Just thought I'd let you know that I made my decision: I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro instead of going to look at apes. I took a six day route up the mountain called the Machemi route. As usual, when presented with the options, I chose the hardest route. Another route, called Moremi, takes just 5 days and is called the Coca-Cola route by the locals. Climbers carry nothing, stay in huts, start at a higher altitude, and are generally brisked up the hill and back without much trouble. The Machemi route is a different story altogether. It's a six day excursion through Dante's imagination that, save for about 20 people per year, thankfully skips the last. I hired a guide and three porters, was issued a walking stick, sleeping pad, and some double layered gloves in addition to my own gear (backpack, sleeping bag, pack, rain gear, clothes) and departed after 1.5 days of rest and relaxation. Unfortunately most of the rest and relaxation came during the day as the occupant of the room across the hall from mine in the hotel liked to wake up to blaring Swahili radio at 4am. Too bad the hotel was designed for airflow and not sound-proof-ness. The first day started with the usual African hitch. The company I chose, more expensive than the rest, but promising in terms of service, decided to send its driver to the wrong hotel. I spent 1/2 hour trying to get the receptionist at my hotel to make the call to the mountaineering company, and then when she did she charged me as much as my room cost the night previous. And, to top it off, they had already figured out their mistake and the driver was waiting outside, having not bothered to come in to check on my whereabouts. Never-the-less we made it to the bottom of the hill. I call it a hill affectionately, but in reality it's a massive beast of a rock. It is one of the highest freestanding mountains in the world. It is the highest mountain in Africa. Only a couple hundred miles from the equator, it's cap is covered permanently by glaciers and the temperature plumets nightly to -20F. At Uhuru peak it tops out at 19340ft, which is 9340 ft higher than the altitude at which air masks would deploy in the event of cabin depressurization on a passenger airplane. To put it simply -- it's big. If you've seen Mt. Rainier you have an idea of how big it is. Mt. Rainier stands alone just like Kilimanjaro. It looks bigger than any mountain you've ever seen, and, because it rises so far above it's surroundings, in effect it is. Moshi, the town from which I departed, is at 800M elevation. Kilimanjaro is 5895M. The first day was fairly simple. Walk 30km's up 2000M of elevation change through dense rain forest in mud up to your knees. Before traveling I invested in bomb-proof rain gear. Top dollar. Best stuff. After 10 hrs of pea soup mist, constant rain, and clingy muck it doesn't do shit. The forest was beautiful, moss clinging to vines, clinging to trees, covered by lichens, sparkling with mist. Little orange and white flowers stood in patches yearning for the sun. But the power of water is overwhelming. Constant wetness everywhere from all directions. It was like a low pressure Zambezi on the Zambian bridge over Vic Falls. One fascinating, small world thing to note: 1 day ahead of me on the trail on a 7 day hike (vs. my 6 day) was a doctor who currently works at the hospital in which I was born! St. Francis in Peoria, Il. My home town (so to speak!) I knew that I'd catch him and that gave me much to look forward to. The second day was even simpler. Ascend 1000M to 3800M elevation over about 10km's, half of which was through the same sort of muck as the first day. Not too bad except for the following: at 3000M's you really start to notice the lack of oxygen, and, more importantly, the effects of poor local food sanitation started to take aim at my lower intestines. Not to be too graphic, but it was one of those situations where I knew that after 3 days I really should go to the bathroom but couldn't. I could smell it, feel it, but couldn't do anything about it. I forced dinner down, luckily, and fell asleep to the soon to be familiar thrum of a high altitude headache. Day three was a kicker. 20km's rising from 3800M to 4800M with several (5 or 6) 300-500M hills in between, each ranging between semi-arid sun drenched sandy rocky outcrops and misty wind swept rain-shrubbery. I couldn't eat breakfast, managed a banana for lunch, and started to get insanely painful headaches. We camped at 4000M and I couldn't sleep more than 15 minutes at a time. I woke thinking I was being suffocated, forced myself to hyperventilate to get my heartrate below 100bpm, drank a cup of water, and tried again to sleep. This continued until 6 am when the helpful guide slipped some warm water under the frozen fly sheet of the tent and told me that it was time to climb again. Day four was supposed to be easy, or at least so said the guide (aptly named Frank!). It turned out to be a number of 300-500M hills over 20km's of dusty, chilly rock taking us from 4000M to a final 4600M. I didn't eat anything. I drank 3 litres of water and still the headaches persisted. My heartrate was well beyond my aerobic threshold for the entire day. 500 meters is taller than the Sears tower. It's huge. You see one of those hills and shrink knowing that you have to climb over it. You know that each one is going to take at least 2 hours of continuous toil, struggling to move one foot in front of the other. Struggling with the weight on your back, knowing that it won't come off for another 5 hours. I caught the man from Peoria. It was pleasant to chat, but after a half hour we both retired to our own misery. Day five was the bastard father of them all! It was the king ass-kicker. The one I will fear forever. At midnight my guide woke me with hot water, hot chocolate, some biscuits, and lemon wedges. He told me that we were moving out in 1/2 hr. I ate two biscuits, had a cup of hot chocolate, leaned out the front flap of my tent and promptly vomited it all onto the crusty frosted dirt of the hillside. I stood and my head throbbed. I hadn't slept more than 45 minutes total, at no time more than 5 minutes at a time. The air was bitterly cold, the moon not yet awake. I dallied in my sleeping bag, then rolled out, donned my outer layer, shrugged off the piercing howl of my headache, and switched on my light. We started up the hill. I could see, an hour and a half ahead of us, the man from Peoria. I started at 12:30am. He started at 11:00pm. We walked, four in our column. Guide, porter, me, porter. The porters never go to the top. They're not paid to, they usually don't! want to. It's 6 hours of gruelling hell for no good other than a nice sunrise view. Mine did because they liked me, and it was nice to have their company and support. We passed the man from Peoria three hours into the hike. He was slow and slowing. He smiled, I gave him a thumbs up, and we continued, no words exchanged. I made it to the top, almost entirely incoherent, unable to recognize my own limbs, walking like a drunkard, and smiled as my guide clapped my shoulder. Then I puked again, at the top of Uhuru peak, at the top of Africa. I puked about a liter of the orange cordial that I'd used to get me up the hill in lieu of Gatorade or equivalent. I puked the sunrise into its majestic glow. Then I rose to see the beautiful shear ice cliffs, the crater of the still active volcano, the crystaline streaks of passing meteors, and the gorgeous trail of my success. I was shaky but I had made the summit. We didn't stay long, no more than 10 minutes. I took a few pictu! res, we clambered about, then started down as rapidly as possible. We passed the man from Peoria only 1km away from the summit. Afterwards he told me that it took him 2 hours to reach the summit over the last kilometer. 3 steps, breathe for 30 seconds, 3 steps, and so on. After returning to the camp site, passing in daylight all the things I'd missed on the ascent draped in darkness, I rested, head blazing, after 9 hours of gut-wrenchined effort. Again I couldn't breath, I couldn't eat, and I knew that we had to continue. Frank persisted in instructing me to get out of the tent and get down the hill, that I would feel better at 3000M. That everything would be fine. I, in the most lucid state I could imagine, believed him about the altitude, but another 5 hours of walking and 1600M of descent were out of the question. I started after 3 hours of rest and made it just before it began to rain in earnest. I ate my first meal in three days and slept like a baby under a coo! l mist. Day 6. No problem. 5 hours straight down the hill in knee deep mud. I couldn't eat breakfast, but hey, eating even one meal in a 24hr period was doing quite well I suppose. I'm writing this in the evening of day 6. I still can't eat, rather, what I eat now causes serious explosions of a sort usually reserved to comic movies of poor taste. Worse still is the internet cafe I'm using is run by Indians who have retained traditional toilet design. I am typing with both hands, pity the person after me! God help me those who have come before! Just for kicks I wouldn't let the porters carry my pack. 16kg's (33lbs). I changed shorts twice, one pair I wore for 4 days straight. I didn't shave and couldn't wash. The little details help somehow.