Zanzibar

Zanzibar, a place full of spice, culture, history and a whole lot of haggling.

 

 

 

Aching almost everywhere, but feeling refreshed after what must have been the best sleep of the whole trip so far, we sat down to enjoy our final breakfast at Outpost Lodge, which had now become our home away from home. Today we were to leave mainland Tanzania, and fly from Arusha airport to Zanzibar, and island just off of the mainland. During our transfer to the airport, we were joined by two other brits who now lived in Abu Dhabi and had also just completed Kilimanjaro. Their names were Robin and Anne. We found we had a lot in common with Robin who had also walked the Pennine Way, and Pembrokeshire coast path back in the UK, which gave us sufficient conversation to last us up until boarding our flight. Anne was going to fly to Zanzibar to stay for a few days, whilst Robin was going to fly home. 

 

I was extremely happy to see our plane rock up, a twin engine propellor plane, although it had too few scuffs and dents for my liking, mainly because of the false images films set in Africa had portrayed. The flight was quick and lacked in scenery, reminding me and Dad that we had made the right decision to cross from Dar Es Salaam to Arusha by bus allowing to see much of the country. We then collected our luggage- after swapping bags with another passenger who had the same rucksack as me. At this point we remembered we had nowhere to stay, just as well hotels were advertised on large billboards around the tiny airport. Dad rang up Mtoni Marine hotel, with a simple reason which was the size of its pool. Fifty or so men managed to share the weight of two rucksacks between them, and carry our bags over to a taxi. This was the ugly part, where you haggled with around Fifty men to see who would give you the best price for a lift. 

 

I think it’s fair to say that Mtoni Marine was way out of our league, we had been camping for the past two weeks (okay, sort of camping), and now we were staying in a 5* Zanzibar hotel, a place where many honeymoon couples would chose to stay. This became even more apparent when we discovered that the maid had covered our beds in petals.. Off to the infinity pool for a day of nothing it was, with food and ice cold drinks being delivered to us at regular intervals, with a view overlooking the Indian Ocean. That evening we met up with Anne in Stone Town and had a meal with her, at a traditional fish restaurant, where you found incredibly friendly cats would try to nick your fish. 1000 bones later, we retired back to our hotel. 

 

The next day, after having breakfast beach side, we made our way into Stone Town, a world heritage site. One of the main reasons Dad wanted to come to Zanzibar was for the scuba diving, so we went to One Ocean dive centre to find out about PADI courses and diving trips. Following this we visited the beach, where a man named Halau bombarded us with ‘Very good’ and ‘Brit price’ tour of Stone Town. $30 later, we started our tour. Stone Town is a place with a rich History, deep culture and outstanding architecture. The first building we saw was the old British consulate which was where Dr. Livingstone’s body was kept after he had died when the body was being transported back to the UK in the late 1800’s. We then visited a Portugese fortress, which was originally an Arab fortress taken my the Portugese. The house of wonders followed this, the first residence in all of eastern Africa to have electricity, clean running water and a lift, along with being the tallest building in Eastern Africa for many years (three storeys). We visited the local butchers, which I can tell you would have made most people feel queazy. Halau also showed us the house where Freddie Mercury once lived as a child, learn something new everyday. We made a stop on the way back to the hotel to buy some fruit to offset the amount of burgers we were eating. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day three. We got a taxi to the dive centre, where I then waved by to Dad as he was going on a dive trip for the day, and I was to stay at the dive centre to begin my ‘Diving Theory’ lessons. The day was spent watching hours upon hours of video which contained everything you can imagine about diving. I enjoyed my lunch of pringles on the beach. More videos followed, finally I was now able to take my test. Luckily I passed the test with flying colours- 95%, which meant that I could begin my practical training the day after. Dad arrived at the dive centre after a day of underwater exploration, to the hotel we went, spending the rest of the afternoon at the pool after a productive morning. 

 

 

 

Pool skills or should I say ‘Poor skills’. I first proved that I could actually swim to Faridu, my instructor, which was amusing, and then suited up ready to delve into the depths of the Tembo Hotel swimming pool, a frightening maximum depth of three metres.. I was showed how to set up my air tank, attach it to my BCD, and we were off. A lot of gesticulating goes on during diving lessons, thats one thing that I learnt, a kind of underwater language. I practised mask clearing, emergency accent and getting the balance of air right in my BCD so I wouldn’t constantly be bobbing up and down in the water. Pool skills complete, I strolled around Stone Town and waited for Dad to finish. One memorable occasion from the trip was one evening when I was walking back to my room from the pool. Dad did his usual rude gesticulation from the balcony, as I headed up the stairs to the room. Having walked in and closed the door, I realised it wasn’t at all my room. The man who was sitting on a chair inside the room had a facial expression which couldn’t have looked any more shocked. So I apologised and walked out, smooth is my middle name. This event followed by much laughter from my Dad and I who found it hilarious. That evening we decided to stay at the hotel for dinner, and found a restaurant on the complex which had tables on the beach, we couldn’t ignore the opportunity. Candle lit beach dinner.. with my Dad, another Tik off the list. 

 

 

Finally I was now experienced enough to take my first plunge into the Ocean, which in many ways was a daunting yet exciting prospect. We boarded the large wooden boat, and began our small voyage to Pemba Island over choppy seas. I was to complete the same skills as I did in the pool, only this time much deeper and in the Ocean. So we jumped in, and I started my descent which cause my ears to pop (called equalising), and headed towards the coral reef. An array of fish of all different kinds could be seen, and after reaching a sandy patch at around 12 metres, we started my tasks. The one which I found was most interesting was mask clearing. I wear contact lenses, so when I took my mask off under water I had to keep my eyes closed until I’d correctly put them back on and cleared my mask, and received a tap from Faridu to indicate all the water was out of my mask and it was okay to open my eyes. The contact lenses I wore had lasted me the whole trip, they had done me proud. 

 

Lunch was brilliant, and variety of exotic fruit with some strange pastry type things. Dive two, the same stuff however in a different location. The day had been good fun, and now I was getting the hang of diving, I was excited for the next day. 

 

Since it was overcast, and not prime sunbathing weather, we decided we should see some of the Island. We used the same taxi driver as we had used the whole time we were there, and drive to the other side of the island, to a beach called Page. Whether this was the best beach in Zanzibar, or it’s location which just so happened to be close to some of our taxi drivers family, it was still incredibly picturesque. No tourists in sight, we stood on a massive sandy beach with sand almost like liquid it was that fine. We played with a couple of dogs, one which was missing a leg, then went to a beachside restaurant, which clearly was not open, or had been open for some years. This did not stop the owner from making us a meal however, so about two hours later once they had been to the shop, and cooked, we were served with some of the best food yet. I had seafood carbonara, with a healthy amount of Octopus tentacles in it. We watched children climb palm trees to chop down coconuts. Zanzibar should not be missed out if you ever consider journeying to Eastern Africa, it’ll impress even those who are well travelled and feel they have seen everything there is to see, possibly because of the slice of chaos you receive with each new experience, or possibly because it really is an amazing place. 

 

We finished our meals, and were briefly shown around some of the accommodation the owner had to offer. We were amazed,  for only $40 a night you could have a hut with two beds in it, which was a fraction of the price of where we were staying. Of course this did come with the non-optional extra of the hut being mildew fragranced. The reckless journey back to hotel begun, a free for all between pedestrians, cyclist and cars in the pitch black of the early evening. What made it even more fun was that our taxi didn’t have a working speedometer, only one headlight and a wonky steering wheel, which was constantly angled at 2 o’clock to keep a straight course. Good evening entertainment, slept well that night. 

 

The final day of diving. We headed over to the dive centre, after collecting 400,000 shillings from the bank, and began our boat ride out to sea. Today the boat was full. The first dive I did, i had to do a ‘singing accent’ from six metres, which is practise for an event such as your air running out. As you ascend, air expands due to pressure, hence having to ‘sing’ as you re-surface to expel this extra air. The second dive, I did surface orientation which meant I used a compass to navigate. All went well, so we started to explore. We followed a coral ridge down to a wreck which was 109 years old, a ship called ‘The Great Northern’. This fun to explore, dodging old tangled fuselage and swimming through arcs in the coral. We hauled ourselves out of the Ocean for the last time, Faridu congratulated me for passing my Open Water PADI diving course, and we headed for shore. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dawn of our final day in Africa, a sad one because leaving here only meant going back to ‘real life’, a pain that everyone feels and knows all too well. We stuffed ourselves at breakfast, and packed. We wanted to leave a few items behind, along with any Tanzanian shillings we had left to the maid who had amused us for the entire time we had been there, with exorcist type sprayings of the room with DEET each night, and increasing quantity of petals on our beds each day. We had to write a letter to confirm she had not stolen the money or the items, only proving the poverty faced my many unfortunate people in Tanzania. At five in the evening, we caught a taxi to the airport where we would fly to Dar Es salaam in order to catch our next flight at 03:25am the next morning, to get us back to the UK. 

 

The ‘African Adventure’ I’ve been writing about in the previous 3 entries enlightened me to different cultures, educated me about wildlife and gave me the opportunity to conquer Africa’s continent; it also changed my perception of this area of the world. 

 

Hope you enjoyed the four episodes which complete the ‘African Adventure’ series.

 

Thanks for reading!

Climbing Ol Doinyo Lengai

Adventure is just bad planning.

If there was anything that I learnt from climbing Ol Doinyo Lengai, it’s that the five minutes it takes to read a review on tripadviser, are possibly the five most critical minutes of your entire life. Perhaps I’m wrong, because if I had read the reviews on tripadviser about Ol Doinyo Lengai, me and my Dad would never have even contemplated looking at it, let alone setting foot on it. This is exactly why I have found that the less planning you do, the more adventure you encounter, or maybe that’s just an excuse for my ‘can’t be bothered’ attitude..

After an all too brief sleep, we awoke at 12:00am. Packing the bare minimum into our day rucksacks, we traipsed over to the small open air bar which still had people enjoying their evening, whilst we sat and drank goats milk coffee for breakfast. The reality of what we were about to do still hadn’t sunk in, mainly because we still hadn’t actually been told what to expect. We left the bar, with staff calling out ‘Goodluck!’ to us as we passed. Goodluck?! anything worthy of a ‘Goodluck!’ was surely something to worry about.

In the darkness of the early morning, our Landy was finally put to the test as we began driving over dried up river beds with sharp river cliffs, eroded by fast flowing water during the rainy season, and over thick Marram like grass. Our guide (Dennis..) was from the village along from where we were staying, a member of the local tribe, usually dressed in what seemed like the bare minimum, he was now wearing his hiking gear. Quite a transformation. He sped off at lightening speeds, apparently my Dads talk on the way about how he wanted to go ‘Pole Pole’ (pronounced Pol-ee Pol-ee) which means slowly slowly, had no affect. So we walked, with an incredible view of the stars once again, it was hard not to feel slightly jubilant.

The people standing on the crater rim on the far left give an indication of size

 

No actually i take that back, what a stupid thing to say. By this point we were about two hours in, and we were beginning to realise that this wasn’t any walk in a park. Knees hurt? check. Calves on fire? check. Hamstrings ready to give way? absolutely. If you visualise a volcano for a second, what do you see? I reckon you see a slow but gradually increasing slope, in a cone like shape. It was this image that only made me more aware of what was to come, it was only going to get steeper.

looking good

At around 04:00am, we had accepted our fate, and that we were to be swallowed up by hell fire, which was an all too pleasant prospect at this particular stage of our climb. Now on all fours, we scrambled up the slope, clinging on for dear life, only to find that half of what we held on to simply disintegrated into thin air when we grabbed it. Dennis turned around and shouted ‘Almost halfway there!’. You must be joking, I thought we were at least three quarters of the way there by now!

For some reason me and Dad carried on, it became steeper and steeper and we became more drained of energy. This was the point that other groups of climbers joined our petty attempt to reach the summit of this colossal volcano, standing 10,000 feet above its surroundings. The grey ash now gave way to a white substance that covered everything, clinged to everything. In true volcanic style, sulphur vents started appearing around us, emitting pungent sulphur gas which smelt almost as vile as the out of date goats milk we used in our tea. The ground we hung on to felt warm in areas. We were close now, thank god.

The gradient decreased, and for once I could stretch my back and stand up properly. I was becoming very nervous however. I did have a fear of heights before climbing this monstrous volcano, I reiterate ‘did’, because I conquered the fear on this terrible day in July. Still in the darkness we walked along the rim of the crater which lead to a fiery death on one side and a free fall style death on the other. Dennis told us to rest for a while and wait for the sun to rise. He did forget to mention that it was to take an hour for the sun to rise, which left me and dad standing in skimpy clothing in freezing temperatures, not knowing exactly how to take this piece of information. I was slightly more fortunate as i had packed some gloves and a waterproof coat, so put them on, still frozen however. Dad being the most organised of us both, was in shorts and had brought no gloves. I laid down and went to sleep for an hour, on top of an active volcano, feet away from roaring lava. Dad paced up and down the crater rim for an hour in an attempt to offset hypothermia.

When I woke, the view was unbelievable. We could see miles over the great African Rift Valley, with steep valley sides and the remnants of the old crater rim which was blown apart in 2007. Now we could see into the volcano, and could also see how steep the path downwards was.. the same path we were about to use.

So we began our descent, inch by inch. The terrified expression on my face wasn’t just because of my fear of heights, it was because I was human, most people who are normal would have had a similar expression. Half sliding half falling we gradually made our way down the volcano. This was the most painful thing I had done so far, and I can honestly say that this was harder than climbing Kilimanjaro. People behind us, and much higher up accidentally dislodged rocks which would come tumbling down, barely missing you. The danger of this descend became more real when a lady in another group stumbled and rolled down the mountain side a few metres. The ground was made up of scree, and we continuously fell over, gaining some impressive looking scratches.

Dad won the clumsiness challenge as he fell over more often, and when he did fall often drew blood. It was now about 10:00am and we had been walking for many hours, we were shagged. We weren’t laughing when we fell over after this point, swear words were flying around all over the place. The ash was unforgivable, churned up constantly by the action of ‘scree surfing’, it worked its way into your nostrils, eyes and ears. Me, being a person that wears contact lenses can vouch for the volcano, if it were to ever boast about its brilliant capability of causing near blindness. It got to the point where I had to stop and remove my contacts and put on glasses, you’ve been warned.

On the way down, Steep.

With the end now in sight, and the land becoming less unforgiving, I marched as fast as I could towards Landy, laving a man behind. I reached the Landy and collapsed into a mess on the seats, what a brilliant experience that had been. Although this climb was the new hardest thing I had ever done, not for one second did I or my Dad regret doing it, and besides, it makes for a good story.

Thanks for reading!

My next blog will be the finale to the ‘African Adventure’

Safari

Sticking to my Dad’s terms and conditions, a week long safari was on the cards, not exactly the typical kind of terms and conditions..

After a much needed sleep in a real bed, we decided that it was best to use our day before the safari to look around Arusha. This is one of the most bustling towns in Tanzania due to the scary amount of climbers, ready to embark on their Mount Kilimanjaro trek or for those climbers even more prepared, a practise climb up Mount Meru which is on the outskirts of Arusha. Me and Dad met up with another member from our climb who was also staying an extra day to have a tour of Arusha by one of our Kilimanjaro guides- Felix. To cut things short, the day consisted of flight booking (for our Zanzibar part of the holiday), along with various extra ‘guides’ joining our tour who were looking for a tip- friends of Felix. We also had an eye opening trip to the local butchers. I’d have to say that the highlight of this day was haggling my way around the Maasai market, where I eventually found myself buying a very dangerous looking spear, Gatwick should have enjoyed that.

The evening was spent once again stuffing ourselves with the most unhealthy foods we could lay our hands on, followed by a peculiar group of gymnasts turning up from nowhere only to jump through fire rings and do various other dangerous stunts before leaving again. Goodnight.

Being the true hardy Brits that me and Dad were, we decided that it’d be best to upgrade from camping safari to semi-luxury camping safari. Clearly the Kilimanjaro part of the trip had removed the novel side to camping. We lugged our various bags over to where we were to meet our safari guide, only to be greeted once again by a gleaming smile. Reggie our guide. We didn’t really know what to expect from our safari, we weren’t sure whether we would be joining part of a group like on the Kilimanjaro trek or not. It turned out that we weren’t joining a group, and that I had the pleasure of just Reggie and Dads company for the next week..

The first national park that we went to was called Lake Manyara, where we saw our first wild animals. It seemed strange that after watching countless re-runs of David Attenborough’s ‘Africa’ T.V series, that seeing a Giraffe or Zebra for the first time in the wild still left you pretty speechless. In the short few hours we were there, we saw various animals- Giraffe, Zebra, black faced Monkeys, Baboons, Hippos, Warthogs, Gazelle, Impala, Flamingos, Buffalo and Elephants. We then had a long drive ahead of us which would take us just beyond Reggies home village- Ngiapanda (means junction in Swahili, why? because it’s built on a junction.. This is Africa after all)

Tonights camp was called Tindiga (dry bush in Swahili). We made a quick call to the UK to speak to family, which was somewhat surreal as we were sitting in the savannah surrounded by cacti and Masaaii men with spears. I guess this just shows the effect of technology on the world and it’s affect upon developing countries, as it wasn’t just us with mobiles, it was everyone we met in Africa including many of the tribesmen. Walking towards our tent, me and Dad couldn’t help but laugh when we saw where we were to be sleeping, when they said luxury camping, we didn’t expect a tent the size of a small home. After finding our way through the pitch black of the night towards the very dimly lit restaurant tent, we were surprised to have a very nice meal. Bed.

Day two of the safari. We got up especially early this day because we were going to meet a tribe and go on a hunt with them along with learning some survival skills. Arriving at a very remote area, we caught a glimpse of a few tribesmen through the trees, from there on we basically chased them through thorny bushes stopping only very few times for our guide to make us chew on some tree bark or seeds. Around an hour later the tribe successfully killed a deer, and almost immediately lit a fire to cook their breakfast on, this was where they put our skills to the test, and made us use a long stick to create enough friction and heat to light a fire. Failing miserably to create any sort of ember, but succeeding in humouring the tribesmen, we carried on watching them cook, of course whilst they passed around a joint.

This experience was followed by some archery practise, where Dad somehow managed to hit the target much to everyones surprise, and after some trumpet blowing we got back into the jeep. We travelled to another small village where we sat in a hut mostly made from dung and talked to a local women about how she mills the wheat to make bread, then we went and watched a skilled blacksmith make an arrow tip of our choice out of a simple nail he had found on the floor beside the road. Quite amazing to see, and only added to our collection of questionable items which we would be flying home with.

We both discovered that we had picked up the jammy skill of being able to read even when the roads were so bumpy that most cars would only last ten minutes until their suspension packed in. Just as well, because we also found that a large part of the safari was spent merely driving from park to park. We were Serengeti bound though, we didn’t mind. The rare stops that we took between destinations we particularly enjoyed, mainly because we were clearly out of place.. An ongoing joke we had was that people would dress all in khaki coloured clothing with typical ‘explorer hats’ to look as camouflaged with their surroundings as possible to get as close up the wildlife as they could. One problem with this, they were sneaking up in gargantuan vehicles that were close to deafening.. Me and Dad stuck to wearing normal clothes. Another activity that kept us amused was getting reggie to over take other Land Rovers that had tourists heads peeping out, only to see them recede back into their vehicle after receiving a face full of dust and sand. We did compensate for this, being the kind gents that we were, by squirting water at them when passing instead, also giving us an equal amount of laughs.

The Serengeti was out of this world, you’d never expect to see such a place, and cannot even imagine what it’d be like to visit here until you’ve done exactly that. Later we arrived at our Serengeti ‘camp’. Like usual we were quickly bombarded with refreshments,  and after guzzling them down we were shown to our home for the next two nights. There’s no denying how lucky I was on this trip, spending evenings overlooking the Serengeti plains, watching the distant sun set behind the silhouettes of Zebra and Giraffe, for anyone that has a safari on their ‘Tik List’ I recommend you get that one ticked off as soon as you can, after all who knows how long it’ll be until these areas in Africa will become fully commercialised, and the Serengeti will be more of a zoo then a natural habitat.

The next day was spent driving around the Serengeti, a very successful day it was. The morning began by taking a look at the Hippo pool, where no less than thirty Hippos bathed in the smelliest and dirtiest looking water I have ever seen. Regardless, they were content animals and it made for peaceful viewing even though we knew all too well that if we were in amongst them it’d probably mean almost certain death. But that’s nature. They reminded me of the BBC advert that used to play quite frequently, funny creatures really. We carried on deeper into the heart of the Serengeti, reciting back the names of animals when we saw them to impress Reggie, although most of the time we were probably wrong. One other thing you learn on safari is that a build up of vehicles only means the presence of some type of rare species, mainly a cat. No not a house cat, I know you thought that for a split second though.

Spot the crocodile..

One particular backlog of traffic was for a sleeping Leopard in a tree, with its long snake like tail swaying in the breeze. It didn’t move the entire day, and I thought I was lazy. The best part of the day was when Reggie spotted a lion in the distance coming towards us. We were alone on the road, we had the lion to ourselves. It moved closer and closer.. until it was within three metres of us where it walked by us with a placid look on its face and a rather large looking belly.. luckily. Just as well it didn’t pay too much interest as our Landy could no longer start on its own, always needing to ask for a push. One weird phenomena we couldn’t really explain was the presence of rather large ‘whirlwinds’ that looked like a small hurricane, we saw these regularly. Later on we came across a large group of elephants, twenty of them or so. The baby Elephants were very sweet it has to be said, they crossed in front of our Landy giving me the prime opportunity to take a picture of their impression of the Abbey Road crossing. Elephants became my favourite animal to see, they looked happy almost all of the time.

One of The Beatles are missing..

We headed back to camp with the evening sun on our shoulders and our heads popped out of the top of the 4×4, soaking in one of the great natural wonders of the world. After having a shower in the en-suite bathroom, I sat and watched the sunset. We then wound our way around the maze like paths to the restaurant, which we decided would be far too hard to follow in the dark after dinner. The restaurant at this camp like most camps was pretty incredible, the wooden structure held in place the heavy canvas which had lights dangling down from it lighting up the numerous tables and chairs below. It was more like a restaurant you would expect in the UK than in the middle of a savannah. We finished our three course meal (with the common starter of pumpkin soup, which varied in taste and texture at each place we stayed) and walked outside after picking up our phones and camera that were on charge. We knew a far more direct way to get to our tent, which was not along a path, but followed the border between the neatly trimmed grass of the camp and the rough grass of the Serengeti plains. With head torches we began walking. It didn’t really occur to us that walking in the pitch black of the wilderness in the Serengeti, with no protection from wild animals like Lions and highly venomous snakes was actually rather dangerous. It only occurred to us when a guard armed with a huge automatic shotgun came running after us, ushering us towards the path, only to ‘guard’ us back to our tent. Oops. During the short walk back to the tent, we tried to persuade the guard to let us hold his gun, and only after allowing us to feel its weight were we fully satisfied campers. Ear plugs in (to drown out the sound of Elephants) I went to sleep.

Warthog

A lioness jumped into the tree

We had an early breakfast and headed for Ngorongoro Crater National Park, the crater rim itself was so high that clouds toppled over its edges creating quite an amazing spectacle. Dad wouldn’t stop taking his terribly focussed pictures of this. The crater is 19km wide and is home to 30,000 mammals, loads of Wildebeest, Buffalo, Lions and Flamingos. We went for an early morning game drive, seeing the usual suspects. That was until we saw a few vehicles lined up along the side of a narrow mud track. After some swapping of information- as the guides to- Reggie confirmed that there was a Lioness stalking a weak looking  Buffalo. We watched through the binoculars at the Lioness crawling slowly through the grass upon the unsuspecting beast, sometimes disappearing and reappearing a few metres ahead of its previous position. This lasted a long time, and eventually we got bored when the Buffalo rejoined its heard. By now there must have been around a hundred Jeeps and Land Rovers al along a single track road, it was crazy! The park warden had obviously been called in, because they were patrolling the road looking for any vehicles that were on the grass either side of the dirt track, so that they could fine them- we found they were very strict on this. The irony is of course, that the warden himself was driving in the area which he was fining people for driving in.. We eventually left the crowd.

Clouds coming over the rim of Ngorongoro crater

Ngorongoro crater

Later on that day as we were heading to the switch backs which would take us to the top of the Crater rim, we spotted three male lions all together walking toward the road. We stopped getting the prize position again. They came closer, and eventually were walking beside us in the shade of the Landy, we followed them up the road, with a hundred jeeps tailing us. I was  surprised at how unfazed they were by us humans, especially those who were squealing with excitement and hanging all parts of their body out of their vehicles just to get a better picture- rather keep my arm thanks.

We moved on, sticking to Reggie’s tight schedule, we needed to travel many more hours from here to get to our next camp, Lake Natron. This camp was incredibly rustic, and for once didn’t feel as commercialised as the others, maybe because we were no longer in safari land but on the volcanic plains of Ol Doinyo Lengai, one of, if not the most active volcano in Africa erupting last in 2007. The funniest thing was, we were going to climb it.

Ol Doinyo Lengai.. We were to climb this the day after taking this picture.

Outside shower

Children who were from a local tribe watched us from the boundary of the camp the whole time we were in or around our tent, their version of T.V. After having a rather cold shower in the outside shower which the Masaii receptionist had been so excited to show me, we walked over to the restaurant.

The tribesmen did a demonstration, in quite a comical way, of how to make fire using dung whilst we enjoyed a cup of tea with goats milk in it.. Quite a common occurrence now. Early night, as we were to awake at 11p.m, ready to have a coffee and begin our climb up the second volcano of the trip. This was to be the last day of safari, and didn’t actually include any ‘safarying’ in it. The climb was also special, and an adventure of its own, and you could argue that it was to be a separate ‘Tik’, so I’ll be writing about that day in my next blog post.

Thanks for reading!

P.S sorry about any grammatical errors].

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

There aren’t many eighteen year olds that can say they have climbed the highest free standing mountain in the world, but that’s exactly what I can do, and believe me I know how lucky that makes me.

Many people dream of one day tackling the slopes of this colossal volcano to reach the summit and say they have conquered the African continent, many have it written down on a scrap of paper which they call their bucket list. The fact is that in my case It was an accidental adventure. Originally I had intended on travelling to Tanzania to work in a hospital and get some medical work experience after deciding I wanted to go and study medicine at university. Whilst I was researching this medical work experience, it occurred to me that it’d be rude not to climb Mount Kilimanjaro after doing my part to reduce my carbon footprint and fly all the way to East Africa. As most A-level students will understand however, achieving the grades that you require for University is not as simple as it may have seemed whilst you were doing your GCSE’s.. So after miserably failing to attain the grades I needed in my first year of sixth form, I decided to let the idea of studying medicine go. The idea of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro did not leave my mind quite so easily, and after researching this ridiculous idea more thoroughly thought that it was only right to try and get my dad in on the act. Surprisingly he didn’t take as much persuasion as I thought he would, his only terms were that I was the one to find a company to go on this expedition with and that we must stay an extra two weeks in Tanzania post-Kilimanjaro to explore. 

Internet search internet search internet search internet search internet search internet search internet search coffee internet search internet search internet search.. Trip is now planned, finally!

We boarded our Turkish airlines flight which would take us to Istanbul where we would take our connection flight to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. From Dar Es Salaam we needed to get to Arusha, a town located on the lower plains of Mount Kilimanjaro four hundred miles away. Armed with bum bags and inadequate knowledge we took a taxi to the ‘bus depot’ to discover around a thousand coaches with their wheels precariously balanced on giant pot holes. Before we could get out of the taxi, and enormous man had already taken our bags out of the boot and began walking towards one of the coaches. Welcome to Africa. This was the one point during our trip in Tanzania we genuinely felt slightly nervous as we had absolutely no knowledge on how to get to Arusha, and felt incredibly vulnerable being the only two tourists in the pitch black of the early morning hours. The enormous man lead us to a coach which was apparently departing for Arusha at 6:00am in two hours time. It turned out that he was a Manchester United supporter, this went down well with me and dad and took away some of our initial nerves of being entirely foreign. Being over 6ft tall, a major lack in leg room was inevitable which was a painful thought as we had a 12 hour coach journey ahead of us. 12 hours later with one stop and dehydration setting in we arrived in Arusha, to our dismay after almost convincing ourselves we would never get to the right town. Looking back on this section of our ‘Tanzanian Adventure’ I would recommend without any hesitation that anyone considering taking this 12 hour coach ride to Arusha should do so. 

A view out of the front of our coach

After only just arriving at our hotel on time, the Outpost Lodge, we were ushered to our room where we found two single beds caped by giant mosquito nets,  a basic shower and bamboo furnishings. After having ten minutes to settle in, we received a knock on our door, Jonas. Jonas was to be our chief guide on this expedition and had come to collect us from our room and take us to the pre-climb meeting at the bar. Two Aussies, one South African and a New Yorker introduced themselves, we were no longer strangers but like minded intrepid explorers idiotic enough to embark on such a stupendous trip. We were given a short talk which outlined some of the equipment that we would need to take with us on the trip, departure time for the following morning and also asked if we required any equipment which could be hired if we did not bring with us. Me and my Dad both needed a sleeping bag and down jacket, hiring seemed the best option as carting these around on a safari and to a tropical island paradise (Zanzibar) was unrealistic. Packing and organising our equipment and clothing that evening was hard as we had never undertaken such a trip, and had a limit to weight and space we could take up in our bags. We both had a day sack for use during the day when walking, and a rucksack for the porters to carry. I found that using transparent plastic re-sealable freezer bags was the best option to organise yourself as you could easily separate different components along with making it easy to identify what was in each bag when you needed it.  With everything neatly packed we went to sleep ready to rise at 7:00am the next day.

Shame we forgot to set an alarm which was using the local time of Arusha, luckily dad woke up a little before seven and alerted me to our mistake. 

One thing you must remember is that in Africa, time seems only to be a kind of guideline, two hours either side of the original target time is still ‘ontime’. This meant we had ample time to have breakfast and make the most of the buffet in the surprisingly nice surroundings of Outpost Lodge. Our mode of transport rolled in around an hour later than expected, the guides rushed to tie our bags to the roof of the mini bus whilst us tourists took pictures in front of it musing at its typical African style. A two hour ride and one Japanese samurai film later we entered Kilimanjaro land. Although passing the same area the day before, Kilimanjaro’s elusive peak was yet to be seen due to the low cloud cover. It became cooler as we began our accent up the winding mountain roads through rural villages or ‘real Africa’ as I like to call it. We then arrived at the final gate, the Rongai route gate. Our chief guide Jonas, along with our three other

guides- Felix, Prosper and Sam all signed us into the national park. Numerous green coloured signs were propped up all around the gates which warned of the many dangers of climbing Kilimanjaro, this made us all laugh as almost every warning applied to us. For example: ‘Climbers should have undertaken necessary training for high altitude climbing’. I come from the East of England, one of the flattest most sea level areas in the UK no more explanation is needed.

Day one was relatively easy in the scheme of things, with more time to chat with other group members including an Australian couple which were part of our group of nine, they stayed at a different hotel to us so were picked up on the way. The guides talked about deforestation and about the The Furtwangler glacier at the summit, this was rather strange as only a week before I would have been sat learning about Kilimanjaro as a case study for my A2 Geography Cold Environments module. To our surprise our tents were already pitched, sleeping bags laid out with a very comfy sleeping mat beneath which was more of a mattress beside our larger rucksacks the poor old porters had been carrying for us. We were now at around 8,500ft and the air was cool, time to test out our hired down jackets.. and thermals.. and gloves and wooly hats, it was becoming rather cold.

We went with a company called Team Kilimanjaro, which couldn’t have offered a better service if they tried with seemingly happy staff and undeniable organisation, I certainly recommend them. They also gave us each around $15 a day refund because we were both climbing in aid of a separate charities; we were then able to use this money to give to a small primary school which relied upon sponsors after meeting the head teacher on safari. We strolled over to the mess tent, a large blue structure which was filled with a large table and camping chairs lit by candle light with large flasks at the centre of the tables with mugs and a selection of teas, hot chocolates and malt drinks, they know us all too well. After sinking into our deep comfortable camping chairs with a hot drink, the first half of the meal was served- soup. The soup supplied us with Dead Sea style quantities of salt, and acted as our daily laughing-stock. I say laughing-stock because although the soup would change name each day It’d taste exactly the same only with an increasing quantity of salt to supplement for the loss of salt incurred when walking, we soon picked upon our chefs sneaky tactics. Soup was followed by a dish of rice or pasta and a curry flavoured meat, this was for the exception of one night where we had fried chicken and chips, my favourite night. Dessert would be pancakes with banana or avocado. Once we had all filled up, Jonas would enter with oxygen monitor in hand, this was another example of team Kilimanjaro’s reputable service. If your oxygen level was lower than 70/100 you were basically dead (not), this did however turn into a strange sort of competition between each other, a free for all oxygen standoff to see who could get the highest oxygen percentage, results were recorded in Jonas’s log and closely monitored. Bed.

We were sang to this morning, the guides and porters arranged themselves into a semi circle and serenaded us.

On The morning of the second day I was awoken to the sound of people in awe of the view that we received that day, the first glimpse of the summit in the orange of sunrise. After using the toilet, a small porter loo shaped tent with a toilet seat made from a box of wood with a bucket below, I went to breakfast in the mess tent. Maize porridge, bread, bananas and pancakes was the norm with a strong kilimanjaro coffee. The walking this day was pleasant with brilliant scenery and a

On cloud nine..

KFC style lunch at ‘The Caves’. Doesn’t get much better. The evening was spent in much the same way as the day before, when we arrived at camp each day we were handed a warm bowl of water by eager porters with gleaming smiles on their faces which we used to wash ourselves with as quickly as humanly possible due to the chilly air. One thing I particularly remember about this place was that we were fully above the clouds looking down onto them as if they were an ocean of white and pink in the sunset, this also meant that when the sun went down we were rewarded with a perfect view of the stars, I had never seen so many in my life as I did this night. It made for a scenic toilet.

Day three was a short day with only three hours of walking, however the gain in altitude made up for this as we rose over 700m (2100ft) ending up at 4170m (13,000ft) only seven hundred metres lower than the peak of Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. We were advised to wear shorts on this particular day due to Jonas’s weather forecast, which turned out to be incredibly inaccurate. The clouds started to rise past us as we walked towards our camp, this was very cold. Once we arrived at camp, everyone quickly retreated to their tents to put on more suitable attire and to rest for a while before lunch and an acclimatisation hike. At high altitude oxygen molecules are further apart due to barometric pressure, which means humans must breathe faster to take in the same amount of oxygen molecules that you would at ground level. If you do not acclimatise  properly, fluid can leak from blood vessels into surrounding body parts such as the brain potentially killing or seriously harming the victim.

We walked for another hour and rose a further 200m where we met a steep sided mountain ridge leading to the Mwenzi peak on Kilimanjaro, after taking pictures and making suspicious looking rock formations headed back down to our camp. A distinctive memory from this day was that I had my first loss of appetite, anyone who knows me would think this is impossible. Loss of appetite is a side effect of altitude sickness, and many of us experienced it during the following days, one member of our group was slogged down half asleep and unable to eat one night because of altitude sickness, an ugly reality of high altitude climbing. Jonas our guide recommended everyone should begin to take Diamox, and drug to offset some of the effects of altitude. That night was the worst, getting little sleep and having to crawl out of the tent into the pitch black after feeling as though I was going to be sick.

Day 4 was one hell of a dusty day, with volcanic ash being the main substance of the day along with music on my iPod and the typical hour long chat about what would eat when we got back to Arusha, talks of ordering a helicopter to drop pizzas off were rife- seems loss of appetite may have been selective. Most of the day was spent walking downhill, this made us feel like our hard work was undone but knew it was for acclimatisation. We stayed at a campsite called ‘caves II’ that night, arriving very early on in the afternoon leaving most of the day to relax. Me being the youngest of the group decided to go and explore the caves, only to find that after running about 50m I was breathing at a very fast rate, a reminder that I was near the roof of Africa. I also made a massive ‘HELLO’ sign on a river cliff formed from the fast flowing turbulent rain water running down the mountain during the rainy season.

Me being a Geography student, and aspiring to learn Geography and Geology at University (my plan B) had to examine the different volcanic rocks that were strewn across the surface of the volcano. In fact i was sad enough to even take a few rocks from the top of Kilimanjaro which are now perched on a spear made my the Maasai in my room. Just before eating, all the group would congregate in the mess tent to talk and moan and rejoice at the days walk and worry about the day ahead, I used this time to write in my journal. They all found this amusing as they thought i looked like some Captain Scott type character wrapped in many layers writing in a journal by candle light. They were all surprised when they found out my age, seventeen years old hanging around with a bunch of 30+ year olds. Our group was brilliant, a hilarious South African called Jason who came on his own, he was the joker of the group. Two Aussie mates, Len and Bob who were in their sixties and also had a brilliant crude sense of humour. The New yorker, Lisa who was a Lawyer also came on her own along with another Brit, Simon and an aussie couple. Dinner then bed.

Day 5 was short, desolate and rocky terrain with more dust and a steep accent of 400m which took us to our final camp, Kibo, the highest camp on kilimanjaro and the final one before the summit. The days walk was made easier by simple things, John Mayer through my earphones, a buffalo carcass which had been naturally preserved due to the temperature and lack of wildlife and brilliant views of climbers tackling the final steep slopes of Kilimanjaro beside the enormous glacier. We arrived at camp kino at 12:30pm in time for an early lunch. This day was strange as it was preparation for summiting, We were to have an early lunch then sleep for a few hours until 4, when we would be woken for an early dinner, and then be sent back to bed to sleep until midnight where we would rise for breakfast and begin our attack on the summit during the night. It was all very serious now, despite the porters chilling to Bob Marley being played loudly through a phone whilst they sat in the mess tent. I had until now not expected to reach the summit, I had done almost no training at all and I felt more vulnerable to altitude sickness due to my young age, which of course wasn’t a factor. At this altitude the cold is a real danger, water in our camelbacks hosepipes would freeze as we walked and our feet would become very cold. Jonas briefed us at lunch giving necessary information, what to pack, increasing dosage of Diamox and how many electrolytes (mineral supplements dissolved in water) and where to put heat pads in our clothing and the procedure for if one of us cannot make it to the top.

Luxury for our last meal before summiting

Me and Dad could not sleep at all, mainly down to his overly cautious idea of wrapping our sleeping bags in silver foil to keep warm which in the end only created an annoying crumply sound and made our sleeping bags wet due to condensation- nice one Dad. I used this time to think of what i would do at the summit if i reached it, having no clever ideas I chose to do what any normal male teenager would do, draw a penis on a pice of paper for the summit picture whilst dad drew a Samaritans logo on a pice of paper, his chosen charity. Groggy and tired we awoke and made our way to ‘breakfast’ in a zombie like fashion. Here’s what I wore: special thin liner socks, thick socks hiking boots. Thermal trousers, hiking trousers, waterproof trousers. Thermal top, T-shirt, long sleeve shirt, fleece, down jacket. Wooly hat, head torch. Thin gloves and ski gloves. Gaiters over trousers and boots and of course my iPod on shuffle. Simon gave me two heat pads which we forgot to bring which I put in my gloves. My backpack has some extra layers incase and electrolytes, camelback sunglasses and any other vital stuff. Len started to walk half an hour earlier than us as he was struggling and had a horrible sounding cough which had only got worse over the previous few days.

We said our goodbyes to some of the porters who wished us luck, and began up the steep volcano. At this point I was as determined as ever to reach the top with a kind of F**k you attitude, maybe because Foo Fighters were playing at that particular moment, I’m not sure.. The guides and a few porters who were elected to help us get to the top by eventually taking even our day packs off of us started to sing the song of Kilimanjaro, along with other songs clapping along and humming which helped spur us on. We needed it. The climb got harder and harder in the dark of the freezing night, my hose had already frozen making it difficult to drink, people were becoming tired and didn’t talk very often, concentrating on their footing. It became more and more slippery with scree and loose gravel, and at times we needed to scramble on all fours up steeper parts. We could see the lights of other intrepid explorers on the same journey as us with the same ambitions, in equal pain and similar amount of exhaustion.

One brief stop, we were surprised to receive a gift off of the guides again with a grin, a can of red bull each and a dairy milk bar, amazing (not for the porter who had to carry it for the past 5 days though). This was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life without a doubt, everyone was in their own zones. The first peak and one man down, we slumped on the rocks surrounding Gilmans point. After few pictures it was time to get to the main peak, Uhuru, the roof of Africa. Sunrise over the glacier at the top, with a huge volcanic crater to the right and the peak of Mount Meru in the distance poking its head out of the clouds. At this point you see many other people, some laying down from exhaustion and some racing forwards towards to summit to maximise their time there. Not I, me and Dad side by side walked at a snails pace barely being able to look up but eventually arrived at the point we had been working towards for the past five days. If you think that when you arrive at the summit you become elated and all of a sudden feel well and able enough to jump around with excitement and strip for a nude summit picture then your very wrong. At the top however there is a sense of realisation of how lucky you are to get the opportunity to be there, which thank mainly my Mum and Dad for giving no end of support, even though Mum didn’t go, she would always help motivate me. Probably a good thing she didn’t realise kilimanjaro is actually dangerous to climb in some ways, she wouldn’t have been too happy.. Tactful lying by me and dad. I also thank my grandparents. After taking pictures with my penis drawing and with the group we headed down.

Feeling exhausted, my face probably shows this

Walking for six hours non-stop to the top, then having to walk a further 18km from the summit base camp was hellish and tiring. To make it easier a porter took me by the arm at the crater rim of kilimanjaro and basically ran with me arm in arm down the mountain over scree. Lunch at the camp, then walked a further ten or so kilometres to our camp for that night. We had a similar meal and an early night, knackered.

The roof of Africa

The next day we rose early to get walking as soon as we could, we all wanted to get to our hotels and eat a huge steak or curry or anything from the western world. We walked a long way, but all downhill, an enjoyable sensation of walking downhill instead of up through exotic rainforest with monkeys in the canopy. We arrived at our bus where i bought a Kilimanjaro hat, and various souvenirs from a small shop. We then set off for our hotel with one stop in Moshi for burgers and chips, YES. After having a small ceremony where we received our certificates we carried on towards Arusha. Home sweet home, well Outpost Lodge which we now considered our home offering the luxury of a shower, swimming pool and Africa’s greatest milkshakes. Dad immediately dived into the swimming pool whilst I showered. After showering I received a knock at the door, and there stood two hotel staff with our now brand new looking hiking boots, they looked as proud as I looked surprised at how clean they managed to get them. without asking them to clean them they had taken them away and down it for us, after a tip as you would expect however in Africa you feel they deserve it and often they do and are incredibly thankful for one. Smelling of roses, I made my way to the restaurant where we met with the rest of the group for a meal to celebrate. It made sense to me now, only a week ago I was sat in the same place with loud and cheering groups, I realise they were celebrating the same thing as we were. After the meal we said our goodbyes and exchanged emails and other contact information, another accomplishment off the Tik list.

The end

Sorry about it being so long, they won’t be this long in the future, and also I apologise for my change between tenses and person etc, I’m awful at writing. I quite frankly couldn’t be bothered to re read it.

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end..