As soon as the tourists make a deal with the agency to organize their adventure in the Kilimanjaro Park, as far as the travellers are concerned, everything from then on can be described by a Swahili expression used in the East African countries “hakuna matata”, which means “no worries”. After the tourists have packed the equipment into 120 l waterproof bags and handed them over to the porters in the hotel lobby, for the next seven days they have to rely entirely on the guide team. Everything will be provided for the tourists that week – the guides will take care of food and water, rest, medical care, as well as many other things. The tourists will not need any money during the whole week as there is simply no place to spend it. Communication with the outside world is also very limited since cell phone reception was only available in a few places. Also, phones and other devices can be charged only in some camps. The rules of Kilimanjaro Park are such that tourists should never be there alone without a guide; at least one person familiar with the area has to accompany each traveller. Our group was helped by a team of guides that made our lives entirely carefree, as if following the communist slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. We only had one task – to climb, to climb step by step to reach the peak, while our every possible need was seen to.
There were five members in the group – the two of us and three young people from Moscow: Svetlana, Maxim and Kirill.
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| Our group at the beginning of the hike. From left to right: Kirill, Svetlana, Maxim, Brigita, Viesturs. The clothes are suitable for the relatively hot weather. |
All three were the same age as our oldest children, around forty or slightly younger. We met the other members of the group at the hotel on the morning of the hike and all of us immediately liked each other. During the week, our mutual feeling of comradery only grew, and now we can say that three of our friends live in Moscow. The folks from Moscow were really sophisticated, with remarkably broad worldview and interests. Nowadays it is not very often you see people reading a book instead of staring at a phone screen in their spare time. During breaks between the hikes Svetlana was enthusiastically reading the third volume from a collection of works by Lion Feuchtwanger and talking to us about his other novels.
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| Svetlana is reading Feuchtwanger while Kirill (left) and Maxim are exchanging cards. Last day, waiting for the bus. |
For Maxim and Svetlana, like for the two of us, this was the first brush with mountain climbing tourism, Kirill had more experience – he had climbed both Mont Blanc and Elbrus. The hours spent together in a small group were fun and intellectually engaging. During the first days, while the hikes were not very difficult, we entertained ourselves by challenging each other with various riddles and puzzles, such as the one about a cabbage, a goat and a wolf that had to be ferried across a river, or the one about measuring exactly four litres of water using only one three- and one five-litre can. The “three-litre jar”, a game similar to “loading ships”, became an interesting diversion. You had to come up with objects whose name begins with the same letter and that could be placed in a three-litre jar. Time simply flew by while we were thinking about and discussing whether it is possible to put a particular thing in a jar. It was not easy for us because we played the game in Russian. One rule however was strictly enforced by Kirill, and we complied with it: it was forbidden to talk about politics on the mountain.
The group leader Elia was very surprised at how friendly we were, that, for example, during tea breaks we even treated each other to the snacks we brought with us. Obviously, an encouraging attitude makes it much easier to maintain and use mental energy that is crucial to achieving the goal, so we were very happy about getting along with each other as well as with our guides.
In our later conversations, Elia said that during such a climb the whole team functions very much like a ship crew. Each team has a captain – a group leader who bears all responsibility but who also has complete authority to make decisions to resolve any issues.
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| Guides Elia (sitting) and Stanford are not enjoying the beautiful view but filling in the reports instead. |
The team has a very strong hierarchy, the top level includes the leader and one or two deputies – usually guides who also are very experienced and who are ready to take the lead at any time should the need arise. The next level is the camp operations manager – he is responsible for all processes and material values while setting up, operating and packing up the camp. Directly subordinate to him is a server who takes care of the practical needs of tourists – from serving lunch to heating the water for brushing their teeth and helping to take off their boots when tourists come down the mountain completely exhausted. A very important member of the team is the chef who prepares fresh meals three times a day, each one comprised of several dishes. Although stream or spring water was available everywhere in the lower camps, there is a designated person in charge of the drinking water who works under the chef’s authority. Most of the crew were porters and people in charge of the simplest works, such as setting up and disassembling tents, packing things and so on, but their main function was to carry huge backpacks with giant bags on top of them.
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| The work of guides and porters is not easy but they also find the time for a little entertainment. |
They carried our belongings, tents and mats, food bags, as well as aluminium tables and chairs to ensure the maximum comfort for us, the tourists. Every day we ate fresh fruit for dessert, which means that someone also had to have already dragged mangoes and watermelons up the mountain. One porter tied a teapot to his load on the outside in exactly the same manner as the protagonist of the movie “White Sun of the Desert”. Judging by the fact that we had scrambled eggs every morning for breakfast, somehow eggs were also brought to the mountain.
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| All possible comforts are provided for the tourists: every morning all belongings are collected, every evening conveniently placed. |
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| Even carrying huge piles of things, the porters were scaling the mountain trails twice as fast as we were. |
The group leader must also be able to skilfully and firmly guide the tourists. Elia praised us saying that he had not had such a disciplined and driven group for a long time. He added that often there are tourists who do not want to comply with the rules of camping and hiking, they always have their own, different opinion and do not want to cooperate with the group leader. I can only imagine the amount of tact and psychological techniques the group leader must possess to handle those situations. You can’t just send tourists who paid good money for their entertainment down the mountain!
The order in our micro-team couldn’t have been better. At first we were a little surprised that not only did our Russian friends address us with “Вы” (“Vi”) – a polite form of the pronoun “you” in Russian, but Elia also affectionately called us Papa and Mama, but then we realized that we really were their parents’ generation and happily accepted our status.