WATCH: Saray Khumalo returns home to a hero’s welcome

The first black African woman to climb Everest returned home to Johannesburg on Monday morning and was met by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters, including a brass band.

Khumalo has no intention of slowing down and intends to continue to scale the remaining highest peaks on all the world’s continents, as well as mount expeditions to the north and south poles. She has so far reached four of the seven peaks, explaining at her press conference at OR Tambo International Airport on Monday morning that she was doing it for education and to inspire girl children.

Khumalo encouraged people to pursue their goals because life is short. She thanked the media for the positive coverage, all the support she had received on social media, and her sponsors for believing in her. She also thanked God and others who had made her feat possible, including the sherpas in Tibet.

She says people from her continent must seek “amazing” new challenges to prove they can compete with the best.

“There are many places still, unfortunately if you think about it, that we still haven’t broken through,” Saray Khumalo told AFP in an interview after conquering the world’s highest peak.

The 47-year-old South African business executive reached the summit of the 8,848-metre mountain this month after three previous bids failed.

Although she had not thought about being the first when she reached the top, she now knows “how big a deal it is” for black African women.

“So it is such an honour and a privilege to be the one to actually do it,” said Khumalo, the skin on her face still chapped by Everest’s harsh conditions.

“If you think about it, Everest was first climbed in 1953. It’s taken us how many flipping years for us to be there?

“What an honour in a small way to be that vehicle that says ‘you know let’s level the playing field, let’s have a seat at the table, we can also do this’,” she added.

“Now it is up to us to take it to the next level and I’m hoping someone picks up the baton and does something amazing.”

Khumalo took up climbing after someone asked her about Mount Kilimanjaro while on a visit to the United States.

That motivated her to try Africa’s highest peak, in Tanzania, and Khumalo has not stopped since.

“What has worked in my favour is the learning I have taken from every summit, every interaction with the sherpas and the climbers, and every experience that I’ve had,” she said.

“It’s just confirmed that giving up is never an option because the summit could be just the next step,” she said.

Her first attempt in 2014 was halted when an avalanche killed 16 guides on the slope.

“I was shaken. I was very naive as a climber,” she said. “Knowing what I know today, I shouldn’t have been on the mountain,” she added.

“You sit there and start questioning, some of those people that died had had 15 years experience. Why them and not me, who is just here for the first time?

“You realise it is not your time, so you still have stuff to do, which is why I came back.”

A devastating earthquake cancelled her expedition in 2015, while last year strong winds and frostbite forced her to turn back.

“That made me a lot more cautious this year. It made me realise I can’t take anything for granted. It doesn’t matter how close I am until I get back to base camp.”

Saray Khumalo returns to OR Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, 27 May 2019 after her succesful summit of Mount Everest making her the first black African woman to do so. Picture: Neil McCartney

This year, an Irish professor on her expedition died on Everest.

“When I got to Camp 2 and it was the first time I cried. Somebody said ‘congratulations’ and I didn’t know how to react. Maybe it wasn’t his time, but even knowing that and knowing the risks of the mountain doesn’t make it easy,” she said.

Khumalo, one of seven sisters, said she had made a success of her life because her mother had invested in her education.

“I decided that I am going to climb the seven summits around the world and I’m going to use the climbing to make a difference: build libraries, take children to school.”

Everest was fourth on her list after Mount Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua in Argentina and Mount Elbrus in Russia.

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