The
loose scree gives way to scattered snowdrifts as we near Furtwängler glacier.
Here they are at last: the snows of Kilimanjaro. There’s no real path now. We
pick our way around the rim of the crater, skirting boulders, following
Godlisten’s footprints as he packs down the snow.
“How
you doing?” Godi asks me.
“Kichizi kama ndizi ndani ya friji,” I
reply. He grins. It’s a phrase he taught me: Swahili for cool as a banana in the fridge.
The
sky is striated now, black and grey and yellow and red; the earth hidden
beneath a sea of black clouds below us. We sit for a moment, snap photos that
don’t quite capture the sunrise. The German girls and their guide have fallen
off the back, leaving only three of us: me, Godi, and Alex. I pull my gloves
off, take a couple of grainy pictures of Alex on his phone. My fingers are numb
and clumsy.
“Look,”
calls Godi. We turn, look back towards the eastern horizon. The sun has
surfaced. It casts the ice in bronze, halos our silhouettes. It feels warmer
already.
We’re
less than an hour from the summit.
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