The run around Mount Kilimanjaro was conceived of by
Simon Mtuy, owner and senior guide of Summit Expeditions & Nomadic
Experience (SENE), a Tanzania adventure travel company. The Mbahe Village on
the southeastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro is where he grew up and grew to love
the mountain. Mtuy has summited Kilimanjaro several hundred times, has finished
the Western States Endurance Run nine times, and holds the record for fastest
unsupported run up and down Kilimanjaro (he held the record for fastest
supported ascent-descent until it was broken in 2010 by Kilian Jornet, whom
Simon helped train and guide on his record run).
Simon's dream of the Stage Run was fueled by several desires. The mountain
has been an important part of his life – first, as the provider of
life-sustaining water and fertile soil for his family’s farm growing up, then
as a boundless source of beautiful and challenging trails for running, the
sport he loves, and finally as a livelihood with his climb business. Simon has been on the mountain hundreds of
times and it holds a spiritual aspect for him.
This run would be a chance for him to bring those all together and share
them with fellow trail runners from around the world.
After several years of scouting the lower slopes, he had
established a route that completely encircled the lower slopes on trails and
paths that – we would soon discover – were diverse in the environments through
which they passed, with beautiful sights at every turn, and quite challenging.
Simon assembled his crew of cooks, drivers, navigators, and guides to launch
the Stage Run in October of 2012 as eight days of running over 170 miles. But beyond the numbers, an important element
of all trips that Simon leads is to offer guests a chance to encounter Tanzania
and meet its people in a more personal and natural way. We realized this more as we runners immersed
ourselves in the experience.
The Runners
Five runners signed up for this first year.
Steve, a good friend of Mtuys, from Hawaii and an
ultrarunner having completed the HURT 100 in Hawaii several times. For Steve
the world is his playground who often expressed his Hawaiian enthusiasm with
words like 'awesome' and 'rad' along with a generous helping of the “hang
loose” sign.
Tim who works for SENE in the United States and helped
Simon scout the route. He's a solid midwestern road runner who would resemble
one of the characters from Lake Wobegon.
Jerry, the elder statesman of the group at 57, from St.
Louis who had completed his 13th 100-miler just a month earlier. He's a quiet,
thoughtful, spiritual man enlivened by
his first trip outside the US.
Krissy, one of the top women ultrarunners in the world.
She loves to engage each new experience, person, and culture wholeheartedly.
And myself, a lifelong athlete and lover of big, unusual
adventures.
Simon was our guide and leader, full of energy, good humor, and kind words for everyone.
Andrew King of South Africa was with us the entire trip
filming and taking pictures of this grand adventure. And Kate from Hawaii was
here with Steve and became our cheerleader for the week, meeting us every day.
It was always a delight to see Kate's bright shirts and cheery words of support
and encouragement in the middle of the day..
All-in-all we were a well matched group with a fairly
similar strength, endurance, and pace. Most importantly, we were all thrilled
to be here and had ear-to-ear grins the whole way. As Kate said often, her
cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
The Crew
Simon's team consisted of Kiplet and Robinson, camp cooks
extraordinaire; Manase and (another) Simon, who departed each morning before
daybreak to mark the route; Iddy and Sigfrid as additional guides; and Willie,
William, and Joseph as navigators, drivers, and daily spirited support. Throughout the week the unflappable and
always upbeat team took care of us in every way imaginable.
The Run
On October 20 we began our adventure from Mtuy's family
farm in Mbahe Village, about 45 minutes outside of Moshi, Tanzania. Each
of the next eight days provided a new
and different running and cultural experience, and allowed us, the runners, to
discover new things about ourselves, our new friends, the people of the
Kilimanjaro, and the mountain environment..
We began the first day with a tree planting ceremony
around a natural spring in Mbahe Village to give back to the
local community and to help preserve the all important water source that
supports the Mbahe Village and many communities miles downstream. Kilimanjaro
is an ecological system unto itself and provides the tribes living on its
flanks water for drinking and irrigation, rich soil for planting, and wood for
fuel and building. But that system has seen recent upheaval with climate
change. In the past century 80% of the glacial ice cap has disappeared, and
thousands of acres of virgin forest has been cut for fuel and cropland.
Preserving the environment and giving back to the community have always been
pillars of Simon’s work in the community and around the mountain. After the tree-planting we had an official
start of the run at the Marangu entrance gate to Kilimanjaro National Park.
The running itself was fantastic! We ran through pine
forests on beds of pine needles. We ran along farm fields. We ran through
numerous Chagga and Maasai villages. At times we enjoyed the company of local
kids as they ran with us. At other times we ran in solitude. We saw dozens of bare-footed grandmothers
walking the paths with enormous bundles of grass, sticks and what-have-you
balanced on their heads (at one point Simon offered to carry the bundle for one
particularly old woman and then gave us the opportunity to lift it onto our
heads – and were amazed by the weight of the load!). We descended many incredibly beautiful and
remote valleys on trails no wider than a shoe, ran on trails alongside hand-dug
irrigation furrows, on “Indiana Jones”
trails requiring hand-holds on roots and rocks as we climbed radically
steep slopes. Sometimes we ran on single-track, sometimes on jeep roads. It wasn’t unusual for us to run where there
was no trail.
We saw waterfalls, baboons, and colobus monkeys. We
passed herds of sheep and cattle being led to pasture or to market. We saw Mt.
Kilimanjaro every day, from all sides
and in many ways – in brilliant sunshine, shrouded in clouds, underneath
a bright blue sky or in silhouette against
star-filled blackness. We took pictures everywhere and even witnessed the
juxtaposition of a Maasai in his traditional clothing taking a picture with his
cell phone of us in our traditional running gear (a most remarkable sight to
him, no doubt).
We laughed and talked with each other. We thrilled at
jumping from rock to rock across streams and the chance to douse our heads with
the cool mountain water. We did a double-take when hearing Kenny Rogers’ “The
Gambler” coming from a radio in the middle of nowhere. As we ran through the
pines forests, we heard the wind and the sound of the trees talking. We were
grateful witness to school children lining up for their morning exercises and
daily singing of the Tanzanian national anthem.
We camped on school grounds, in luscious grass fields,
near a beautiful river, and at the top of a ridge overlooking the lights of
Moshi. The fourth night was spent at Simba Farm where we enjoyed more amazing
food, beds, and a hot shower. We were constantly with smiles and waves and the traditional
Swahili greeting of Jambo (‘hello’) or Pole Pole (‘go easy’). We found it ironic that nobody ever
encouraged us to "go faster" or "speed up." As they say, no
hurry in Africa. And besides, why go
faster when we are enjoying every minute of this fantastic adventure?
Every mile, every day was a thrilling surprise. By
greeting the unexpected with a smile and child-like wonder, we developed bonds
with each other and allowed us to experience Tanzania and Kilimanjaro in a way
few ever have. After eight days we arrived back at the Marangu gate to
celebrate with each other!
The Food
Being a runner, I knew Simon would have enough food to
feed hungry runners every day. I had somewhat expected the food to be fairly
basic and so before leaving I had my favorite meals - a Ted's Montana Grill
burger, a beautiful full salad, and my favorite burrito. How wrong I was!
Like everything else on this trip, the food that we ate
was absolutely amazing. Simon and his chefs were very conscious of preparing
nutritious, balanced meals to fuel us for each day’s challenge. His farm
provided plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables from broccoli to greens to
avocado to bananas to strawberries. Every morning we'd start with eggs, bacon,
toast, porridge or oatmeal, coffee and tea, and several varieties of fruit. We
even had crepes and french toast! On the table was fresh passion fruit honey
from Simon's farm, peanut butter and jam. It seemed like nothing was missing.
Surely the best kind of food to keep us going for each day of running.
When we finished running, the table was already ready
with snacks - roasted cashews, crackers, tea and coffee. The best part was
popcorn!
Every evening was another incredible spread of food. We'd
start with a soup - tomato with ginger, lentil, pumpkin, zucchini, or carrot.
Then we'd get a main meal with potatoes or rice, some kind of meat, more
vegetables. We'd finish off with some
kind of dessert.
I know how good even something basic like ramen or a
cup-of-noodles can be in the middle of a long run. It's like heaven sometimes.
This was not that feeling - this was simply incredibly made, local, fresh food
prepared with great care.
Being Prepared
There is no doubt this is a challenging run, even a very
challenging run. Total elevation gain
was more than 35,000 feet and the entire
route was run at an altitude between 4,500 and 7,000 feet. By comparison, I
would consider the TransRockies 6-day run in Colorado relatively mild. You have
to be prepared for long days - five of the eight days were we out for more than
six hours. While the elevation and cloud cover mitigated the tropical heat, we
did experience direct sun (Kilimanjaro is 3 degrees south of the equator) in
open stretches with temperatures reaching
85 to 90 degrees.
The combination of elevation, temperature, vertical gain
and descent, and distance meant it was common to take 6-8 hours to cover 20
miles. With few markers of distance, we learned to be mentally prepared for
long days and imprecise mileage, providing for us first-timers to Kilimanjaro a
sense of exploring the unknown..
Celebrating
After finishing at the Marangu Gate, we walked back to
the small stream on Mtuy's farm.
Awaiting us was a picturesque waterfall and 10 foot cliff offering a
celebratory plunge into the refreshingly cool mountain pool. It was a perfect ending to our incredible
adventure. Back at the farm we were
greeted with another feast and our first afternoon to rest. In the evening we
celebrated with a traditional Chagga dinner of ugali (cornmeal) and a beef stew
with potatoes, carrots, and cooked bananas, washed down with oversize bottles
of local beer (appropriately named “Kilimanjaro”). Simon and his crew sang to
us; Krissy was moved enough to write a song about the trip which she and Kate
sang. The chorus:
Running like crazy till the day’s gonna end
Running like crazy cuz
Simon’s our friend
Hey, runnin’ round Kili
Running like crazy through the sun and the heat
Running like
crazy even if it’s killin' our feet
Hey, runnin’ round Kili
Finally Simon spoke offering his heartfelt
gratitude for all of us being here and sharing in his dream of a stage run
around the “Roof of Africa.” For all it
was an enjoyable and emotional celebratory dinner together.
In the End
While I can write about the run, the food, and who was
there, the experience itself was absolutely incredible! I'm sure we exceeded
all hopes Simon had for this first run. We all have new friends, stories to
remember for a lifetime, an appreciation of Kilimanjaro, and a piece of Africa
in our soul. There are few experiences that can match the Roof of Africa run!
