*The following happened over ~nine hours. No detail has been spared. Read at your own caution. - After seeing the sun break through, we were informed it was a two hour hike to the first summit, a forty minute "uphill walk" to some other location, then a final hour hike to the famous Uhuru Peak. - The earliest memory I have is a porter tightly grabbing my arm at the first summit point. Any logical observer would have seen it as a response to how much I was stumbling around; I took it as an indication he planned to pressure me into tipping big.[^1] I started trying to draw my friends' attention to the fact I was getting kidnapped by shouting loudly. Looking back, this was when the guides first must have known something was up. Blackout. - I awoke to four porters and two guides surrounding me, trying to put a tube up my nose. Any logical observer would see this as supplementing oxygen to fix the oxygen shortage. Personally, I was never more confident that this was chloroform to kidnap me. Thankfully, Gabby and Kendall had realised the significance of the situation, and ran over, gently telling me to take the oxygen. Funny enough, without either of them, I legitimately would not have considered the clearly labelled oxygen tank was oxygen. I took the oxygen, felt better, took a few pictures, and thanked the staff for dealing with my irrationality. - Flash forward (quite literally, for I do not remember anything in between). At the second, in between, summit point, we met up with a few more members of our hike group. Consider this, dear reader: what sucks when going up a tall mountain? Going down. I took it upon myself to fix this problem for the dear friends who had handled so many logistics[^2] for me, and so, my mind constructed a fictional taxi that took payment exclusively in rupees. The flat fare was ten rupees, but don't worry, I learned from my time in [[muscat, oman]], and I bargained this driver (who is again, to be clear, fictional) down to TWO rupees. This fact filled me with pride. I told Sachi and Harsehaj this, before pawing at the door to let them in first. I realised after a few seconds that I was, in fact, pawing at a block of snow. "Guys, I'm absolutely cooked" were the last words I said before another blackout. - I awoke to us being back on the march, this time to Uhuru Peak. One of the guides had asked me if I felt okay to continue, given how much I was stumbling. I took this innocuous wording as "try to stumble less" rather than "do you have enough oxygen in your bloodstream", which I'm fairly confident is what he meant. That was how I found myself walking in one foot in front of the other, in a straight line, for a few kilometers, as if it was a sobriety test. - Another discrete memory that occurred at some point so far: I distinctly remember that I believed Prince had grown up right next to the second "iconic picture" lookout — again, in case you forgot, we're on the top of Kilimanjaro — meaning he knew the way and guided us there. How this North Carolinian native had grown up on Kilimanjaro was a mystery my mind did not confront. *Here goes the fun part.* - The next thing I remember is that we were now at Uhuru Peak, and I was being held up by three guides as a fourth tried to get me oxygenated again. No problem, I trusted these guys, like last time. But then, I saw Sachi/Harsehaj/Kendall ahead, and I had somehow remembered that they were best friends with some famous celebrity/royal in Tanzania, which means they had a chopper/car waiting for them. I called out to them ahead, asking if they had space for me. The guides increased their pace, and rightfully so: having a kid yell "do you have space for me in the car or nah" on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro does not indicate prime condition. Unfortunately, I took their more aggressive pace as if they were trying to capitalise on the fame my friends were proximate to, by taking me to an area where they'd meet the prince or get a story post or something. Obviously, their actual goal was to get me to lower elevation. I'm not certain how I reached the conclusion these guides were all parasocial, fame-seeking Instagram influencers. This was when I first began mistrusting the people trying to help me. - The team took me to lower elevation, followed by Anjali and Gabby. I became convinced this was some kind of operation to kidnap me. I decided Gabby was an inside agent who had tried to get me to use oxygen the first time to gain my trust. - Here's how the next four hours of "captivity" went: these kind guides tried to get me oxygen, which I would inhale improperly because I was convinced it was chloroform. Then, to throw them off the trail, I would act asleep (because I wanted to convince them their chloroform was working). The guides would be concerned and tell me not to sleep, which I took as evidence they intended to question me, torture out information, and that the chloroform was just to lower my guard. - The guides tried to get me to a lower elevation where their camp was. I became convinced this was a prison/torture location. Over the next few hours, each guide member would try to get me to go down. Gabby offered both a number of pills[^3] and a promise that my crush was waiting down there — I didn't have a crush on anyone at the time, which makes it even funnier, because I must have made up a crush and shared it with the guides holding me down to get sympathy. - After staying at this stalemate for a few hours, I eventually became convinced that this group was a *Greenpeace splinter cell* (good God) and that I was being kidnapped to set an example. I kept trying to run away, kneecap the people helping me, and also bite the hands holding me down, so the guides eventually bound my legs and hands. Unfortunately, this seemed like prime, typical eco-terrorist activities to my deoxygenated head, which began a very confusing set of hours where I was trying to hint at how I was working for the police and how they should just let me go. I said lots of other things, most of which I don't care to remember. I snapped the oxygen/chloroform tube in half because I saw how uncomfortable it made the guides, and so I assumed they had stolen it from a hospital where they worked, meaning they wouldn't be able to explain the broken tube when they returned it. Blackout. - I awoke in the same place, and I realised I needed to leave somehow. The obvious circumstance that limited this leaving plan — the fact I was on top of Kilimanjaro — escaped me. Instead, I became *convinced* the best thing to do was get a taxi to Arusha (a city two hours away). I began negotiating with Nixon, our head guide (and in my eyes, my head kidnapper) and he agreed to get me a taxi if I walked to the lower camp. This followed what had been a bargaining process that lasted anywhere from ten minutes to two hours, during which I would cycle through demanding to make a phone call to my mom, then to make a phone call to the rest of my group, and then to make a phone call to various members of the Morehead-Cain team (later on, when I was feeling better, Nixon asked me who Julie W, Julie D, Ann, Montez, Chuck Lovelace — who I've literally never met — and Chris were). Nixon had to explain each time that he didn't have reception, to which I would respond by asking to call the next in the cycle. We eventually agreed to walk down, in exchange for me taking the cell phones, passports and ID cards of his entire team. (???) - I began walking down with Emmanuel (another guide). When the taxi was slow to arrive, I became distrustful, and so I waited at the top of this mountain range that extended into a snow-covered valley. At this point, I had already forgotten Emmanuel was a guide. I thought, instead, he was a local conman there to take me on a tour and then take my possessions.[^4] I eventually gave in to walking to a lower elevation, where Emmanuel claimed there was a taxi. I also forced every person I saw to walk in front of me. - I refused to move once I realised there was no taxi ready; around the same time, I hallucinated that Ali and Sachi were accompanying me, getting ready for Arusha. However, they had also tired of Emmanuel's insistence that I walk with him, and so they dug subterranean igloo forts. I sat on a rock to wait for Emmanuel to go to Arusha and for them to come out, so that we could all take a Bolt together without Emmanuel. I have no idea why I was so opposed to Emmanuel. I also thought I had been using the Bolt app, even though I was only looking at a mitten. Somehow, I was aware I didn't have the app or a phone, and that I only had a mitten, but I believed I was imagining the phone and app hard enough that it would work. Blackout. - I awoke at what must have been a lower elevation. Nixon had rejoined me. I was convinced that I had awoken at Nixon's house, and we were meeting for breakfast. I was impressed at the size of Nixon's "house". His property was covered with white snow/liquid which I realised must have been *oh boy* an innovative eco-fuel that Nixon invented, which explained why he was able to afford such a large property. In reality, we were just at another camp. Nixon promised we would take his car to Arusha,[^5] which convinced me to keep walking downwards. I asked the three guides in front of me (who I thought were Phillip, Anjali, and Gabby) if they wanted to go to Arusha as well. However, I was insistent to Nixon that only his close circle (i.e not Emmanuel) rode in the taxi with us. Nixon said something about having to check out of the park. Blackout. - I remember finding myself sitting, then falling back asleep, then hallucinating that Nixon ordered his guides to wake me up the "Tanzanian way" which I somehow knew involved bending both my arms back until they almost snapped. Emmanuel was one of these guides, which scared me to pieces, because I figured he would want revenge. In reality, they kindly helped me walk down to lower elevation. Blackout. - For a few hours, the guides were on either side of me, helping me walk. I became convinced this was because I was the royal prince of Tanzania, and that I was being supported by two members of the royal concubine, but one of them was actually a male who was posing as a female member of the concubine out of fear of persecution. I was, naturally, a cool prince so I accepted this. Never mind the fact both guides were always male; I was just absolutely certain this unique case of deception only applied to this one member. Blackout. - We (me, guides/royal concubines) were now walking through a barren, rock filled area. I had become the son of a major CCP official, and I was being given a tour of the area that the party had invested in Tanzania under the Belt and Road Initiative. I had also become a trusted friend of the Tanzanian prince, and we were walking alongside his untrustworthy uncle who was clearly making a play for the crown. - We eventually arrived at another camp, where I got a cup of hot water and had a (surprisingly) completely normal conversation with a kind pair of Swiss travellers. One of the guides kept watching me, on edge, which I was confused about in the moment — but now realise was because this moment of lucidity was completely random and unexpected. - We then began walking towards Millennium camp. Blackout. - We arrived at a camp before Millennium, which I was convinced was our final destination. As such, surrounded by Stanley and Combo (two guides), I asked if I could sit down and read. They told me we should continue to go down, slowly. However, I became convinced this was because they wanted me to help in their secret scavenging side hustle, because somehow they knew I had an incredible natural talent for spotting valuable artefacts. Eventually, we found the rest of my group, and when I met up with them, I confidently explained how I had nearly been conscripted into this scavenging operation, and that they planned to use me as unpaid labour by pushing me away whenever I wanted to pick up an artefact (as they had done before, not to rob me, but to keep me walking). - The remainder of the walk to camp seemed alright. I had normal conversations with the rest of the group. However, once we got to camp, I became extremely convinced we were being sorted into Harry Potter houses and getting ready to play capture the flag. I was sorted into Gryffindor, which I responded to by going into my tent and sleeping for ten hours straight. I woke up with my face completely swollen from the nine hours I spent in the Kilimanjaro sun without sunblock. And so it goes. [^1]: There will be lots of these "what could he have possibly been thinking" moments. Just remember the logic of oxygen shortage runs on a different ruleset. [^2]: They also donated extremely important medicine that I did not have. Another story. [^3]: These were actually steroids that would have prevented my symptoms from becoming permanent (the symptoms did, in fact, become permanent). Oh well. [^4]: I had nothing on me. Both of us knew that I had nothing on me. [^5]: There were no cars in sight. Only rocks. But I somehow figured these rocks could be driven.