It didn't hit me when I booked my flight to Africa. It didn't hit me when it I landed in Tanzania or when I arrived in town. It didn’t even even hit me when I saw the horizon of the mountain whose slopes spanned far beyond my panorama. It only began to hit me when, comically far above Moshi’s modest skyline, appeared the icy crown of Africa’s tallest mountain.
Kilimanjaro.
I gasped audibly. My eyes bulged. My stomach sank. What loomed in the distance didn’t seem real, as if clumsily photoshopped onto the background. I struggled to fathom something so massive.
The others soon joined. Decca, Dani, Stefan, Manu, Chloe, Mishka, Lauren and Zach. Their reactions mimicked mine. The nine of us heeded this call to adventure. Zach was the only one whose done this before, and was the reason we were all here.
I had to come back. I just had to. Zach said.
Each of us know Zach well enough to know that when he invites you on an adventure, you go. We moved heaven and earth to secure the time and resources to follow him across the world to this promised land.
Next to us stood Abdul, local village elder and leader of Kili Back Country, the company guides and porters would lead us to the top.
My office is beautiful! he says with pride. Abdul, who has summitted over a hundred times looks at us with a confident smile and says, quarter-jokingly.
You can call me a legend.
His confidence let us know we were in good hands.
In my daze of awe, wonder and terror did the gravity of what we signed up for begin to sink in. We were here to climb that.
Or at least that’s what I thought we signed up for. I would soon learn that we were not here to merely climb a mountain. We were here for an odyssey through a strange and distant planet. A pilgrimage through spectacular landscapes and terrains. A soul bonding voyage with an alien culture. An excursion rich with danger, tragedy, and triumph.
What we had signed up for was the adventure of a lifetime.