Climb for Hospice

In  the early morning on August 14th, I was sitting in an airplane flying from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam. I looked out my window, and I saw a mountain looming up from the Savanna, puncturing the clouds with its jagged peak. It was HUGE! ‘My god‘, I said to myself, ‘there it is! The mountain I’ve been dreaming of for months!‘

Frantically I unfastened my seatbelt, shoved my tray at the poor kid from Calgary that was sitting next to me, and reached up into the overhead compartment to grab my carry-on bag. It proved heavier at that moment than I remembered, and when I brought it down, I rather unfortunately planted it upon the head of an unsuspecting man who was sitting in his seat, snacking on yogurt. ‘Ooops! Sorry!‘ I shrunk, but he was not at all placated by my pathetic apology. Well… that could have been because I also slapped him in the face with the strap on my backpack as I walked away, too.  Heh. Oops.

So, with my tray stuffed in someone else’s lap, my bag having dented someone’s head, and the small plane getting smaller as the space in front of me filled with my quickly upended backpack, I finally found my camera. At the bottom of my bag. Of course. I went back to the window to take a photo, and… it was gone. the mountain was gone.  I had missed my moment!

I slumped into my seat, but a moment later the woman beside me said, “isn’t it beautiful?”, and pointed out the window.

I looked…

HOLY HANNAH! Now THAT’S a mountain!!  The one I was looking at before wasn’t Kilimanjaro at all! It was tiny compared to Kili! Snappity-snap-snap I went, and took as many photos as I could before we flew on by. There is just no way I can explain to you the majesty of this sight, and my camera too, is mute rather than muse.

But there it is.

Mt. Kilimanjaro.

All 19,340ft of her, throwing into the sky from the ocean of Africa below. In 9 days, I would begin my journey to climb her.