Survival - 12. Surv Chapter 12

I was almost home, when I received a text from Uncle Nat, “Damn media recognised me, and demanded to know where my nephew is. I just said no comment, and walked past them, but they kept hounding me, so I had to stop and make a statement. I will tell you about it when I get home, Nat”.

When Uncle Nat did arrive home, I had a cup of tea waiting for him, and I let him enjoy that a bit before asking what happened at the airport. “My statement to the media was, that knowing that the media where looking for my nephew, we had alternative travelling arrangements, and that he is currently at home waiting for me to get there.

They looked quite disappointed when I said this, before asking me more about the climb up Thunder Mountain, and they asked what our next challenge would be, and I told them that no plans had been made, as we have to recover from our last climb first.” Uncle Nat informed me, and I laughed, knowing that we had fooled the media.

With it being Thursday afternoon, I knew that it wasn’t worth going to school till Monday next week, which gives me three whole days to relax, even thou Uncle Nat had to report to work the next morning. About an hour later, when Uncle Nat’s phone rang, and he answered it, he looked at me, “Yes, he is here… very well I will tell him, goodbye” Uncle Nat said before ending the call.

That was the school, you are to report to school in uniform tomorrow morning, ready to make a presentation to the school at morning assembly” Uncle Nat announced, and I groaned in displeasure. “Since you have missed nearly a week of school already, I think you owe it to the school to do this” Uncle Nat said to me, and reluctantly I agreed.

A little while later, Uncle Nat’s phone indicated a text message, and he looked at the screen before screwing up his nose, “I have no idea what Afya is trying to say, you better read it” he said, handing the phone over to me, and I read it to myself first, and burst out laughing.

“Well?” Uncle Nat asked, “Oh sorry, poor Nanny Afya is having trouble with the wildlife again, it says, “My word what a mess, baby elephant brings his mama this time, and tore up a lot of the garden, and left plenty big droppings behind, which I demanded the ranger clean up, he not happy man, but he not back chat to Nany Afya, while I carry big stick, my oh my this mess is dreadful, glad your Mama and Papa are not here to see it”.

Uncle Nat and I laughed about this for a while, before he went to change, and report in to the CO at the base, while I sent a reply in Swahili. “So sorry to hear about troubles with the wildlife, I will plan with Uncle Nat to come back to Tanzania, at the next holidays in August, so we can do some more work with the cottages and garden. Love Simba”.

When Uncle Nat returned sometime later, he was not looking veryhappy. “Apparently the media have set up camp outside the base, waiting to get an interview with you” Uncle Nat informed me.

“Blast, those bloody vultures should be shot, oh by the way can we go back to Tanzania at the next holidays, so we can help Nanny Afya to clean up the garden and anything else that needs doing?” I replied.

“Yes, I see no problem with that, I will clear it with the CO tomorrow, then once it is set, I can start making the travel arrangements” Uncle Nat replied smiling. “Ok, what are you thinking?” I asked, “Well, while we are there, how about we tackle another mountain, this time Mt Kenya, it takes four days return, so it is a fairly short time, but if we take one of the harder routes, to avoid most of the tourists, we can probably do it in three days” Uncle Nat replied.

“That will give us plenty of time to do some work on the property” I commented, “Yes, it will, unless you want to tackle another mountain in the second week of your holidays” Uncle Nat commented, “Well I guess any mountains in Nepal are out of the question” I commented, sounding a little disappointed.

“I am afraid so, you heard what the Embassy officer said to us” Uncle Nat replied.

“What about if we go further away, to Europe maybe?” I suggested, “Are you thinking the Swiss Alps, I hear they can be quite difficult, maybe worse that Thunder Mountain” Uncle Nat commented, “no harm researching the possibilities is it?” I replied.

After nearly two hours of researching, we decided on Shkhara Mountain, which is on the border of Georgia and Russia, as our next conquest, with a 6-hour flight from Nairobi, Kenya to Istanbul, Turkey, and from there a three-hour flight to Tbilisi, Georgia, and an 8-hour drive to the village of Ushguli, where we will stay overnight before starting the three-day return journey, and we agreed to not say anything to anyone about our plans for the next school holidays.

The following day, after escaping from the media, via a back road at the base, I did my 15-minute presentation to the whole school, including video footage and photographs that I had taken, and everyone was amazed that I had done such a dangerous climb. After assembly, the Headmaster said that I can return home and rest, which I was pleased about, but I had to wait till lunch time, till Uncle Nat could pick me up from the nearest train station, to the base.

For the next two months, I studies hard at school, to catch up what I had missed in the first week of the term, made weekly phone calls to my parents in Canada, continued to monitor and protect the Consular General’s son, and in my spare time, I was keeping fit, with workouts in the gym at the base, and at school, in preparation for the two summits, that we would be tackling in the holidays.

There had been one change with the plans, and that was due to political unrest in Georgia, we had to change the second mountain climb, and we selected the mighty Matterhorn in Switzerland as our second climb. Nanny Afya was looking forward to seeing us again, but we would only be staying for 4 days in Tanzania, before flying out to Nairobi, Kenya, to tackle our first climb.

We decided to stay quiet with emails and phone calls, to not attract any media attention, and with Mt Kenya, being a climb that would not require any assistance, we would do the climb on our own. By the time that we arrived at the house, Nanny Afya had fixed up all of the damage caused by the elephants from their last visit, and there was no building damage at all, so during our short stay, we built some bigger and stronger gates, and raised the height of the front fence, so as to discourage any more intrusions by elephants.

After a very sad farewell to Nanny Afya, we flew to Nairobi, and spent a day looking around the capital, and visiting some of the wildlife parks close to the city, before travelling by road to the village of Gitinga, where our trek and climb will begin.

We planned to do the climb in just three days, so that we had enough time to we can get to Switzerland, and get acclimatised to the altitude, and cold weather, before we begin the climb, as there was a huge difference in temperature, between Tanzania and Kenya in Africa, and the Alps in Switzerland.

I was surprised that we managed to get to the summit, early in the morning our second day of the climb, with both of us being quite fit, and with the experience with climbing the other mountains, we sat on top of Mt Kenya, for about an hour, enjoying the view and just relaxing, and we decided to make a move, when we could see a small group of climbers, approaching the summit from a different direction from where we came.

We managed to reach the bottom gate of the national park, shortly after noon the next day, after spending most of the previous day descending the mountain at a good pace, and Uncle Nat had a driver collect us from just below there and drive us to our accommodation in Nairobi.

We had a flight the following day, leaving at 11pm at night, and arriving in Zurich at 9 am the next morning, with a short stop in Frankfurt, Germany. From there we would take a four-hour train ride to Zermatt, which is where we will stay overnight to get accustomed to the temperature and altitude, before making the climb.

When we arrived at our hotel in Zermatt, I saw that I had a text message from Mum. “Hello Son, I had a call from Afya last night, she informed me that you and your uncle have just climbed Mt Kenya, and you are now heading to Europe to climb another mountain. Please don’t do too much, take special care when you are climbing, we are proud of your achievements, and look forward to hearing al about them, when you call next. Love Mum.”

“Nanny Afya told Mum about our climb in Kenya, I am glad now that we didn’t tell her where we are heading next, I think Mum would be a bit frightened if she knew we are about to climb the mighty Matterhorn” I informed Uncle Nat, who just nodded his understanding, before heading for the bathroom.

When he came out of the bathroom, he was not looking to well at all. “Does this mean we are cancelling this climb?” I asked, sounding a little disappointed.

“No, I am sure I will be fine by late tomorrow, we don’t start the climbing till Wednesday, as we are climbing with a small group of six, with us two being the only ones not have climbed the Matterhorn before, and most of it is just hiking, with just the last 4 kilometres, that is actual climbing” Uncle Nat replied.

“Oh, that makes it sound like it isn’t worth attempting it, if most of it is just trail hiking” I commented, “I am sure it will have its challenges, so don’t worry about that nephew” Uncle Nat responded. At lunch time the next day, we met the rest of the group, who were a little surprised at how young I was, until someone mentioned me being the famous lad who climbed Thunder Mountain in North West Canada, then everyone relaxed, knowing they had a celebrity amongst them.

Uncle Nat was still looking off colour and didn’t eat anything, and discussions began about whether it was wise for Uncle Nat to attempt the climb, and eventually he agreed with the majority, that he would not climb, but he asked if I could still climb with them, which they said would be fine.

Early the next day, we began the long hike up the mountain from Zermatt, which takes about 4 hours to complete, instead of taking the easy way of the cable car to Schwarzsee, then the two-hour hike to the last hut, known as Hornli Hut.

This would be our overnight stop before we tackle the ascent to the summit early the next day. When we reached Schwarzsee, I was surprised to see Uncle Nat there waiting for us. “I decided to travel as far up as I can without too much effort and watch your progress from here” Uncle Nat said to me, when we reached him. “I am glad, I felt a bit bad, that you are missing out this climb” I said.

“I have booked into this hotel for three nights, so you can spend a night here after you have completed the climb” Uncle Nat said to me, and I smiled, knowing that he would be watching from as close as possible, while I spend up to 8 hours climbing to the summit and back.

Before leaving Uncle Nat at the hotel, he handed me the Sat phone that he always carries when we are climbing, and I carefully packed it away in my backpack, which has food, water, all weather jacket, extra gloves, and all of my climbing gear, which I put the harness and helmet on, before we left the hotel, even thou it was not really need until tomorrow.

It was two of the other climbers who struggled with the climb, and not me, as I did as the guide instructed and kept to the track for the first part of the climb, then when we were on ropes, I was in the middle of the group, with the guide at the front, and the assistant guide at the rear.

It was quite misty and overcast for most of the climb, so we had to take extra care with where we put our footing, and at one stage, the climber below slipped and nearly went over the edge, which would have sent us over too, until the ropes tighten.

When we reached the summit at about 11am, after 5 hours of difficult climbing, we congratulated each other, and took heaps of photos, and I took some video footage of the 360 degree views of the Swiss Alps, which were incredible, and I made a quick call to Uncle Nat, to let him know that we had reached the summit, and that weather looked like it was coming, so we would only be staying for a short while, to try and beat the weather.

We had just reached the mountain cabin, about a quarter of the way down, when the wind picked up and it began to rain heavily, so we sheltered in the cabin, which has a fireplace and plenty of wood and coal to keep us warm. I was glad that I had packed my bivvy bag, in case we get stuck here for some time, and I gave Uncle Nat a quick call, to let him know that we were in the mountain hut, and we will stay here till the weather clears enough for us to climb back down.

It was going dark the next day before the weather started to clear, and we decided to stay the extra night, and get an early start, even thou most of the group had little or no food left, while I still had some, as I always made sure that I carry extra food, and snacks for any climb that I do, so I shared it with everyone in the group, to keep everyone happy.

We made it back to the hotel before lunch time the next day, and while the rest of the group headed to Zermatt on cable car, I went into the hospital, where Uncle Nat was keeping warm by the fire and reading a book. “Ah good, there you are, I was wondering when the group was going to arrive?” Uncle Nat said when he saw me, and I was pleased that he was looking a lot better.