A Change in Altitude – by Sheila

A friend recently asked me if I had read an Anita Shreve book about Kilimanjaro.  She said it was called “A Change in Altitude”.  I am quite a fan of Shreve and said I did remember reading a book about people climbing a mountain – and someone falling to their death – but had not remembered that it was Kilimanjaro.  It gave me quite a turn, as I remembered that in the story, the climbers had all been clipped together on to a rope, but a woman unclipped herself on a glacier and slipped off the edge of it.

I therefore went hot-footing off to the local Catching Lives charity bookshop to see if they had a copy, so I could check out whether I was remembering it correctly.  The bookshop is one one of the oldest building in Canterbury – 16th century, I think.  It was built as a private house, but served many different purposes over the years.  In 1925 it was a tea shop: I love this old picture which advertises its “wireless music”.  I guess that was as essential then as wi-fi would be in a cafe today!  Subsequently it was the shop for the prestigious Kings School – that’s where they bought their uniform – and now it is a great charity book shop, raising money to help get homeless Canterbury people back on track.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of the novel in question, so I have been able to see whether my memory was right or not.  Well, mine was, but my friend’s was a bit faulty: the woman does indeed fall off the mountain – but off Mount Kenya, not Kilimanjaro!  Mount Kenya is not as high as Kili, but much more precipitous.  I was thrilled to read the following in the book:

‘So Kilimanjaro is higher?’ Margaret asked.

‘Higher, but easier.  I think you simply walk to the top.  In large circles.  It takes a while, but most amateurs can handle it.  It’s supposed to be fairly boring.’

Boring will do me very nicely: getting tied together with ropes and slipping off a glacier isn’t what I had planned for August.  What did surprise me in the book was the quantity of “meds” the group thought necessary to take on the three day trek up Mount Kenya.  They list ‘Aspirin for fever and headache, ibuprofen for muscle aches, paracetamol for colds, Diamox as a prophytactic for AMS (acute mountain sickness) Immodium to stop you up if you get the runs, oil of cloves for dental use, and water purification tablets.’  They also add in ‘oral rehydration salts for replacement of fluids, and the Nytol for sleeping, of course.’  I dare say I may take some of those, but it is very nice to know that I am doing the trip with a solid organisation like Exodus, whose leaders no doubt carry most of that and more.

However, rereading the novel has raised another “nasty”!  I thought I had it covered mentally by preparing for the possibility of leopards, rats and big scary birds.  I didn’t know about fire ants!  There is a scene in which one of the women stands in a nest of fire ants and within seconds she has dozens of bites “as if she were being pricked hard by needles…… She felt as though she were being assaulted by Africa itself, the ground rising up to sting her to death…..There were dozens of trails of the red ants, some of which Margaret could see through the nylon of her underpants.  She tried to fetch them out, but then realized that would take too long.  She pulled the underwear down and ran away from it.  After that, her blouse, her bra”.  So the risk of being Naked on the Mountain rears its ugly head yet again: see the blog of 24th of February for another such possibility.  At least I know what to watch out for now, I suppose.

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Note from Jae: I was reading A Change in Altitude when I got offered the job at Exodus last year. I remember being chuffed to bits, and then thinking, “I won’t ever need to climb a high, scary mountain like Mt Kenya will I?  No – they do lots of other types of amazing adventure travel”! And here I am absolutely loving that I’m taking on a big challenge with my Ma and lovely Oscar – few people find themselves lucky enough to be able to attempt something so fantastic with both the generation above, and that below. I feel very privileged (and just a bit scared!). I won’t bother reading it again for a while.