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- i just climbed mount kilimanjaro
welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.
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btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.
onto today’s topic: i just climbed mount kilimanjaro ⛰️
as i stood at the top of kilimanjaro clutching the sign at 19,000 feet high and smiled for a picture, all i could think was, “wtf did i just do?”
wtf indeed.
over the past week, i embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey hiking up mount kilimanjaro, the world’s highest free-standing mountain, alongside 11 of my fellow morehead-cain gap year cohort members.
in these 7 days, we endured torrential downpour, high altitude sickness, soaked clothes, a medical emergency or two (haha …), fatigue, homesickness, unspeakable bathroom conditions, and the cold. ❄️
in these 7 days, we relished in delicious food cooked for us daily, endless beautiful landscapes covering kilimanjaro, music blasting through our speakers, the warmth of each others’ company, dumb jokes, hot tea handed to us each morning, passing the same swedish group on each hike, brief flashes of sunlight, stars so bright it felt like we could touch them, and the triumph of standing on top of the peak — the highest in africa. 🌍️
we woke up, ate breakfast, and then hiked until it was time to stop each day for 7 days. it felt like the days all blended together, only to be separated by key memories: the day i found myself hiking alone in the dark for 2 hours, when we got the speaker and hiked purely off of vibes, when we scaled baranco wall, when we woke up at midnight to hike the summit, when i practically ran and skipped down the mountain with our lead guide.
honestly, it was tough. after the first day i didn’t think i’d be able to finish the hike. my body hadn’t been pushed so hard in quite a long time, and i thought i had severely overestimated my physical capabilities. 💪 however, once i put my pessimism aside, it was only up from there (literally). with each step forward, i could still feel the fatigue settling in my legs trying to drag me down, but my mind and heart were so light it just wasn’t possible.
i wanted to enjoy this experience and all that it had to offer, and enjoy i did. i was extremely optimistic going into it — in fact, annoyingly energetic about the entire experience. i was singing and dancing along to the music playing from our speaker, and made sure to glance up often to take in the breathtakingly beautiful landscapes i would only ever see once in my life. 🏞️
turns out i just needed that first day to get used to the physical challenge — my body was much more receptive in the remaining days of the hike. at least, until it was summit day: when i was granted the fabulous condition of being on my period. my daypack strap was shoving into my stomach right where it hurt, and the accumulated fatigue had me stumbling left and right in an attempt to put one foot in front of the other until we reached the summit.
and, we all summited.
the satisfaction and absolute thrill i felt racing down the mountain on our last day was incomprehensible. ⭐️ nickson, our lead guide, asked me to queue up some j. cole on the speaker and we were both off skipping down the last few kilometres of kilimanjaro. i was high off the rush of just having conquered something i honestly could have never even dreamed of.
it was so real, our hike was so real, the summit was so real, this thrill was so real — maybe my high is still just the altitude messing with my head, but i cannot put into words how joyful i was as i passed by lush fauna and dozens of waterfalls on the last day. 🚿
finally, hours later, we reached the gate. i made it down the mountain, and sat down with an ice cold fanta in my hand. bliss.
i kicked off 2024 climbing mount kilimanjaro.
holy shit.
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