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First African scales Mt Everest
Durban, May 26: A game ranger has become the first African to climb the Mount Everest.
Durban, May 26: A game ranger has become the first African to climb the Mount Everest. Sibusiso Vilane, 32, who has dual South African and Swaziland nationality, was part of an eight-member international jagged globe team that summited the world's highest peak today.
Other members of the team are from the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, United States, Canada, Norway and Mexico.
Vilane is a trainee ranger in the South African province of Mpumulanga, near Swaziland.
"He was crying that he had done it for Africa and its people," SABC radio quoted a South African journalist, Claire Keeton, who was at the base camp in Nepal, and spoke to Vilane immediately after he reached the peak as saying. Vilane had spent two long, hard months at the base camp preparing for the ascent. He was in the Himalaya mountains last year climbing a few smaller of the giant peaks.
His first major ascent of a peak was Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Keeton said Sibusiso's team had spent the last 10 days waiting for a window in the weather. "Their decision to stay higher up on the mountain than the South African expedition led by Alex Harris, has paid off," she said.
Bureau Report
Vilane is a trainee ranger in the South African province of Mpumulanga, near Swaziland.
"He was crying that he had done it for Africa and its people," SABC radio quoted a South African journalist, Claire Keeton, who was at the base camp in Nepal, and spoke to Vilane immediately after he reached the peak as saying. Vilane had spent two long, hard months at the base camp preparing for the ascent. He was in the Himalaya mountains last year climbing a few smaller of the giant peaks.
His first major ascent of a peak was Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Keeton said Sibusiso's team had spent the last 10 days waiting for a window in the weather. "Their decision to stay higher up on the mountain than the South African expedition led by Alex Harris, has paid off," she said.
Bureau Report