TOP: Gary with his Altar Wine
2nd: Porters and crew drawing numbers for the gear lottery
3rd: Head guide Peter toasting all participants for a safe trip
4th: Gary with his "I Love Jesus" birthday bag (NOTE: Stomach now smaller than bag, albeit not by much)
At mountain bottom, we thought the trip was all done, but, low and behold, there was a 1/2 day wrap-up ceremony. We did a number of toasts, a gear lottery, and more singing and backslapping.
All of the hikers donated substantial amounts of gear to the crew, including boots, clothing, hiking gear, etc. Peter ran a lottery so that every crewmember got at least 2-3 trips to the grab bag. Boots were the big winner (we understood why after seeing the used shoe trailer at the public market), and they went first.
The guides presented me a gift to celebrate my birthday (49th) while on the mountain...it was an "I love Jesus" bag, with a bottle of altar wine. For those of you who know me, I'm sure you'll appreciate the incredible irony in this. They also gave me a Kili hat, and a Tanzanian shirt (kinda like a mexican poncho), huge gifts from such a poor group of workers. All were much appreciated, and we killed off the altar wine within minutes...all except our mormon co-hikers, who had to watch lustfully :-) And damn, I looked good in that shirt and hat!
That put a wrap on the hike itself. We drove the 6 hours back to Arusha, hung out at the coffee plantation pool for a day, and boarded KLM for our flights home. We were all coughing like black lung patients, but feeling incredibly satisfied and proud.
All-in-all, it was an incredible experience. Outstanding people the Tanzanians, Peter did an excellent job of organization and logistics management (as did REI stateside), our hiking crew blended magically (some of us are already planning a 2008 trip together), and we done bagged us a summit!
Well, one of the 7 summits down; 6 more to go!
That's all from Kili-Lumpy. Next time I'll be starting on my continued journey backpacking central Europe for 5 weeks. Another great trip, and lots of stories to tell (and make up!)
Kili Lumpy out!
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