I woke up at about 5 A.M, dressed, had breakfast, and walked to the bus stage to board a matatu to Nairobi’s CBD.
My mum accompanied me for the one-hour drive to the city, but she wouldn’t be boarding a matatu out of Nairobi heading toward Nanyuki. It was a solo adventure — an almost three-hour trip from Nairobi to Narumoru. I slept half of the road trip through the scenic farmlands of central Kenya. About two hours later, we arrived at Karatina, one of the major towns along the way. I was famished.
Fortunately, I had some snacks, mala (fermented milk) and cupcakes. But, I underestimated my hand-mouth coordination, and when the car went over a bump, I spewed out a considerable amount of mala over my clothes. You can imagine the embarrassment, rummaging through my bags looking for paper towels, toilet paper…anything! I should have listened as my mom explained what was in what section of my three bags.
As I was preoccupied with cleaning up the mess on my clothes, the matatu drove into Kieni, where I would alight at Narumoru town and contact my guide, Mbugua.
One can dismiss this small market town, but it has beautiful views of Mount Kenya and one of the popular climbing routes.
We had lunch at a local restaurant, a generous plate of beef and ugali for me, and embarked on our trip to the Narumoru gate. It was already raining before we started climbing; I wondered what to expect a few hours later.
I wish we’d had a faster check-in process as it took almost one and a half hours to go through, which wasn’t the norm as I’d been on the same mountain several times before.
My Ninth Climb
My guide had a few concerns about my bag.
“I think you’ve carried a bit more than you can handle. It will weigh you down,” he advised. I remembered my mom had packed a few extra pairs of everything, always looking out for me. So, my guide shared the load.
We hoped to reach the second camp — Austrian Hut that day. However, since we spent a lot of time checking in, we only managed to climb to the first camp — Mackinders Camp, arriving at around 6:30 P.M. The luggage also contributed to our slow pace as it weighed me down. I hadn’t carried such a load when climbing, and I could feel the straps digging into my shoulders.
Hence, part of the evening chores was reducing the load and only proceeding with essentials the following day. So, we emptied everything and packed what I needed. I was so ready for bed that I slipped into my sleeping bag after dinner. But my bladder had other ideas. The liters of water I had drank a few hours earlier would have me shuffling my feet in the dark to a bush toilet. Not once but twice! Eventually, I slept until 6:30 A.M. and went to the hall to have breakfast about thirty minutes later.
Day 1: The Climb
The plan was to climb to Austrian Hut, proceed to Lenana Peak, back down to Shipton’s Camp using another route, ascend to Lenana a second time, and down to Austrian Hut. Sounds confusing? Well, we would summit twice in one day. We met another group along the way, and it was interesting to meet a young climber, a 13-year-old. It was his fifth climb. Our first break was at Austrian Hut. It wasn’t supposed to be a long break, but my guide took a bit longer as his phone lost the signal. He walked around to reconnect it, but nothing! I had hoped he would take pictures of me at the summit with his phone. I waited for him for about an hour. Then I decided to join the group with the 13-year-old to climb with them, and my guide would catch up with me later. Plus, they’d take pictures of me as I achieved my ninth climb. My guide summited about seven minutes after me. Phew!
We kept to our initial plan of summiting twice. Do you remember it? I told you about it earlier. The descent from Lenana Peak to Shipton’s Camp took about 30 minutes. Then we climbed again to Lenana Peak in two hours. The climb is always longer than the descent. We didn’t climb the second time with the group I had joined earlier. By that time, my head was pounding, and it felt like someone was hammering the back of my head. But I wasn’t going to give up. Interestingly, the pain died down when we summited the second time at about noon.
We arrived at the Austrian Hut around 5:30 P.M. I was so tired that I had dinner and slept in the same clothes I had worn that day.
Day 3: To the Summit Again!
I began the climb from Austrian Hut before sunrise, fingers frozen from the harsh morning breeze. I didn’t go with my guide that morning; instead, our cook accompanied me so he could use his phone to take pictures of me at the summit. I was overjoyed to summit the third time, and even the breeze that had my face half-frozen couldn’t stop me from celebrating with a few pictures.
