2. Newly returned

Four years later, standing on the balcony of my guesthouse in Moshi, I look across once more at Mount Kilimanjaro. Its outline, clear against the pale morning sky, rises from the west to the snow-flattened peak of Kibo, curves down in a gentle saddle, and then thrusts up sharply into the jagged peak of Mawenzi before sloping off again into the foothills to the east. It is quite apparent why it is referred to locally as ‘The Sleeping Elephant’.

The years that have passed since I lived in Kilimanjaro’s foothills have not dulled its image in my mind. The hours I spent gazing at the mountain from the roof of our house have imprinted on my memory the curve of every glacier and the shadow of every ravine, and I have found my mind returning to these details often. Perhaps because my experiences here went so badly awry, my memories of them have proved particularly resilient. Now they have drawn me back here to see the magic mountain again.

Over the years I have developed a range of excuses to explain why, despite living in its foothills, I never attempted an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. First I say that it was far too expensive; then I add that it is actually highly dangerous, and point out that people die on the mountain the whole time, but that the tourist industry chooses not to publicise this fact. Then I conclude by explaining that it is not really a challenging climb, and that the difficulty comes not from the terrain, which is largely a straightforward stroll, but from the altitude, which is entirely random in who it afflicts.
There is truth in all these excuses, but none fully accounts for my reluctance to scale the mountain. The real reason is that when I lived here Kilimanjaro took on a special significance for me that I was afraid of destroying by climbing it. I imbued it with mystery. I embraced the local legends that anthropomorphised it and I believed in its powers and magic. For me, Kilimanjaro took on a personality, one of awesome might tempered by an extreme benevolence. I worried that such a romantic vision of the mountain would be hard to sustain after tramping up it with hundreds of sweaty tourists clutching video cameras.

But these were difficult, and rather peculiar, beliefs to explain to friends in England, so I usually said ‘Oh no, I didn’t climb it. Way too expensive, you know.’

And now, newly returned to Moshi and standing on my guesthouse balcony, there is still a part of me that wonders if I am doing the right thing. For today I begin my ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro.

I remain there for some time, watching the mountain’s glacial peak brighten in the strengthening sun. I wonder whether its altitude will provide me with some perspective on the events that passed when I was here before and help me understand what it was that went wrong. As if in preparation for the climb and the memories it will evoke, I cast my mind back four years to my first arrival at Kilimanjaro.