During the long night I checked the intermittency of my level of concentration with an improvised mantra: “I'm powerful, very powerful, do not fatigue rules, it doesn't rule you”. The mind went into a trance, and she lays with her.
When by a click that meditative level was diluted, I could hear with formidable clarity the gasps of one and the nausea of ??another. Some of us threw up, and at some point we all wanted to turn around. You wanted to run away, until the moment you looked up from the ground, and in that crystalline night you saw the illuminated silhouette of Moshi down there. We were more than 5000 meters high and the city more than 4200 vertical distance meters!
We were more than 5000 meters high and the city more than 4200 vertical distance meters!
Kilimanjaro's solitude allows that perspective, the same one that gives you an airplane window, but this time with the glass lowered. I hear the commander say: “Welcome gentlemen passengers, the outside temperature is…”
Arrival at the first summit, Stella Point, takes place after overcoming sandy and rocky terrain. It's five in the morning. A simple step in that alpine desert becomes a feat. The game was almost over and there was still extra time!
The 200 meters between "Stella Point" and "Uhuru Peak" is another of the psychological tests of this adventure. I remember crying. I don't know if because there were still 200 meters, or because there were only 200 meters. Tiredness is disconcerting. There is frost on my eyebrows, and fire in my heart. I walked that last distance like a drunk when he comes home. Taking into account that it was six in the morning the comparison is not fortuitous. I was reeling, and I didn't take four steps without resting my hands on my knees. I breathe out, and the air does not reach my lungs. Hypoxia.
That is the mountain that I like, the one that exhausts you and the one that weakens anyone, but nevertheless, you take care and they take care of you.
I lean over and shift the weight of my backpack from my shoulders to my kidneys. Panting. The cold burns my corners. I need to sit down. I see the end. They ask you how are you doing, and you say you're doing fine, when in reality you are broken. That is the mountain that I like, the one that exhausts you and the one that weakens anyone, but nevertheless, you take care and they take care of you. ¡Field Field, Hakuna Matata!"Exclaims the guide with the wisdom of the coach who seeks the last breath of his players in the extension of a" very final ".
The light of dawn awakens all colors with the renewed force of a new day. Sacred beauty. In that pulpit I blessed the law of effort.
I was talking to Don Kilimanjaro but, truly, I was heading to the Queen mother to request the eternal health of my son Mario.
Charli, one of the Sancho Bros, says they always give something, but they also remove it. And that the top is the place to tell them, what do you want them to take away from you, in order to prevent me from stealing what you want. My request was with delicate politeness. I was talking to Don Kilimanjaro but, truly, I was heading to the Queen mother to request the eternal health of my son Mario.
Up there I learned that after His Majesty had granted a coat of arms to the noble Don Kilimanjaro, in the crown of it would be its snows, in his soul the wind, and as a support for the blazon, the spirit of all those who have trodden its peak.
