Climbing is hard, but it's easier than growing up

Day 1

Left Jinja in the morning for Mbale, ended up getting literally thrown onto a moving bus, they don’t seem to like to wait. Arrived at a place called Rose’s Last Chance about four hours later, run by a lady (Rose) who realized that it would be a good idea to open up a backpacker’s hotel at the base of Mt. Elgon. Our nightly rate of 20,000 shillings (<$10 US) included a bed, plus a huge dinner and breakfast. Rose is also a close friend of the chairman of the Mt Elgon porters and guides association, so we didn’t have to worry about arranging meetings. We ended up getting three porters to carry our excess equipment; I wasn’t comfortable with this initially, I would have rather carried my own gear to the top. However, this type of work is the main source of income for the community and it wasn’t that expensive anyway (roughly 15$ for each porter for the whole trip). Met our guide (Isaiah – pictured above), who was surprised to hear we wanted to climb the mountain in three days instead of the normal five.

Day 2

Woke up at 6, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then met our ride to the trailhead. Incidentally, our mode of transportation was a squad of motorcycles, all of which didn’t seem to be fazed by the muddy roads. After a short ride up into the hills we started hiking, fast forward eight hours later and we were at mude cave camp (2900m). I was rather surprised at how good our dinner was, we packed fresh vegetables and managed to make pretty decent pasta over an open fire. That night was probably the coldest I’ve experienced since Wisconsin winter, it’s a strange feeling to know you’re twenty miles from the equator and you can’t sleep because your teeth are chattering.

Day 3

Most of the group was already up from the cold at 6; we quick downed some tea and bread and left with our guides for the summit. The initial climb was rather flat, the interesting thing about Mt Elgon is that the summit lies very deep within the park; you can’t even see it from the park entrance. After about two hours of hiking we finally got to the point where we could see our destination (second picture, highest peak in the background). It was about an hour after that when we breached the rim of the caldera (third picture), it was quite a site not only can you see well into Kenya, but the geological formation is the largest extinct volcano in the world. After one final push we made it to the summit at about noon, we only stayed on top for about twenty minutes because of the low temperature, but we managed to get in our fair share of photos (last three). You’ll notice that the flag we made for the trip has the four different countries of origin displayed. Funny thing is that the five of us that made the ascent have only known each other for a few weeks at most, some only a few days. Going left to right, Andrew (Australian - teaching English), Sylvain (Swiss – music teacher), Melanie (Canadian – occupational therapist), Me, Jen (American – Law student). We ended up descending one camp lower than originally planned that evening due to heavy rain, by the time we reached our campsite everything was completely soaked. That night we stayed in the small hut that is usually used only by the porters and the guides, I was sleeping on the ground about two feet from the fire so at least I was warm.

Day 4

Woke up to a beautiful day, had an uneventful hike down to Rose’s Last Chance to recover for a day before heading back to Jinja. I actually felt like I was in a zoo, we were in an area surrounded by a low wooden fence, the local children stopped by in droves to stand at the fence and stare at us. I didn’t get to stay in a room this time around, the place was overbooked so tents were set up in the front yard and I had to spend another night in the cold (though I had blankets this time instead of a thing sleeping bag).

Day 5

The school children were back again this morning, one of my friends was handed a letter by one of the children basically just asking for money. The other travelers staying at the hostel ended up giving out packs of tissues to the kids; I also saw a few random items like hats getting thrown out. We were lucky enough to find a taxi that had an honest conductor; he didn’t overcharge us and even helped find a connection to Jinja when we got to Mbale. Made it back to Jinja at about lunchtime today, I was going to keep the beard that I’d grown over the last two weeks, but I was getting a lot of odd looks from the base staff. Celebrated our return by eating at the expensive Chinese place in town; figured that I needed a good meal to get back into the swing of things this week.

Tomorrow I’m headed back to work, I’m showing a new volunteer how to get to the rural clinic in the morning, and then I’ll probably just work in the lab for the rest of the day. Wednesday I’m back at women at risk teaching hand washing and basic hygiene, then Thursday I’ll probably go along with the children with disabilities team just to patch up any cuts or bruises the kids might have.