Frying high on Kilimanjaro

Jan (fifth from right) and team members.

Gisborne homeopath Jan Clare continues her trek up Kilimanjaro to the roof of Africa . . .

It took six days to hike to base camp at Barafu where fish and chips was to be famously fried by two of our team, Malachy and Alan. The Northern Ireland fish and chip shop owners were planning to set a record for cooking the highest-ever fish and chips and in the process raise money for The Fisherman’s Mission.

The well-worn track wound through rainforest, moorland and to the alpine desert plateau. We didn’t see a lot of animal life.

The blue monkeys were elusive and the rumbling croak of the Colobus monkeys — sounding like a knot of giant toads — was only heard in the trees from afar. Flocks of huge black crows swooped down at each rest-stop and the fringes of the lower-altitude camps, making a good living from the detritus of 35,000 plus climbers per year.

The scenery and vegetation is, at turns, breathtaking and bizarre. Giant senecios, their branches like fat fingers up to 5 metres high, loom out of the mist. Ice-melt streams gush through rocky gorges. I was delighted to discover hypericum growing along the track, used both homeopathically and in herbal medicine as St John’s wort.

Distressingly though, in this remote and stunningly beautiful region, man has left his mark: The perplexing practice of stone-stacking, the plastic bottles, cans and metal caps, the tissue paper littering every rest stop. I felt fleetingly mortified on behalf of all wazungu (white people).

Each morning after breakfast, the whole camp (around 100 climbers and their entourages) was expertly packed and the porters zoomed past us on the track.

“On your right!” became our catchcall as we moved off to the left to let them through, marvelling at their energy, wide smiles and cheerful “jambos” (hi, hello). Their 50-litre capacity rucksacks, or equivalent (some carried the load on their heads) seemed like featherweights as they bounced past. Porters are allowed to carry no more than 15kg and are supposed to be at least 18, but some (from other trekking companies, not ours) looked a lot younger. Pole sana! (I’m very sorry for your trouble, which is not your fault) I felt a pang of sympathy for the poor lad weighed down by my ‘necessities’ (moisturisers, vitamins, an array of just-in-case medicines, snack food. . . )

As we neared the camp at the end of each day’s hike, my porter Omari would materialise beside me.

“I’ll take your pack Jannie” (it only weighed a paltry 6kg, but by day’s end I was happy to hand it over) and he’d lead me to my tent, already set up hours before. Then he’d help me unlace my boots, disappear for 10 minutes and return with them cleaned.

High altitude-sapped energyOmari must have noticed that I was usually last to emerge for breakfast and so, after bringing hot ginger tea and warm washing water with an early wake-up call, he would return to help me deflate and roll up my mattress and cram everything into a duffel bag.

I had not anticipated how much more energy it would take at altitude (for me, at least) just to do simple things, and how disorganised I had become compared to my efficient, sea-level self.

Thinking back, some memories are more vivid than others, and the videos have been invaluable to preserve the trip (see website for links).

Some of the most enduring mental images have been the line of little orange tents on a rare piece of flat ground, with the mountainside dropping away sharply; Mt Meru’s peak (4565m) rising out of the clouds below us; waking to the crunch of boots on a heavy frost and the dazzling morning sunshine; the millions of stars, impossibly close; the twinkling city lights far, far below; chats with Omari, my newly-acquired African son; the exuberantly sung catchy tunes heard by thousands of climbers before us, especially this one:

“Jambo! Jambo bwana! (Hi! Hi boss!) Habari gani? Mzuri sana! (How are you? Very fine!) Wageni, mwakaribishwa! (Visitors are welcome!) Kilimanjaro? Hakuna matata! (No worries on Kilimanjaro!)”

Excitement grew as we neared Barafu camp — fish and chips for dinner and then the summit! Malachy and Alan and the kitchen crew were busy all afternoon. At home in Northern Ireland they have sleek, expensive machines to peel and slice the potatoes, but here, everything was done by hand. The fish, fresh tilapia from Lake Victoria, had been carried up specially the day before and was coated in Alan’s secret recipe batter. There were only two gas burners and barely two pots of oil to cook it all for 35 people!

The chippie was declared open and Malachy, Alan and chef Eddie and his team produced yet another sensational dinner.

— To be continued

Fact boxIan Taylor Trekking: To trek with the dream team go to: www.iantaylortrekking.com and www.facebook.com/IanTaylorTrekking/Kilimanjaro Chippy Challenge: Malachy and Alan raised £27,000 in their year-long campaign. £7,000 was donated to the Fortune Kids Orphanage in Arusha and £20,000 for The Fisherman’s Mission: https://www.facebook.com/ChippyChallenge/