The trekkers

Our team consists of Ajay, Jeremiah, Jen, and me (Phil). Who are we? Good question. To be honest, I can’t tell you that much about any of my future comrades, although I suspect this will change in the near future. I have yet to meet Jen or Jeremiah, who are friends of Ajay’s. What I do know is that based on the emails we’ve sent back and forth, we all share the same excitement about this trip. I will meet up with Jen and Jeremiah this week to give Jen my VISA application and materials to take to the Tanzania embassy. Jen also lives in the DC metro area, while I know Jeremiah used to live here until recently. Ajay and I met several years ago in New Haven, CT, when we worked together for a short time. Other than this, I didn't get to know him that well. He's a very pleasant and intelligent guy. However, what stood out about Ajay was his enthusiasm. If you didn’t know him well, your first impression was, this guy can’t be serious?! He eventually ended up in Boston and I came down to Washington DC, where we ended up running into each other about a year ago. Ajay spent a year working here before returning back to his home base of Boston this past summer. Once again, we never had the time to hang out, but we did have a chance to talk some more and to find out we apparently share a lot of the same interests. I also found out that his enthusiasm was in fact very genuine. It seems everything he does is done with a tremendous amount of energy and fascination. I was thus extremely psyched nd grateful when he thought to include me on the invite to climb Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjaro... the beginning

On October 28, 2005, I was cc’d on a batch email from Ajay indicating that he had finally managed to snag two weeks vacation all at one time from his hectic work schedule. He was going to take the opportunity to “climb”/trek Mount Kilimanjaro followed by safari in the Ngorongoro crater and the Serengeti National Park. Who was interested? My instant impression: lucky bastard; I’ve always wanted to stand on the roof of Africa. I dismissed the idea that I could join him, mentally citing to myself the dual albatrosses of life, time and money. About a minute later I stopped to think… since when did negativity creep into my conscience to become the automatic default mode for my brain? It hadn’t always been this way. Ajay had already done meticulous pre-planning, so all anyone else had to do was show up. I made up my mind that there wouldn’t be a better opportunity than the present. I was in.

When I asked my wife, Lisa, if she was interested in traveling to Tanzania in February 2006 to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, she replied, “ I think I’m busy that day, and I think you are, too.” It was said somewhat tongue in cheek. Neither of us would ever prevent the other from doing something we knew was important to him/her. Although we’ve shared many great outdoor trips, this was one Lisa was willing to forgo. Although I wished we could share this adventure as well, I somehow felt the experience of waking up at midnight camped at 16,000 feet in below freezing temperatures with little sleep and a splitting headache, in order to endure a 12 hour hike to the summit and back, might overshadow the satisfaction of reaching the summit of Africa’s highest peak. A goal in which there was no guarantee of achieving. Her main objection to me going was concern for my safety. She knew climbing Kilimanjaro wasn’t the same as taking a guided expedition to the top of Mount Everest, but she has somehow convinced herself that I am a walking accident waiting to happen. This wasn’t helped by my attempt to convince her that road biking in traffic on Beach Avenue where we live in the Washington DC metro area was inherently more risky that hiking at altitude with significantly diminished oxygen levels. Nonetheless, she reserved her veto power for the future when she felt I would come up with a really outrageous idea. Thus, originated the Mount Kilimanjaro expedition.

In the end, two others responded to Ajay’s email, Jeremiah and Jen. When surfing the net for any useful information that might help in the preparation of our trip and I came across many outstanding blogs that have served as great resources as well as inspiration to start this blog. Whether this will be of any use to some anonymous cyber-surfer in the future or simply a way for us to remember what will undoubtedly be an unforgettable trip remains to be seen.