Trekking Mount Kenya (2 of 4)

Day One: Drive to the Mountain

African is infamous for its rubber time so I was prepared when 10:00 am stretched to past noon before we all got into our vehicle and began the drive to Chogoria village for lunch. One note here, the guide company assured me that I would be able to use my credit card to settle up with them. Turned out that what he meant by that was for us to head down to the bank and for me to get a cash advance on my card. The trip to the bank added a good two hours to the day.

Following a couple more small delays my guide (Daniel), one porter (Fred) and I were on our way out of Nairobi to Chogoria village. We arrived around 3:00 pm for lunch. Fred and I sat in a restaurant while Daniel went off to get another porter and our transportation.

While sitting outside the restaurant waiting for Daniel, a group of young school girls, all dressed in bright blue uniforms, wandered buy on their way home from school. It’s low season for tourists and Chogoria isn’t a really popular route at the best of times so I’m probably the only white guy for miles.

I guess these kids decided it would be fun to play let’s-make-fun-of-the-white-guy for a while. At one point, one of the little girls, about 8 years old, asked “Have you a wife?”, to which I replied “no”. She then offered me one of her classmates, a girl of about 5, I declined. We all laughed and there was much rejoicing.

Eventually we loaded everything into an early model Land Rover and headed up a very narrow, badly rutted road to the park gates. A small wait while we located the gate keeper and we were in the park and to a camp ground just beyond the gate. We made camp after dark, pitching our tents on grass next to heaps of buffalo dung. I was hoping to see (hear) some that night but was pretty tired and probably would have slept through a grazing water buffalo unless it stepped on me or something.

Day Two: Fred Freaks Out

On day two we get up early, have some food and begin our walk. This is the biggest of all the days. We’re going to be hiking all day and gaining around 900m of altitude from 3400 to 4300 meters.

Right off the bat I notice Daniel and I are out pacing the porters, Fred and Ashford, by quite a bit and I’m a little concerned we’ll never see them again. We stop for lunch very early, having only gone about half the planned distance to allow Fred and Ashford to catch up.

Fred has never climbed this mountain before and is having the most trouble. Ashford is a veteran porter and guide in his own right and is slowing down to keep Fred company. After lunch, we move some weight around to give more to Daniel and take some from Fred, they refuse to allow me to carry anything.

As we climbed, the scenery started looking very interesting but, because of the cloud we walked into, much of it was hidden. The cloud also began to rain on us at this point, and continued doing so for most of the day.

In spite of the weather and slow pace I was thoroughly enjoying the hike until late afternoon when we heard Ashford calling up to us. I ran back to find out what the problem was and found him walking up alone. No Fred! Ashford said “the boy”, shook his head pointing down the trail behind him. I left Ashford and continued down to look for Fred. I finally found him, struggling up the trail without any gear! He had put down his pack and was coming up after us empty handed, afraid he would lose us altogether and really happy to see me. I turned him around and we headed back to pick up the gear and carry on.

Not too long after Fred and I turned back to get the abandoned pack Daniel caught up with us and had me go back up to wait with Ashford while he headed down with Fred, berating him in Swahili all the way. Eventually, we redistributed again this time with me carrying some weight and adding further to Daniel’s burden so Fred was able to make way.

Needless to say, we were very late by now. Daniel and I arrived at camp at dusk, the porters arrived after 8 pm, pitch black by then. Minto Hut is at 4300 m ASL, I was feeling a bit icky from the altitude as well as being tired and hungry. We did attempt a backtrack, at my insistence, to see if we could locate the rest of our party but Daniel advised against going too far. “There’s leopards about.” was all he needed to say.

Eventually, everyone arrived and Daniel was able to fire up the stoves and get the evening meal prepared. I ate only because I was feeling an obligation to lighten the load for everyone, by that point I was way too tired to be hungry. By 11:00 o’clock or so we finally got into the tents to sleep.

So far, the trek was far more challenging than it needed to be and I went to sleep hoping things were going to begin to improve soon.