A safari truck came to pick us up on a Sunday morning from our lodgings – I don’t want to call it a hotel, but it also kind of was. Called Ndaza Escape, it’s located in Kinigi, Rwanda. It had three rooms and was really nice.

The safari truck driver took us to the welcome center at the foot of Mount Bisoke where we’d meet our guide and the rest of our group.

This was an act of trust. The Chaplain and I knew the hike would take all day, but we had no idea about the elevation or the level of effort it required, and we hadn’t packed proper mountain climbing clothes. We knew we’d be hiking, but didn’t realize we’d be climbing a volcano.

I wore a long sleeved SPF swim/athletic shirt and a pair of black linen pants with walking sneakers. We rented rain jackets and gaiters at the welcome center for $5 each. We barely used the rain jackets, but I ended up being really glad for the gaiters.After an introduction by the guide and a short (but VERY bumpy) ride to the head of the trail in the safari truck, we started the hike with our group, which included the Chaplain, our host, me, and a father/daughter duo from Chicago.

We were short of breath from the beginning of the climb, which I think starts at an elevation of around 7000 feet. The main guide was accompanied by several helpers and a number of armed guards, who I believe were there to protect us from the wild beasts that live in the mountains.

They led us through the “warm up,” up a stone path through farmland and then to the foot of the trail which led to the jungle. The main guide kept telling us we were still doing the warm up, and I was thinking, if this is the warm up…. crap, crap, crap.Like I’ve mentioned, I’m pretty competitive, and I struck off near the front of the pack and pushed hard. Mountain climbing is incredible because of the way it teaches you about your limits (they’re almost never where you think they are).

Our Chicago friends kept me updated on the elevation in feet (in Rwanda things are measured in meters, and when I’m short on oxygen, I lose the ability to do conversions. Well, honestly, conversions have never been my thing. The lack of oxygen didn’t help, though.)

I have never seen so many signs of animals in my life without actually seeing any animals. We saw water buffalo manure, gorilla poop from 30 minutes ago, and from 2 weeks ago. We saw the plate-sized hoof prints of the buffalo, and the places where something large had cut a path through the greenery. There was animal poop of every type and size all the way up the trail.We’d been hoping to see gorillas while we were there, but paying a guide to see gorillas costs serious cash, and was out of our budget unless we wanted to dip into our savings. We talked about it for days, knowing that really, we couldn’t do it, but not ready to let it go.

The hikers from Chicago had done a gorilla hike the day before, and I was feeling sad knowing we were in the region where gorillas lived, stepping over gorilla poop, but not getting to see any gorillas.I very nearly cried when I reached the top of the mountain, but there were other people up there and I sucked the tears back in. At the summit is a crater lake, and changeable weather that goes from pea soup fog to clear and sunny in less than a minute.I was really apprehensive about going back down. I was afraid if I could see how high up we were that I would panic, and I also know sometimes while climbing up, a trail it doesn’t look so bad. When you’re  going back down, you realize how steep it is. Blessedly, it grew very foggy before we climbed down, and it stayed that way, so I wasn’t being constantly reminded of how high up we were.

I did a full head-over-heels tumble right as we were starting back down the mountain. Let’s say that loosened me up for the rest of the climb (it didn’t, but unintentional tumbling on soft grass is actually kind of fun and it got me down the first 15 feet of the descent very quickly).A guide named John stuck with me, helping me over the super steep spots, showing me where to step, and keeping me focused. He wasn’t really around on the way up – he was helping one of the other hikers, and I was fine on my own. I think after he saw me tumble, he decided I was going to need a hand on the way down, and so he shared his time between me and another hiker. By that time, I was pretty tired and shaky, so I was grateful for the help.

The fog didn’t break until we were well on our way down the mountain, and by that time, the guides were actively talking to each other in Kinyarwanda. I asked John what they were saying, but he just said not to worry about it and refused to translate.We started picking up speed.

I wasn’t close enough to our host to ask for a translation, although I was sure he would know what was going on. We just kept hurrying down the mountainside. The whole time I was exhausted and wondering why we were going so fast. The trail was muddy and treacherous, and rushing it wasn’t helping.

Finally, we reached the bottom third of the climb, and headed down a different path than the one we’d gone up on. As we reached a section of the trail that was fairly flat, the guides were suddenly pointing into the greenery to our left and jostling me over to the edge of the trail, fingers jabbing sharply into my elbow joints as they muscled me to the side.There, in the mountain forest, were a band of silverback gorillas. These gorillas aren’t in zoos because they don’t survive in captivity. Several adults lay in the tall foliage, hairy arms reaching up to pull down bits they wanted to eat.

A baby sat perched in a tree with its mother sitting beneath it (you might be able to see the baby, a black blob in the tree just above the foreground foliage in the photo above). And an enormous male gave us a view of his fantastic, silver back.I had my phone in one hand, and my camera in the other, but I had the short range lens attached to the camera, and the gorillas were almost completely covered by greenery. I could see them with my eyes, but every attempt to capture it on film was either blurry or just a field of green.

Eventually, we left the gorillas and continued down the rest of the trail. After seeing the gorillas, the remaining hike felt interminable. While the trail down the mountain took us back to the same parking lot where we’d started, it wound around to the side. I was exhausted, which probably warped my perception of the distance, but it was also longer on the way down.

Our host told us the fields of flowers we walked through at the foot of the volcano are used to make insecticide.Back at the hotel, covered in mud and exhausted, I ordered a fruit smoothie. It came, heavy on the strawberry and with chocolate syrup in it. Normally, I wouldn’t want chocolate in my smoothie, but this one was perfection. It was just what I needed. It was so good I ordered a second one later with dinner, but it just wasn’t the same. Well, the smoothie was probably the same, but nothing is quite like the first thing you eat after you climb a mountain.

Yes. I climbed a mountain! According to our Chicago friends, it took 32,000 steps, about 7 hours, and we summited at an elevation of 12,175 feet. After not quite making it to the top of Mount Hood, I felt vindicated.

I may not have been ready, but I pushed through and did it, and that is an amazing feeling.