Standing on the Roof of Africa

After seven arduous days on the Machame Route, we successfully scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro, and on a memorable date no less! We both agreed that it was one of the most difficult challenges we have successfully completed and it took every ounce of strength we had to do it. Our trek, which departed on Sunday, was originally planned to take 6 days, but after experiencing symptoms of acute mountain sickness by Day 3, we opted to extend our trip to 7 days. Here’s a quick recap… Day 1: We departed Machame Gate at an elevation of 1800m with our guide (Adam), assistant guide (Dao), and fellow climbers from the Netherlands (Tom and Marielle). A team of porters, 13 in total, preceded us to our first camp, Machame Hut, at an elevation of 3,000m. Day 2: After a very healthy breakfast of porridge, toast and eggs, we started off for our next camp, Shira Hut at 3800m. This day was a little steeper, but we were all feeling well when we arrived and narrowly missed a hail storm which began just as we arrived at camp and were safely in our tents. Day 3: This was a big acclimatization day. We would be climbing up to the junction at 4400m and then planned to continue on to the Lava Tower, an addition 200m in elevation at 4600m before heading down to Barranco Camp at 3800m to sleep. Unfortunately, the increase in elevation did not agree with most of us. We arrived at the junction for lunch with headaches and Christine experienced some nausea and sickness at 4400m. We made the decision to skip the Lava Tower and head down to camp for the night. Scott was feeling a bit nauseous at dinner and Christine continued to get sick that night. At the end of the day, we decided to break up the following day’s hike into two segments, essentially adding one more day to our overall trip. Day 4: Still nauseous and unable to hold down breakfast, we continued on. Our first obstacle of the day was the Barranco Wall which led us up to an elevation of 4200m. We had a short day of hiking and arrived at Karanga Valley in the early afternoon. Most groups continue on to Barufu in the afternoon and begin their ascent to the summit on this evening, but we instead camped at Karanga for the night, regaining our energy for the days ahead. Day 5: Another short day of hiking up to Barufu Hut, where we arrived in the early afternoon. We had a nap and an early dinner before preparing to start our ascent at 11:30 p.m. Day 6: It was an arduous climb, but 8 hours later, we had successfully scaled the final 1200m to Stella Point (5700m) and onto Uhuru Peak (5895m), the highest peak in Africa and the top of the highest free-standing mountain in the world! We returned to Barufu Hut after a 4 hour descent to singing porters and a warm lunch…it had been almost 20 hours since our last meal! Unfortunately, we were all too exhausted to eat and crashed in our tents for a few hours before we packed up and continued our descent to High Camp at 3900m. Day 7: Only a 5 hour walk down to Mweka Gate this day seemed longer than we wished, but we were so happy to arrive back in Moshi in the evening to have a hot shower and a real bed!

More photos...

Preparing for Our Kilimanjaro Trek

We arrived in Moshi yesterday and did a little research on the different tour operators that do treks up Kilimanjaro. We talked to a few people at our hotel who had just returned and we've successfully booked our trip for a 6 or 7-day trek on the Machame Route departing on Sunday, Feb. 22. We met a Dutch couple on our shuttle bus from Arusha, so we worked together to get a discounted rate for 4 people. Can you believe that for 4 hikers we will have a total of 20 people in our group? Each hiker has 3 porters, which accounts for 12, plus we will have a chef, 2 guides and an assistant guide who will split up among the group so that everyone will be able to hike at their own pace. Based on our conversations with so many people who have summited, it is truly a mental challenge. We can't believe it's finally here! We know it's been almost 2 weeks since we've posted on our blog, so we'll be taking time tomorrow to upload photos as well as prepare all our gear for the big trek. Wish us luck!

Celebrating in Serengeti!

After a short delay on our flight from Stone Town to Arusha, due to the arrival of President Bush in Dar Es Salaam, we arrived just in time Saturday evening to pick up our Land Rover from Fortis Safaris. The truck was equipped with a pop-up tent on the roof, as well as a cooler, gas cooker, utensils, table and chairs. The shops were already closed for the evening, so we camped our first night in the truck at a nearby backpackers just outside of town…little did we know it was the local party spot on a Saturday night! After a restless night of sleep, we woke up early the next morning excited for our self-safari adventure and set off to the supermarket to stock up on food and water for the next 4 days.

By early Sunday afternoon, we were in the Ngorongoro Crater which was once the highest peak in Africa (yes, higher than Kilimanjaro), until it collapsed and formed a mini-ecosystem of swamps, forest, and grasslands 600m below which over 25,000 animals call home. We drove through Ngorongoro that first day, where the highest concentration of wildebeests and zebras are due to the on-going migration, and also saw many Maasai. When Tanzania gained its independence in 1961, the Maasai were living in the Serengeti. In fact, “siringit” is the name the Maasai used for the great plains as it means “land of endless space”. Due to the development of Serengeti into a national park, the Maasai were no longer allowed to live and herd their cattle in the park. The Ngorongoro Crater Conservancy was developed to allow peaceful co-existence of the Maasai and their cattle with the wildlife. The Maasai also do not hunt the wildlife because they believe that if they do, then all of their cattle (which is their symbol of wealth) would die. Hence, all co-exist and use the land in harmony to create balance between nature and mankind. Monday was Scott’s birthday so we had a proper celebration while on our safari. We had a nice breakfast watching the sunrise and celebrated turning 29 with a banana bread “cake” with candles and singing of course! We spent the day venturing through the back roads of the Serengeti and saw many giraffes, hippos, lions, elephants, and monkeys! On our last day we picked up a local Maasai guide to descend down into the Ngorongoro Crater and learn more about the amazing ecosystem that exists and we also saw our first cheetah! Our guide, Jacob, also shared some interesting wildlife facts with us, such as: 1. lions sleep up to 20 hours a day…which explains why we never saw them very active, 2. wildebeests and zebras migrate together because the wildebeests can sense rain up to 50 km away and therefore lead the migration, while the zebras have a heightened sense of their surroundings and detect the predators so they keep the group safe from harm, 3. zebras stand side by side in opposite directions to watch for predators (and we just thought they were cuddling!). The list goes on, but we’ll let the pictures of this part of our trip speak for themselves…see more photos. In the end, though we were one of the few people we saw self-driving the park, we both agreed that we loved the flexibility and freedom to roam as we pleased and certainly enjoyed camping with elephants and zebras joining us for dinner!

Valentine's and Relaxing in Zanzibar

After a night in Dar, we decided to take the ferry to Zanzibar, an island off the coast, to spend a few days relaxing on the beach. Zanzibar was previously a major slave trading port and today is still famous for the many spices and exotic fruits grown here. We stayed in Stone Town for an evening, had a traditional Zanzibaran meal prepared by a local family in their own home, and then went on a spice tour to the plantations up north on Wednesday...see more photos. We then took a bus out to Jambiani, one of the beaches on the eastern side of the island and enjoyed several days on the beach. Anticipating our Kilimanjaro trek, we both agreed that it would be wise to spend a few mornings running on the beach. Unfortunately, in an ironic twist of fate, Scott twisted his ankle running on a very rocky section of the beach. But, as fate would have it, we were also very luck! Just a few hundred meters down the beach, a Canadian had opened a chiropractic clinic for the locals and he confirmed it was just a very bad sprain and he applied some ointment and wrapped Scott's ankle well for a quick recovery. Recognizing the need for flexibility and time for Scott's ankle to recover, we decided to plan our safari to Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater first and postpone Kilimanjaro for a week. Also, as luck would have it, we met a great couple from Germany who had just done a self-safari through the parks. We had dinners with them while in Jambiani, and they shared the details of their safari and the company they used to rent their Land Rover and camping gear. So, we were well prepared by our departure on Saturday for our next adventure in Serengeti!

Train Travel to Tanzania

After having read Paul Thoreaux's "Dark Star Safari," we thoroughly agree that travel in Africa should include some adventure, which inadvertantly means some discomfort. Although not as extreme of a traveler as Thoreaux, we agreed that the Tazara Railway from Lusaka, Zambia to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, would be a much more interesting and beautiful way to see the countryside rather than flying. This certainly proved to be true! We took a bus from Lusaka to Kapiri Mposhi, the town where the train departed from. Of course, buses don’t have actual schedules, so we arrived at 7 a.m. and were told that the bus would leave between 8:30 – 9 a.m…so we sat on the bus (which is what everyone does or it may leave without you) until the bus was full and we departed at 9:45 a.m. We arrived in Kapiri with a little time to pick up food (at the local gas station as there was no supermarket as we had hoped in the small town) and then we headed to the train station which was outside of town.

The anticipated 45 hour trip didn't start off on the right foot, as our departure from Kapiri Mposhi was delayed for 3 hours on Friday afternoon. We spent the majority of the time playing cards with street kids that were hanging out at the station. We taught them how to shuffle the cards and play War. We finally boarded the train around 6 p.m. and were on our way! We opted for 1^st class, which meant we were in sleeper cabins, segregated male and female compartments, which accommodated up to 4 people. Scott shared his cabin with a Congolese man, Isaac, and I shared with his wife, Esther and another Tanzanian woman, Ruth. We had an unexpected delay after the first night due to a goods train that had derailed (the majority of the trip relies on only one track), so we spent 24 hours (from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday) in Kasame. Fortunately, it allowed us to venture into the small town to pick up food at the local Shoprite. We lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bananas and a few hot meals from the dining car for a few days! Plus, there were all kinds of interesting fruits and snacks sold by vendors along the tracks as we pulled into each station. We got used to being the local spectacle, having been one of the few white people, or "mzungu" in Swahili, on the train. At each station, the children would yell out mzungu and wave!

Thankfully, the track was repaired after a day and we safely arrived in Dar Es Salaam early Monday evening, just a mere 72 hours after our train trip had begun! Unfortunately, it meant we missed the Africa Cup finals on Sunday night and it also allowed Scott enough time to beat Christine in Gin Rummy in Zambia! As can be imagined, we were desperately in need of a hot shower after our train travels...See more photos.

Recharging Our Batteries in Lusaka, Zambia

We’ve spent a relaxed week in Zambia with few things on our agenda other than regrouping for next travels. Archie and Blessing helped us to navigate across the border from Zimbabwe to Zambia last Saturday, Feb. 2nd, and since then we’v just been hanging out. We spent an evening in Livingstone before boarding the 7 hour bus to Lusaka, Zambia’s capitol, on Sunday morning. For the past several days we’ve been staying at the ChaChaCha Backpackers in town. We’ve run a few errands, such as having more pages put into our passport at the US Embassy, obtaining visas at the Tanzanian Embassy, as well as sorting out laundry and cash before heading on to Tanzania. We’ve finally decided that we’ll head up to Kapiri Mposhi tomorrow morning to catch the Tazara train, or Kilimanjaro Express, to Dar Es Salaam. It should be an interesting 48 hours (or more) on the train as we travel through northern Zambia and Tanzania, but we both agreed that flying would lessen the adventure ! There is so much of Africa to see and we’d hate to miss any opportunity to truly experience it. Since this week has been fairly uneventful, I thought I’d share some photos of our accommodations in Zambia since we’ve had a few questions about what it’s really like. I think we’ll continue to shield you from the true reality of dirty showers, bathrooms without toilet paper and sometimes the general lack of cleanliness...but this is Africa and we have no expectations. We’re just happy to be experiencing it ! See more photos. On a side note, Scott is absolutely killing me in Gin Rummy in Zambia...he may finally win a country;)