Day 7, Trophies at Mweka gate
March 2, 2010
I didn’t remember noticing much about Mweka camp when we had arrived the previous evening. We were so exhausted from the previous day’s climb that we went straight to bed after dinner at eight and only woke up twelve hours later in the morning. It was the best sleep we’d had in days. Our last breakfast on the mountain this morning was a traditional porridge the porters had prepared, but it somehow felt incomplete without the briefing we’d grown accustomed to over the last week.
We packed our gear by ten and stepped out of our tents for the three hour hike down to Mweka gate when we heard the sound of clapping and singing come from behind us. The porters and guides had put on a show with the famous Kilimanjaro farewell song I’d read about. We’d grown quite attached to the porters over the last week, trusting them with not just our backpacks, but our lives too. Alas, the time had come to say goodbye as we continued down the forest trail.
We reached Mweka gate with another group at one in the afternoon and signed a register to confirm that we had all returned. The last thing anyone would want to be on Mt Kilimanjaro was lost, but the park rangers weren’t taking any chances. The people in the other group received their green summit certificates for reaching Stella point, as we eagerly awaited the gold colored ones for going the extra mile to Uhuru. It felt like kindergarten all over again, but I was going to frame that certificate to inspire my son to make the same journey one day.
Certificates in hand, we continued down the muddy trail to Mweka village for another hour before stopping for lunch to celebrate our journey. It was the first time in a week that we were able to take a shower and have a wholesome meal that didn’t consist of oat or energy bar. In fact, I’d almost forgotten what bottled water tasted like till we had our first sip at the village. We’d grown so used to the bitter after-taste of the Chlorine tablet-purified water on the mountain that it seemed normal by the end of the trip.
After resting at Arusha for the afternoon, Zed thought it would be a nice idea to visit the famous Ngorongoro conservation area, west of the city, with the little time we had left that day. The ride through the open countryside would have had me grumbling just days earlier, but after what we’d just been through, it felt like being in a limousine. And the ride was worth it, because the view, when we arrived at the crater in the middle of the reserve was simply breathtaking. Rumored to be one of the largest in the world, the Ngorongoro crater was nature at its finest; guarded only by the mountains around us that had kept it free from mankind till the late 1800s. There must have been thousands of animals from flamingoes to zebras and lions to elephants in just that area alone. It was the most memorable safari I’d ever been on and a befitting end to day seven of our journey.