteered an explanation to me that people have to bribe officials to become policemen or soldiers and they want to do those jobs so they can exact bribes from citizens as they pass through the road blocks. These check points, ostensibly, are for checking vehicle registration, insurance, and safety inspection decals. But the fact that there are so many unfit vehicles on the road is testament to what the officials are really after when they stop a motorist. I was reminded of Alan’s comical character performance, at Mike’s house, of a Kenyan policeman making a traffic stop and I smiled to myself.

            The man seated next to me – read, ‘on me’ – turned out to be a successful farmer from Banana Hill, a town near Limuru. He declared us neighbors upon learning my destination, and beamed a wide grin at the thought of it. Before we parted company, he gave me his address and invited me to stay at his house at my first opportunity. I was doubly thankful for the offer and for the fact that it does not seem to be a cultural fau paux to have to decline some of those invitations.

            When we got near Nairobi, we passed the giant sports stadiums, and the schools of business and of agriculture. There were affluent subdivisions with stucco and red roofed multi story homes like I had not yet seen in quantity here. The city swelled around us as and before long we were in a taxi terminal, of sorts, where everyone got out and went their way. I said kwaheri to my neighbor and waited by the Pugeot for the trip to Limuru. The driver said it would be about ten minutes before we were to leave. It would be dark soon, and Nairobi at night is no place to be – especially with a neon green shirt and three bags of luggage in an open and exposed area like this. I wasn’t overly nervous, but preferred to avoid that scenario if at all possible.

            The driver approached me before long and told me that another taxi driver, who lived in Limuru and was on his way home, would take me the rest of the way. I said sawa. He then asked me for more money. I immediately said “no, no. We are not going to do this. You heard me tell Nick I had paid all I was going to. If you need more money, you get it from him because it’s Nick who I paid.”

            The driver paused briefly at my assertion, and then a broad smile stretched across his face as if he had been caught trying to pull a harmless prank. He patted my shoulder slowly and emphatically. I smiled back and tipped him before slumping into the next car.

            Jim was my driver now. We talked about his family and about America on the way to Limuru and I was able to direct him to Brackenhurst in the dark with the just a touch of the characteristic Marc Heileman directional difficulty. I have never understood why I am able to find a molehill in the woods at night in the rain from ten kilometers away but am so challenged by roads and intersections. In the middle of the darkened town, we nearly hit a donkey that was strolling through the streets unattended. At the Brackenhurst gate, Mesha waved us through with a hapari, karibu and I was just in time for a late supper with Gus, Pete, and Kim. Not bad at all.

            It was good to see Gus again. I dropped my bags in the dining hall and thanked Sam for being willing to feed me despite my tardiness. While I waited, I made a cup of chai and recounted the full story of Mt. Kenya before we started talking about the progress of the building projects. It was not all good news. We had spent a great deal of time, effort, and money getting the best kind of cable available on the continent for the ropes course, and now that it was here, we were not sure it was going to work. Gus wanted to call a few people in the States to see if it would be okay to use. It would be the next day before we could do so.

            I spent an hour or so in the house they had put Gus and his son Jacob into, and we got caught up to some degree. The next day all four of us got to work in the climbing room. The cable turned out to be fine for our purposes, which was an enormous relief.

            It had been years since I had seen Gus, much less spent this kind of time with him. We worked together through the next three days, trying hard to finish up the climbing room before I had to leave. The time rushed past, with scarcely enough of it to devote to taking my last photographs. I had stopped running in the tea fields altogether, opting instead for a near round the clock construction schedule.

            The idea of working at night thoroughly confounded the Kenyans, most of whom would express their amazement as they passed the squash court or peeked in for a brief visit. They hadn’t any kind of admiration for our industriousness, rather they seemed to think it foolish to work so long. To a Kenyan, the company of and conversation with others are important functions of everyday life, and evenings were the time for such fellowship. Indeed, it would be hard to argue the point if pressed to do so.

            Thursday morning, the day of my return flight, arrived too quickly. I had so much to do still, and much that I would not be able to get done in the scant amount of time remaining. I had hoped to spend the afternoon casually strolling Bracken, and saying my goodbyes to the people I would encounter. Instead I found myself trying to get still more done in the climbing room. I had a few high panels to put up and I rigged a rope system for doing so. I was having to work alone today because Pete, Kim, and Gus were all otherwise occupied. Soon after lunch, Gus arrived and was all apologies for not having been able to be there earlier. He had had to book his and Jacob’s safari to the Masaii Mara that day or risk not going at all. I understood, of course, and was just a bit envious regarding the animals they were sure to see there. As for me, I would go home from Kenya this time without having seen a lion or an elephant or rhino. Just one more reason to come back, I supposed. I had effectively traded my time on Mount Kenya for the opportunity to go on safari.

            Round about four o’clock I knocked off work and went to get the camera. I took my last photos and started to get ready for dinner. There was a big group of people who had arranged to go out for Valentine’s Day to a swank restaurant nearer to Nairobi. I loaded up my two crates into Melanie’s car and we all piled in for the drive to Mike’s house, the requisite first stop before dinner. There I said my ‘goodbye for nows’ to Mike’s family and made arrangements for Mike to pick me up from the restaurant later and take me to the airport.

            What had me really bothered, though, is not having been able to see Mark one more time before leaving.

            The restaurant was pure English style, with gardens, indoor fountains, walls of manicured molding, and no trace whatever of the third world. When a posse of black tie clad waiters emerged with the main course, each plate was covered with silver. They synchronized to remove the covers of the entrees with flair, and the escaping steam rushed upwards from every plate as the smell of fine food filled the dining room.

            As we made our way through dinner, the conversation reminded me of how different the missionary lifestyle is. In so many ways, it is adventurous and anything but mundane. The experiences are rich and the effects of your service, borne out in bush hospitals and new Churches, are tangible and indisputably beneficial. That must be imminently fulfilling. What I could not stop thinking about, however, was the fact that so many of them I had gotten to know well shared with me the restrictions placed upon them, and the intense scrutiny into their private lives, by the various agencies that select and send them. I realize fully that they must see this as a price worth paying for the opportunity to help so many other people, yet I found myself wondering if I could bear that, and why it was thought to be necessary. Such practices seem to me just to perpetuate the stereotype that the Church is preoccupied with restrictive codes of conduct. As often as I have tried to let non Christians know that Christianity is more about a relationship with God where our personal perfection is by no means a prerequisite, I was annoyed that Church institutions – which should know about the idea of Grace – would contradict itself in such a way.

            I was halfway through my Nordic Salmon when Mark bounded into the room with Mike in his wake. Perfect, I thought. I was really happy he was part of the send off team. As usual, Mike had thought of everything.

            It was time to get going. I said many goodbyes to everyone, paid my bill that equated to about seven US dollars, and went to load my crates and myself into Mike’s car. Instinctively, I went to the right side and waited for the door to be unlocked. I never did get used to the fact that the left seat is for the passenger.

            We arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the askari at the door to the terminal asked to see my ticket before allowing me to enter. I did so, leaving Mike outside as I checked in. I would say my goodbyes to him and to Mark after I was all set to depart. As I stood in the que waiting to check in, Mark sidled up beside me.

            “How did you get in here?” I asked, amazed anew at his ability to get around the rules and regulations of this country. For a response, he just smiled a smile that told me he was aware of his knack for being a slick operator.

            I got checked in, after a little haggling with the agent about the weight of my trunks, and I went out to say my last goodbyes of the trip. They were not difficult goodbyes, because they were temporary. Kenya did not seem like a place I had just visited, it seemed like a place I would see often. 

            I made my way through security and to the gate where there was quite a crowd waiting to board with me. The cross section of individuals gathered there made for interesting people watching, and I opened up my book as I waited. The room was stuffy but we didn’t have to wait long before the 747 opened its doors to us.

            I was headed home, via one more stop in London. The flight was uneventful, the night sky rendering it impossible to have last looks at the countryside. I slept to keep my body’s clock in the best possible synch, and before long I was back at Gatwick. I had only a five hour layover this time, which was ample for a quick train ride into the city for breakfast. I bought a ticket on Connex and made my way to the city in the cold and dark of early morning. As I emerged from Victoria Station onto the sidewalk, the sun was just rising and people were starting their Friday work schedule. I enjoyed the bustle that was absent on my way over – having been a Sunday. I enjoy the shopkeeper’s routine as they open for business, the salary men with their newspapers as they ride the tube to the office, and the business of making a city like this thrive. My affinity for such things stands in stark but harmonious relief against the love I also have for isolated natural wonders like Mt. Kenya. I have often wondered at that balance, but I am glad for it.

            When I was in the Army and I would go off for an extended training course where I would be without the comforts of civilization, the first thing I often started to miss was the luxury of a nice restaurant. The good food and the relaxed fellowship with friends became an idealized pastime to which I looked forward with anticipation. Such comforts cannot be fully appreciated without hardship, deprivation, and physical expenditure, much as a warm fire cannot be enjoyed without having first come in from the cold. Perhaps this amplification of comfort is one of the many reasons for seeking out such challenges.

            I found myself walking, as I always seem to do, from Victoria Station to the River Thames (pronounced “Tims,” for some unclear English reason). Victoria Street takes one directly to the gothic colossus of Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and the Ministry of Defense building. There are many historical statues on the banks of the river, and floating cafes at which I always think I’ll rest and read, but seldom do. London is a walking town where it’s hard to sit still for long.

            As I rounded Scotland Yard on my way back from the river, I stopped into an internet café and rattled off a few emails before heading to Gloucester (pronounced “Gloster”) where my old school was. Today being a business day I had higher hopes of seeing someone I knew if I visited Richmond. As it happened, I spent more time just walking in the old neighborhood, buying pastries at one of those great little sidewalk places near the dormitory. That left little time for popping into the school itself, and I found that my motivation to do so had waned a bit in any case. I think I just enjoy being in the area.

            I did pop my head into the school’s main offices on my way to the High Street tube station that would take me, via Victoria, back to the airport. I also took the time to stop at an Indian run sidewalk grocery where I used to buy Magnum ice cream bars for a pound that I could ill afford to spend when I lived there as a student. Of course I bought one today, notwithstanding the chilly temperatures. You just cannot get the vanilla ones in America, after all. Yes, I have looked. The store itself had not changed a whit, which well suited my overdeveloped sense of nostalgia.

            Before long I was back on Connex and headed to Gatwick for the final leg home to Susan. It is never as clear as it could be which train to board, and in which car to sit to make sure you get the proper destination and exit point. They don’t quite spell that out as they do in America. At least they speak and write the signs in English, however. I once had a more challenging deciphering challenge presented to me when trying to take a train from Calais to Paris. But then, I’ve always felt that one gets more of a taste of a foreign culture from working one’s way through the infrastructure than on any visit to a local attraction.

            I had missed Valentine’s Day with Susan. It had been the day before and I just had needed to spend that day working with Gus in Kenya, so Susan and I had determined that this weekend would be designated Valentine’s. To that end, I picked up a box of chocolates at the Gatwick Harrods's and wrote a card as I waited for my gate to be announced.

             Once on the plane, I settled in with my book and read as much as I could. I talked a bit to the woman next to me and before I knew it was time to go see Susan. She was coming into the same airport on a flight from Charlotte and our planes were due to land about five minutes apart. It always seems to work out like that for us. Such occurrences are just part of our relational confirmation that we are in synch with each other. I prefer to think we are more romantic than superstitious in our thinking so.

            Of course, America is the world’s hardest country for clearing customs, so Susan would still have a little wait before I emerged. In time, I did, and I was glad to see that my crates had made it with me sans any baggage handler drama. I wheeled my cart through immigration and it was there that I caught the first glimpse of Susan in the distant crowd. She was popping her little blonde head up as she stood on her toes for a better look. She has the sweetest smile, and a month’s plus worth of anticipation made it all the sweeter to see flashed at me today.

            When I got to her, we relived our first perfect hug as she notched herself expertly into the space God has created in me for holding her. I’ll spare the reader any additional mush at this point, and just say that it was great to be home with her.

            I had made it into Atlanta just minutes before severe weather closed the airport, and we went home to our comfortable condo and enjoyed the rain together, as we love to do. We opened the door to our deck to let the fresh, rain soaked air into our home. For my part, the comfort of our condo was intensified. Even before I left for Africa, I had felt it acutely, feeling very blessed to have such a place. But now, the comfort contrast was striking, and the joy of being together again with Susan conspired with it to make for a perfect homecoming.

            And we had the entire weekend ahead of us.

Dave and Dean's story of this ascent can be read in Dave's article in the November 1, 2001 issue (#207) of Climbing magazine. I don't appear in the story despite all the time we spent together during the ascent. I have always wondered if that was due to the many political discussions we had on the mountain wherein we discovered the polar oppositeness of our views. Hakuna Matata, I guess ;-)