Why I’m climbing Kilimanjaro

I was catching up with a friend a few weeks ago, and he mentioned that he bungee jumped when he most recently visited Chile. It was a great experience, he vehemently said, encouraging me to try it if I ever have the chance. Despite nodding my head in agreement, the idea of bungee jumping didn’t appeal to me. However, even more unappealing was the idea that I didn’t want to go bungee jumping anymore.

I was never into extreme sports or an adrenaline junky, but have always considered myself adventurous and open to new experiences. I’ve also always prided myself in understanding risk, and having a positive attitude when it came to activities that could be cathartic. Yet, the idea of bungee jumping no longer appealed to me. This disdain also extends to paragliding and skydiving. Could it possibly be that my prefrontal cortex had finally finished developing? I’m scared of heights, but likely only as much as the next person. Plus, based off a quick internet search, estimated fatality rates for bungee jumping are as low as one in half a million. The change in my desire to do so is then less because of the risk, but more because of the perceived advantages of doing so have diminished. It doesn’t look like fun anymore.

This applies to an increasing number of things in life. When I was eight years old, I visited Beijing and ate deep fried scorpions, tarantulas, and crickets in the night market. This is not traditional fare, strictly a street market novelty. Unsurprisingly, I no longer have any interest in eating any sort of creature or part of creature that is generally not regarded as food. I’ve written in the past that I’ve given up opportunities to work abroad, something that I’ve always wanted to do, and how much that has disappointed me. I’ve noted that my interest in travelling has started to wane somewhat as well: despite a job that enables frequent air travel, the trips aren’t all that appealing anymore, and sometimes I just want to hang out at home with the people I love. I used to love drinking to the point where I had to quit cold turkey: not that I had developed a dependency, but I was simply drinking too much. But now, I don’t even like drinking anymore, or any of the events that come along with it: going to bars, restaurants, and clubs.

So earlier this year, when my family had decided to go on a safari, and my sister asked if I wanted to climb Kilimanjaro, I said yes. Not that I love hiking, have a burning desire to triumph over nature, or want to experience the sublime, but I felt that I should go, and if I were to miss the opportunity now, I would likely never go again. Sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t appeal to me; I’m a city traveller, not a nature traveller. The cost for the climb was exorbitant too, but it was just money at the end of the day. The most painful thing was the over two @weeks of vacation days that this trip cost, as well as the meticulous planning, though my sister certainly shared the load.

Climbing Kilimanjaro isn’t some massive physical feat: many people do it every year, and the support is similar to that of an Everest climb: porters carry the necessities, the trail is led by a guide, there are well-established camps, and danger is all but absent. On my last overnight hike in Canada, I was woefully underprepared, spent a miserable night shivering, failed to summit, and came away from it with a knee injury. I haven’t done any sort of physical exercise for the last two weeks on the back of a cold and an ankle injury that is taking concerningly long to heal. I replaced my fifteen-year old hiking boots that had been broken for a year now. Kilimanjaro sounds like the perfect hike for me. Yet it will still be a lot of physical exertion, a seven day climb of fifteen kilometers a day at high elevation, no showers, no beds, and no internet.

Am I climbing the mountain to prove something to myself? Is it a crisis of masculinity, of youth, to prove that I still have the hutzpah in me? Hardly. I think I’m at ease with my aging body: I try to preserve it the best I can, which includes not forcing it through trauma for the sake of ego. At this age, if I had something left to prove, I think I’d be running more marathons, joining amateur boxing circuits, or drinking myself to death every night. Have I run out of things to do? I also think not. A week in the Mediterranean or a weekend in Paris would be a lot cheaper and a lot more comfortable. Yet I want to climb Kilimanjaro.

This climb is truly between the mountain and me. It’s the same reason that I wanted to eat that scorpion, drink that two-six of vodka, or live in that country abroad. The spirit of adventure calls out to me, invoking all the stories that I’ve heard, telling me that this will be great, that this is something worth doing. In the same way I’ve never bungee jumped, and I don’t ever want to bungee jump, the idea of this climb is something unshakable and convincing. Though the thought of climbing Kilimanjaro had never crossed my mind prior to the inception of the safari, it is now something that I must do, something that will forever be a regret if I don’t. At some point during the planning process, we were having difficulties aligning vacation days, and the trip nearly got pushed to the next year. But I insisted that we attempt to do it this year, because I didn’t know how next year would look, and if the trip would happen at all.

Old age is a scary place. It is where dreams go to die. When I was younger, I dreamed of many things. I dreamed of pieds-a-terres across the world. I dreamed of living and working abroad. I dreamed of publishing a book. As I grew older, it seemed as though reality shattered those dreams, one after another. But none of it is impossible. Rather, my desire wanned and I stopped dreaming as feverently. I became comfortable with the life I was living. So who is to know if Kilimanjaro will interest me in a few years. And even if it does, the more important question is if I will still want to climb mountains and slay dragons.