Word: kilimanjaro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Calvin and his wife Marge throw a little picnic for a few of their friends near the rhino pastures. On a balmy spring evening, lightweight tables and chairs are set out under a mesquite tree, just as they would be in an African hunting camp in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. Marge, a silver-haired Texas beauty dressed for the bush in denim and turquoise, lays on a simple feast of guacamole and chicken- salad sandwiches. Calvin uncorks bottles of fine South African grand...
...below zero, hands and feet are numb, and the air is so thin that a few tentative steps leave the body screaming for relief. Perhaps this is how Hans Meyer felt when, 100 years ago, the German geologist became the first to ascend to the rarefied heights of Mount Kilimanjaro, an immense dormant volcano 49 miles long and 24 miles wide that straddles the border between Tanzania and Kenya. Or the myriad of tourists who have since gasped their way to the roof of Africa...
...largest number of the 10,764 tourists who climbed the mountain last year came from the U.S. That can be blamed on Hemingway, says Iain Allan, a mountain climber whose Nairobi company arranges treks up Kilimanjaro, mostly for Americans. "Americans were brought up on his short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and they simply have to come and see for themselves." What they find is not one but two forbidding peaks: gaunt, craggy Mawenzi and snowcapped Kibo, the summit that looms over Harry, Hemingway's gangrenous protagonist, "wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white...
...most popular route up Kibo, known somewhat disparagingly as the tourist route, is, as British climber Ian Standbridge wryly observes, "no cheap vacation." Kilimanjaro National Park charges an entrance fee of about $150 a person for the climb, which begins at park headquarters in Marangu, Tanzania. For the guides, porters and food for the five-day trek, Marangu's two hotels charge an additional $250 a person. And don't forget generous gratuities. Money is constantly on the minds of the porters, who see each climb as a test of how large a tip they can extract from their clients...
Despite an exhausting days-long walk, frigid air and high fees, climbers are flocking to ascend to the roof of Africa, immortalized in The Snows of Kilimanjaro...