pole pole

the line of headlights ahead of me kept twisting up further into the darkness.

i kept hoping, in my oxygen deprivation, that they were some kind of beacons, because sometimes, they stood still for a while.

but then they were gone again, and all i could focus on was the round, slightly bobbing space of light at my feet.

feet that could only manage less than a half metre pace.

with alternating climbing stick pointy-end stabs into the scree in opposite angles to my leading foot.

breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth.

and after several hours of looking up at snaking fairy lights above me, i realized- while others were seeing corpses in the rock piles next to them and wooden frames that they had to climb through- that the blue chain of lights were just the people ahead of us.

not beacons.

and not signals that we reaching some kind of high point, some resting place.

so the ascending climb just kept happening, the red-gaiter clad douglas' legs ahead of me in an equally slow rhythm, the "pole pole no rush" pace, taking us further and further up into the endless, dark and mostly invisible path up to stella point.

the lip of the kilimanjaro crater, from where we'd still have to walk another forty five minutes to the summit.

but i didn't know that then.

at the time, all i could focus on was making it to stella on five sparkles and half a frozen snickers bar, having been so nervous before our 11pm leaving-for-summit briefing that i'd neglected to pack any solid food that wouldn't have made my teeth too sensitive to eat.

anything.

so on a empty stomach fuelled only by scarce, thermal protected water and round sweets that at minus ten could not dissolve quickly enough into my mouth, i managed somehow to get one foot in front of the other, zoning in and out of immediate awareness.

as the assigned pace leader.

no doubt frustrating most of the team, who had to keep pace behind me, all motivating themselves in their own way, some listening to ipods, or like me, only the shuffle crrr-sssh-kkaaa of boot on scree, and the occasional outbursts of harmonious singing from the enviously well-acclimatised mountain guides.

one of them carrying a step ladder, to take the place of the ladder-above-altitude-intent jacques, who along with ishan, had unfortunately decided to end his climb at barafu camp, the highest assembly of tents on the umbwe route, the camp we had left after eating eggs and bread by headlamp-light at 11pm.

our discarded late night meal crumbs future morning food for the craaaaaaaak-screaming white-necked circling scavenger ravens.

birds who could live at 4600 amsl, but couldn't be seen anywhere along the path, where we were forcing ourselves to go.

but eventually, after pushing myself beyond any kind of physical pain/cold/exhaustion barrier that i'd never thought i'd experience, i managed to flat-boot/stick-stab my way up to the summit, after collapsing once at the crater rim, and weeing behind a rock that faced the returning climbers head-on along the summit path.

afterwards having to take stops in between counted steps for excessive stationary breathing, reminding myself that if i didn't summit now i'd regret it.

and then i saw it.

a cluster of shouting people in puffy, snow gear around a sign made of nailed wooden planks, planks obscured by so many stickers that i could hardly read what it said.

something about congratulations, uhuru peak, and 5985 amsl.

a yellow-block lettered sign of sentences i'd seen in pictures before, next to smiling, beanie-framed faces.

and like all the google images my photograph would also be a replicated scene taken so far out of context from the previous four days of pain, discomfort, slow shuffling through mud, rainforest, moorland, heathland, rocks, barranco wall scaling, and barren volcanic debris-filled landscapes.

four days of trying to breathe, eat and drink consistently, of waking up in freezing, frozen tent fabric and having to walk slowly to long drop toilets, with holes not big enough for some, all to reach this barren crater view, with flat-topped glaciers seemingly alien in their frozen blue and white in contrast to the ash pit.

a scene definitely not as well appreciated with fifty percent less available oxygen.

i had thought that the sign would spark some kind of elation, a movie-like moment where i'd be smiling, and/or crying, with a camera doing circular panning around me.

but all i felt was an unfamiliar, heavy and gasping exhaustion, and a vague awareness that i hadn't pulled up my other two underlying layers of thermal and trekking pants up properly post-visible-wee.

and as the outer shell of my pants layer shifted uncomfortably as i sat down on a rock, oxygen deprived, listless and hungry, a frustrating, but tiredly accepted realization became clear.

the realization that after the next five minutes of smiling for cameras, again, after zigzagging up an almost-will-destroying loose gravel path for almost eight hours in darkness, i still had to get back down.