pictures from our Meru climb!

I've taken more than a month off from my blog (mostly because I took about 3.5 weeks off from Africa ...), but what better way to jump back in than to show some photos from the recent hike that Mom, Dad and I took? We all struggled our way to the summit of Mount Meru, which is 14,900 ft above sea level. Yow. The mountain is absolutely beautiful in all its diverse landscapes: lush green forest, open grassy sections, and moon-like craters and slopes as you get closer to the summit. We got rained on, we hiked for four hours in the dark, and we pretty much all got altitude sick ... it was intense. I'm not really ready to flesh out the entire narrative of the hike, so here's hoping the pictures will tell some of the story.

(P.S. Mom and Dad are chilling out on Zanzibar now, which is the beautiful, relaxing island off the Tanzanian coast ... and pretty much the exact opposite of climbing a mountain. I am happy for them. They went snorkeling yesterday. Yes!)


This field at the base of the mountain was a beautiful beginning ... and we saw a buffalo skull displayed prominently on a log. This was a fashionable thing to do on Mt. Meru, apparently. There are LOTS of buffalo on the mountain.


After a fairly low-key three-hour hike, we arried at our first camp, Miriakamba Hut. From there, Dad and I took a very short side hike. We saw a lot of baboons (which I failed to photograph successfully), but also got a beautiful view of the ash cone, an old lava-related formation below the summit of Meru.


When we woke up that morning, the sun was casting a really nice light on the summit ridge.


The hike to the next camp was more than four and a half hours. We arrived there (around 11,600 feet) and after a brief rest (and waiting for the rain to pass), did an acclimatization hike to Little Meru, a minor peak. Of course, the clouds kept us from having any really great views, and as soon as we reached that peak, the rain began to come down again. So we broke out our matching, five-dollar ponchos, which would continue to haunt us with their crappiness. Don't we look cute, though?


That morning we awoke at 1am for a 2am departure for the summit. Yikes. After a grueling, psychologically unsettling, nearly seven-hour trudge to the summit, this was the view we were rewarded with.


Still and all ... our first-ever hike of this magnitude, and we all made it to the top: Socialist Peak! Haha!


The descent was really difficult. But, now that it was daylight, we did get to find out just how incredible and other-worldly the hike had been. It looks like we're on a crater of the moon!


We had to descend all the way to Miriakamba, the first camp, and we were all exhausted. A certain someone whose name rhymes with Bark had been vomiting from altitude sickness (!), we were all totally exhausted, our gear was wet ... we did NOT want to hike downhill anymore. But we did, and slept a pretty solid night at lower altitude. The morning views of Kilimanjaro were definitely worth it.


On the way down from Miriakamba, our final descent, we took the "scenic route" and got to see lots of incredible Colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, a faraway giraffe, etc. We also got to stand under the HUGE Fig Tree Arch.

That's all I've got for now -- hopefully more pictures to come, we're going on a short safari this weekend! Of course I'm having more adventures with my parents than I have living here for the past several months. Lots of love to everyone at home.