Everything a Pinoy needs to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro

Four in the morning, pitch-black, and it’s 20 degrees below zero. There’s iced snot on my face but I don’t care. 

The world is limited to what my headlamp illuminates, all movement restricted by six layers of clothing. I crane my neck at a column of headlamps extending to the stars. The gradient’s so steep I can’t discern where the headlamps end and where the stars begin.

For a while there’s no sound but the crunch of our team’s boots on frozen ice. The wind starts to howl. Up here, the climate swings faster than a Pinoy politician before an election. Has it been six hours since we started climbing? Ten? Suddenly our “Kilifighters” – tough mountain guides who surround and constantly encourage us – break into a lively Swahili song.

Welcome travelers,
To Kilimanjaro, the towering mountain,
Just walk slowly, no problem,
Like a snake, coil around her,
And you’ll summit safely.

I fantasize of a fiesta waiting at the top, with steaming lechon, adobo, taho, and everything else that’s hot and warm. I check my watch. Eight hours since we left Barafu, the dry and icy basecamp where we stashed most of our gear. We don’t stop – at this elevation, it’s tantamount to rapid body heat loss. I glance at my teammates and they too are trying to survive the freezing winds. Gradually the dawn reveals a windswept world of rock, of ice. 

There. Up ahead, a final push away, lies the shoulder of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in…