Thirteen Formative Years |
 HOLIDAYS – Three hitchhiking holidays: I hitchhiked from Johannesburg to Mt Kilimanjaro together with another 15-year-old Johannesburg schoolboy, Garth Hoets. However, when we arrived in Moshi – near the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro – on 22 December 1959, Garth let it be known that he didn’t want to climb the mountain, but that he wanted to go to Nairobi to see his uncle instead. As a result, we split up at that stage, and Garth and I hitchhiked separately back to Johannesburg. This is a photograph that I took of Mt Kilimanjaro from the plains below it, near Moshi. The peak on the left is Kibo (19,340 feet / 5,895 metres above sea-level), while the peak on the right is Mawenzi (16,890 feet / 5,146 metres). Between Kilimanjaro’s twin peaks is the saddle, which is about 15,000 feet / 4,500 metres above sea-level. Although Garth and I split up in Moshi, I did not attempt to climb Kilimanjaro alone … |