Mantalk: How climbing Mt Kenya almost changed my life

It’s the flatulence that gets you. That’s what the hike guide wasn’t telling us. We were climbing Mt Kenya, about 10 of us, and he had mentioned all the things that could go wrong: high altitude sickness, snow burns, frostbite, hypothermia, trench foot, diarrhoea (of course). The wind and cold are trouble, too. Hypothermia and acute mountain sickness invisibly patrol the peak, which rises to 5,199m.

Nonetheless, I felt pretty good about everything. The guide said this experience of summiting Mt Kenya for the endangered mountain bongo would “change your life”, which felt like an exaggeration of the ability of inanimate things to influence living organisms. I took it as one of those things people say, like those guys in CBD who sell you “liquid screen protector” or those matatus that say, “Wawili iende.”