It was incredibly windy and frigidly cold up at the top of Kilimanjaro—minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit. While we were hiking it hadn’t seemed that cold, but as soon as we stopped, you could feel it. Shivering, we put our hats on and zipped our jackets up tight, and Samuel took a picture of us in front of that beautiful wooden sign that read CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE NOW AT UHURU PEAK, TANZANIA, 5895M. AMS. AFRICA’S HIGHEST POINT. WORLD’S HIGHEST FREE-STANDING MOUNTAIN. ONE OF WORLD’S LARGEST VOLCANOES. WELCOME.
“Okay, now, Jordan,” Karen said, “time for sponsor pictures.”
One of the things we did in exchange for the free climbing gear and financial support from our sponsors was allow them to use pictures of us with their equipment in their advertising and publicity. I held up a few banners and one of my Salomon shoes while Karen snapped photos of me, and then we were ready to head down the mountain. We descended to Barafu Camp and stopped for a quick lunch.
Descending wasn’t as much fun as I’d thought it would be, and it was taking forever. So after lunch I ran and slid on the loose gravel. Dad and Karen could hardly keep up. It was dark by the time the porters dismantled the few tents they had set up for us at Barafu and caught up to us and then passed us by. They were incredible. Fifty pounds on their heads, in flip-flops, and wearing no headlamps, they raced through a maze of boulders and volcanic rock. Dad and Karen, the elite athletes, were stunned by the power and agility the porters showed running in the dark.
Coming down the mountain, we experienced the same change in vegetation zones, only in the reverse and at a much quicker pace. We didn’t have to stop to acclimatize. From the glacier on the summit we descended through an alpine desert, the foggy moors, the heather zone, and finally the rain forest.
Running down more than nine thousand vertical feet took its toll. I was completely wiped out by the time we reached Mweka Camp, where Faiz and Nikki ran out to meet us.
“Did you make it?” Nikki asked.
My smile told them all they needed to know.
“Jordan amazed me,” Dad said. “He was so tired and was even tempted to give up at one point, but then he managed to find something inside himself to keep going.”
“I set a goal and wasn’t going to quit, no matter what,” I said.
Karen laughed. “As soon as he saw that summit sign, he was unstoppable. We could barely keep up.”
Faiz put his arm around my shoulder as we walked into camp. “I knew you were made for great things.”
“How about you?” I asked. “How do you guys feel?”
“Samuel was right,” Nikki said. “As soon as we moved to a lower altitude, we were fine.”
That was a huge relief, and so was the fact that not only had the porters already set up camp, but they had food waiting for us—popcorn and hot soup. I was addicted to their popcorn, which was for some reason the best popcorn I’d ever eaten, even though it had no salt or butter.
I sat there munching and taking in the hustle and bustle of the Mweka Camp. Climbers, porters, and guides headed in both directions. I was shocked to discover that people actually knew who I was. Word had spread all over the mountain about a ten-year-old climbing stronger and faster than most adults. No one could believe that I’d made it to the top and back down to Mweka Camp in three days instead of the usual six or seven days for the Umbwe Route. Everyone I met wanted a picture with me. It was kind of cool to realize that other people recognized my accomplishment.
Even better, the barrier between the porters and me disappeared. We hung out that night exchanging stories of life in Africa compared to America. It was awesome. I learned that even though they didn’t have much in comparison with my life in Big Bear, they were happy and felt they were living a good life. It was an evening I knew I would never forget.
The next morning we had a two-hour walk back to the main gate through the lush rain forest. After the barren gray rock up above, I appreciated the dense, mossy, green vegetation more than I had three days earlier.
We left Mount Kilimanjaro National Park through the Mweka Gate, but first we stopped to sign the register and get our certificates to prove that we had climbed the mountain successfully. Those who made it to Uhuru received golden certificates; those who stopped at Stella Point got green ones. All our names were added into a book.
“Look at that, Little J,” Karen whispered. “They listed you as the world record holder for this mountain’s youngest climber, at age ten.”
I hadn’t really thought about setting a world record, and I suspected some younger African kid might have summited before me with his dad without anyone bothering to record it, but it was still pretty cool.
I called my mom as soon as we got back to the hotel in Arusha. I told her all about the climb, that I missed her, and that I’d be home soon. But we had one more thing to do before we left Africa, and that was visit the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is considered to be one of the seven natural wonders of Africa. Almost all the animal species native to East Africa can be found in the huge crater at its center. There are nearly thirty thousand animals living in about one hundred square miles. I had been dying to visit.
We chartered a driver and a safari bus with a removable roof and took a winding road two thousand feet down into the largest volcanic crater in the world. I leaned over the driver’s seat. “There aren’t any fences or gates. Don’t the animals ever just walk out?”
“They could, but why would they? Everything they need is right here.”
“Jordan, look,” Karen said excitedly. “Zebras.”
“Wow, look at that!”
“The stripes are different on every single animal, just like fingerprints,” the driver explained.
We didn’t go a mile without seeing some kind of herd—elephants, wildebeests, buffalo, hippos, or warthogs. It was game-viewing paradise, Noah’s Ark in a giant bowl. I felt a little like my hero, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, and I was still on the prowl for rhinos. They are critically endangered, and some subspecies of white rhino are already extinct. The total number of black rhinos in the wild is slowly increasing, but they’re still scarce. I just had to see one, and I did—five of them!
The bus stopped to watch a pride of lions lazing near the road. A pair of male lions with full bellies walked our way and used the bus for a shade tree. I could’ve stuck my hand out the window to pet them, but I wanted to keep my fingers.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Wait until they decide to move on,” the driver answered.
I didn’t mind waiting. After all, I had gotten a chance to see the big five game animals—lion, leopard, Cape buffalo, elephant, and rhino—all in one day.
While we waited, thoughts of the next mountain were brewing in my head. I wanted to go to Australia, not just to climb its highest peak but also to see crocodiles, kangaroos, and koalas. Maybe I’d even get to meet Steve Irwin in person.