It’s about time that I write a blog post about my incredible adventures this summer in East Africa with my brother Edden and his friend Adi. Since so much happened during our month there, I am going to, for the most part, just write about highlights from the trip. With the encouragement (or coercion) of my friend Levert in Uganda, I now have a facebook profile! I have already posted one album of photos from the trip and hope to post more photos and videos there.
We landed in Nairobi on July 1st – Edden and Adi from Israel and I came from the United States. We spent one night in Nairobi before leaving for Mombasa on the eastern coast of Kenya. Mombasa was a wonderful introduction for the boys to East Africa. The bus ride was relatively uneventful and we had our own seats (in contrast to the next intercity bus ride we took to Moshi, where Adi stood in the aisle because he gave up his seat for an eighty year old man and a woman handed him a baby to hold during a bathroom stop in the bushes). We had dinner the first night at a local restaurant where you sit at a table with other customers. The two high school principals from Kisumu who we joined at dinner were in Mombasa for a national principals’ conference. They chatted with us extensively about the differences between life in the US and Kenya – how we could afford such a trip (no matter how long they worked and saved, they could probably never afford to travel for a few months on another continent), how many children people in US have, if there are poor people in the US, and more. The next day we toured the old town of Mombasa and spent some time in the vegetable, meat, and chicken markets. The coast of Kenya offers many more kinds of fruits, vegetables, and spices than in Uganda and even different food. When people found out that we were from the United States, they excitedly welcomed us home! A few people even tried to sell us kanga’s (cloth wraps) with the words “Hongera (or Congratulations) Barack Obama” in an arch above his photo. There was even a photo of President Obama above rows of cages with tens of chickens in each. Oh, the principals also wanted us to visit the newest tourist attraction in Kenya, Obama’s grandmother in her village near Kisumu.
When we returned to our hotel after a day at the beach, we saw at least a hundred people of Indian descent dancing in front of floats. It wasn’t a wedding like we thought but actually a Hari Krishna parade. Supposedly, these take place all over the country at different times throughout the year. We had the privilege of being in the right place at the right time (this actually seemed to be the theme of the trip!).
The next day, we headed out on an overcrowded bus across a very small border crossing to Moshi, Tanzania to begin to prepare for our climb up Kilimanjaro. During our preparatory days in Moshi, we were able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro in the afternoons after the clouds cleared. Before the big day, we had the opportunity to meet with Sandra and Frank, the founders of Tembo Tamu, and meet our guide Stanley and cook Frank (a different Frank). They checked our gear and rented us a few remaining necessities – like down jackets, thermal pants… Well, they rented Edden and Adi down jackets and me an additional fleece. It seemed to be a slight misunderstanding. But Edden pulled through. As you can tell from the photos, on the final ascent to the summit, I wore Edden’s large down jacket (on top of many other layers) and he wore the fleece!!
On the morning of the climb, Frank picked us up at the YMCA, where we were staying, and we headed to the mountain. After registration and other logistics, Edden, Adi, and I put on our day packs, and with our hiking poles in hand, began heading through the rainforest up the mountain with Stanley, our guide, and Joseph, our assistant guide. What we didn’t really know at the time was that we would be accompanied by 11 more people carrying our hiking backpacks, food for a week, and tents. And remember, we did a budget trip, so they weren’t carrying portable toilets up the mountain for us. The Kiliminjaro tourist industry is quite amazing – in addition to the tourists on the mountain, there are at least three or four times as many Tanzanians. As tourist’s huff and puff (mostly due to the lack of oxygen at the high altitude) up the mountain, the porters, (hopefully) carrying less than regulated weight, climb and descend past the tourists not even wearing the hundreds of dollars of fancy equipment that all the tourists on the mountain are sporting. The Tanzania national park service (KINAPA) and other organizations, like IMEC http://www.mountainexplorers.org/club/about.htm, have begun to regulate, enforce regulations, and improve conditions for porters as the industry continues to grow.
Back to the rainforest – one amazing aspect about climbing Kilimanjaro is having the opportunity to pass through five different climate zones, each with its own unique characteristics. As we drove through the first zone, cultivation, we passed lush fields of all sorts of produce, some corporate farms and some local families. We then hiked through the rainforest. It’s really hard to describe (even the pictures don’t capture) the intensity of this experience. The whole forest was dense and green! The trunks of the trees are covered in moss and there are vines and plants growing everywhere. After about four hours of ascent, the trees become less dense and a bit shorter and we felt the transition from rainforest to moorland. Sandra described this part as feeling like trees and shrubs straight out of a Dr. Seuss book—we wholeheartedly agreed. After about 4.5 hours, we reached the first camp at 3000m from Machame Gate at 1490m. It quickly became very cold. We added more layers, enjoyed the cucumber soup thoroughly, and wondered how we would be able to withstand the cold as we got further up the mountain.
On day 2, we hiked for over five hours through the clouds to the New Shira Camp at about 3800m. By the time we reached this camp, we were already above the clouds, so as the sun set, we looked out over what seemed like an endless sea of clouds. It actually looked like if we walked to the right spot, we would be able to jump onto the clouds and walk to Mt. Meru in the distance. It was so cold that I actually filled my water bottle with hot water and put it in my sleeping bag to warm up enough to fall asleep. On day 3, we ascended to the Lava Tower at 4630m for lunch and then descended to Barranco camp at 3950m. The ascent and descent are to help us acclimate to the altitude. Well, by the time we descended to Barranco, we were all not feeling well (and we were taking medicine). At this point, we had to decide if we would be climbing in six or seven days. In other words, whether we would split the next day’s climb into two. We were all feeling sick and realized that at high altitude it’s hard to recover anyway, so why prolong the torture – we will go for six days.
So, Day 4 begins very early with the most challenging of any of the climbing on the mountain as we used our hands to climb up a rock face. We continued for about four hours until Karranga Valley (where people climbing in 7 days spend the night), had a hot lunch (as opposed to packed lunches the other days), and donned our rain gear since it was beginning to rain. The porters had to bring all of our water from here to the next camp, Barafu (Swahili for ice) at 4681m. We hiked the next three hours or so in a misty rain cloud. We arrived in camp at around 3:30pm and after barely being able to eat any dinner we laid down to rest (it’s hard to eat and sleep at this altitude) until 11:15pm when we got up to prepare for our midnight summit ascent. When we went to sleep it was still rainy but when we work up it was perfectly clear! We had put on layers and layers of warm clothes before we rested. We had a few sips of tea, a bite of a cookie, and turned on our headlamps. After a few minutes of climbing, we realized that the light of the full moon was enough to light our path, so we turned off our headlamps! After only about an hour of hiking, the pipe to my camelpak froze as did Edden’s, so we were only drinking from Adi’s pak. (We had already finished one waterbottle that I had put in a thermal sock to keep it from freezing). About three hours into the hike, I didn’t think I would make it. My hands were freezing, I was nauseous, and just exhausted. The one porter who came along with us to help the guides (help us, of course), took my daypack and the guides basically pulled and pushed me for the next bit. I begged to find out how much longer, but they kept telling me close. At night, you can’t see more than a few feet ahead, so I couldn’t see the summit. Stanley actually claims that’s one of the reasons everyone summits at night for if people saw where they had to go, they wouldn’t make it. Well, I stopped every fifteen minutes for water. But at about 6am, I made it to Stella point – the end of the steep incline. At this point, the sun was coming up and we had only 45 minutes or so of much flatter terrain to the peak. Although I walked very slowly, and passed some people already coming down, we all made it to Uhuru Peak (5895m) just in time for sunrise! As we witnessed a gorgeous sunrise and stood near an enormous glacier, everyone gathered near the rickety wooden sign and waited to take photos with it to prove that they had reached the peak. Freezing, sick, and still needing to descend, we only stayed on the peak for about 15 minutes. We snapped a few pictures as our fingers froze and then began the long trek down. At around 11, we reached Barafu, had some juice and laid down for a one hour nap. The boys already had splitting headaches, and by the time we woke for lunch, they were so bad, that I was the only one who ate anything. Stanley said the best cure was to descend – so we did. We hiked for another four hours or so to Mweka Camp (3100m). It’s incredible to descend rapidly through the climate zones, watch the trees and shrubs get taller and denser and your breathing easier as you descend.
With our appetites back, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and night’s sleep before descending another three hours to Mweka Gate, where we retrieved our certificates and waited for Frank to pick us up. After a warm shower and a Kilimanjaro beer, we were ready for our next adventure and left Moshi for Nairobi early the next morning. As you can imagine, we highly, highly recommend using Tembo Tamu as your tour operator and requesting Stanley as your guide. Everyone was super helpful, warm, and fun throughout the process!! Contact Sandra at sandypandyster@gmail.com when you are ready to climb!!
After one more night in Nairobi, we set out for a three day safari in Masai Mara. We traveled with a couple from Reunion (a small island off of Madagascar) and a couple from North Carolina, one of whom is a lawyer and had been volunteering for nine months in Mombasa through the Foundation for Sustainable Development (the organization that placed me at BCC in the summer of 2005). All in all, the safari was incredible! We saw lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, alligators, and more. But most significantly, we saw thousands and thousands of zebras and wildebeest, because July is the time when the wildebeest migrate from Tanzania to Kenya over the Mara River!! We saw the zebras and wildebeest walking in long lines toward the Mara River, crossing a small stream on their way, and waiting to cross the Mara River. It was phenomenal!
And then we were off to Uganda…
** I posted an album of photos from the trip on Facebook — that’s right, I am finally on Facebook, thanks to Levert Wafula.
It’s about time that I write a blog post about my incredible adventures this summer in East Africa with my brother Edden and his friend Adi. Since so much happened during our month there, I am going to, for the most part, just write about highlights from the trip. With the encouragement (or coercion) of my friend Levert in Uganda, I now have a facebook profile! I have already posted one album of photos from the trip and hope to post more photos and videos there.
We landed in Nairobi on July 1st – Edden and Adi from Israel and I came from the United States. We spent one night in Nairobi before leaving for Mombasa on the eastern coast of Kenya. Mombasa was a wonderful introduction for the boys to East Africa. The bus ride was relatively uneventful and we had our own seats (in contrast to the next intercity bus ride we took to Moshi, where Adi stood in the aisle because he gave up his seat for an eighty year old man and a woman handed him a baby to hold during a bathroom stop in the bushes). We had dinner the first night at a local restaurant where you sit at a table with other customers. The two high school principals from Kisumu who we joined at dinner were in Mombasa for a national principals’ conference. They chatted with us extensively about the differences between life in the US and Kenya – how we could afford such a trip (no matter how long they worked and saved, they could probably never afford to travel for a few months on another continent), how many children people in US have, if there are poor people in the US, and more. The next day we toured the old town of Mombasa and spent some time in the vegetable, meat, and chicken markets. The coast of Kenya offers many more kinds of fruits, vegetables, and spices than in Uganda and even different food. When people found out that we were from the United States, they excitedly welcomed us home! A few people even tried to sell us kanga’s (cloth wraps) with the words “Hongera (or Congratulations) Barack Obama” in an arch above his photo. There was even a photo of President Obama above rows of cages with tens of chickens in each. Oh, the principals also wanted us to visit the newest tourist attraction in Kenya, Obama’s grandmother in her village near Kisumu.
When we returned to our hotel after a day at the beach, we saw at least a hundred people of Indian descent dancing in front of floats. It wasn’t a wedding like we thought but actually a Hari Krishna parade. Supposedly, these take place all over the country at different times throughout the year. We had the privilege of being in the right place at the right time (this actually seemed to be the theme of the trip!).
The next day, we headed out on an overcrowded bus across a very small border crossing to Moshi, Tanzania to begin to prepare for our climb up Kilimanjaro. During our preparatory days in Moshi, we were able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro in the afternoons after the clouds cleared. Before the big day, we had the opportunity to meet with Sandra and Frank, the founders of Tembo Tamu, and meet our guide Stanley and cook Frank (a different Frank). They checked our gear and rented us a few remaining necessities – like down jackets, thermal pants… Well, they rented Edden and Adi down jackets and me an additional fleece. It seemed to be a slight misunderstanding. But Edden pulled through. As you can tell from the photos, on the final ascent to the summit, I wore Edden’s large down jacket (on top of many other layers) and he wore the fleece!!
On the morning of the climb, Frank picked us up at the YMCA, where we were staying, and we headed to the mountain. After registration and other logistics, Edden, Adi, and I put on our day packs, and with our hiking poles in hand, began heading through the rainforest up the mountain with Stanley, our guide, and Joseph, our assistant guide. What we didn’t really know at the time was that we would be accompanied by 11 more people carrying our hiking backpacks, food for a week, and tents. And remember, we did a budget trip, so they weren’t carrying portable toilets up the mountain for us. The Kiliminjaro tourist industry is quite amazing – in addition to the tourists on the mountain, there are at least three or four times as many Tanzanians. As tourist’s huff and puff (mostly due to the lack of oxygen at the high altitude) up the mountain, the porters, (hopefully) carrying less than regulated weight, climb and descend past the tourists not even wearing the hundreds of dollars of fancy equipment that all the tourists on the mountain are sporting. The Tanzania national park service (KINAPA) and other organizations, like IMEC http://www.mountainexplorers.org/club/about.htm, have begun to regulate, enforce regulations, and improve conditions for porters as the industry continues to grow.
Back to the rainforest – one amazing aspect about climbing Kilimanjaro is having the opportunity to pass through five different climate zones, each with its own unique characteristics. As we drove through the first zone, cultivation, we passed lush fields of all sorts of produce, some corporate farms and some local families. We then hiked through the rainforest. It’s really hard to describe (even the pictures don’t capture) the intensity of this experience. The whole forest was dense and green! The trunks of the trees are covered in moss and there are vines and plants growing everywhere. After about four hours of ascent, the trees become less dense and a bit shorter and we felt the transition from rainforest to moorland. Sandra described this part as feeling like trees and shrubs straight out of a Dr. Seuss book—we wholeheartedly agreed. After about 4.5 hours, we reached the first camp at 3000m from Machame Gate at 1490m. It quickly became very cold. We added more layers, enjoyed the cucumber soup thoroughly, and wondered how we would be able to withstand the cold as we got further up the mountain.
On day 2, we hiked for over five hours through the clouds to the New Shira Camp at about 3800m. By the time we reached this camp, we were already above the clouds, so as the sun set, we looked out over what seemed like an endless sea of clouds. It actually looked like if we walked to the right spot, we would be able to jump onto the clouds and walk to Mt. Meru in the distance. It was so cold that I actually filled my water bottle with hot water and put it in my sleeping bag to warm up enough to fall asleep. On day 3, we ascended to the Lava Tower at 4630m for lunch and then descended to Barranco camp at 3950m. The ascent and descent are to help us acclimate to the altitude. Well, by the time we descended to Barranco, we were all not feeling well (and we were taking medicine). At this point, we had to decide if we would be climbing in six or seven days. In other words, whether we would split the next day’s climb into two. We were all feeling sick and realized that at high altitude it’s hard to recover anyway, so why prolong the torture – we will go for six days.
So, Day 4 begins very early with the most challenging of any of the climbing on the mountain as we used our hands to climb up a rock face. We continued for about four hours until Karranga Valley (where people climbing in 7 days spend the night), had a hot lunch (as opposed to packed lunches the other days), and donned our rain gear since it was beginning to rain. The porters had to bring all of our water from here to the next camp, Barafu (Swahili for ice) at 4681m. We hiked the next three hours or so in a misty rain cloud. We arrived in camp at around 3:30pm and after barely being able to eat any dinner we laid down to rest (it’s hard to eat and sleep at this altitude) until 11:15pm when we got up to prepare for our midnight summit ascent. When we went to sleep it was still rainy but when we work up it was perfectly clear! We had put on layers and layers of warm clothes before we rested. We had a few sips of tea, a bite of a cookie, and turned on our headlamps. After a few minutes of climbing, we realized that the light of the full moon was enough to light our path, so we turned off our headlamps! After only about an hour of hiking, the pipe to my camelpak froze as did Edden’s, so we were only drinking from Adi’s pak. (We had already finished one waterbottle that I had put in a thermal sock to keep it from freezing). About three hours into the hike, I didn’t think I would make it. My hands were freezing, I was nauseous, and just exhausted. The one porter who came along with us to help the guides (help us, of course), took my daypack and the guides basically pulled and pushed me for the next bit. I begged to find out how much longer, but they kept telling me close. At night, you can’t see more than a few feet ahead, so I couldn’t see the summit. Stanley actually claims that’s one of the reasons everyone summits at night for if people saw where they had to go, they wouldn’t make it. Well, I stopped every fifteen minutes for water. But at about 6am, I made it to Stella point – the end of the steep incline. At this point, the sun was coming up and we had only 45 minutes or so of much flatter terrain to the peak. Although I walked very slowly, and passed some people already coming down, we all made it to Uhuru Peak (5895m) just in time for sunrise! As we witnessed a gorgeous sunrise and stood near an enormous glacier, everyone gathered near the rickety wooden sign and waited to take photos with it to prove that they had reached the peak. Freezing, sick, and still needing to descend, we only stayed on the peak for about 15 minutes. We snapped a few pictures as our fingers froze and then began the long trek down. At around 11, we reached Barafu, had some juice and laid down for a one hour nap. The boys already had splitting headaches, and by the time we woke for lunch, they were so bad, that I was the only one who ate anything. Stanley said the best cure was to descend – so we did. We hiked for another four hours or so to Mweka Camp (3100m). It’s incredible to descend rapidly through the climate zones, watch the trees and shrubs get taller and denser and your breathing easier as you descend.
With our appetites back, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and night’s sleep before descending another three hours to Mweka Gate, where we retrieved our certificates and waited for Frank to pick us up. After a warm shower and a Kilimanjaro beer, we were ready for our next adventure and left Moshi for Nairobi early the next morning. As you can imagine, we highly, highly recommend using Tembo Tamu as your tour operator and requesting Stanley as your guide. Everyone was super helpful, warm, and fun throughout the process!! Contact Sandra at sandypandyster@gmail.com when you are ready to climb!!
After one more night in Nairobi, we set out for a three day safari in Masai Mara. We traveled with a couple from Reunion (a small island off of Madagascar) and a couple from North Carolina, one of whom is a lawyer and had been volunteering for nine months in Mombasa through the Foundation for Sustainable Development (the organization that placed me at BCC in the summer of 2005). All in all, the safari was incredible! We saw lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, alligators, and more. But most significantly, we saw thousands and thousands of zebras and wildebeest, because July is the time when the wildebeest migrate from Tanzania to Kenya over the Mara River!! We saw the zebras and wildebeest walking in long lines toward the Mara River, crossing a small stream on their way, and waiting to cross the Mara River. It was phenomenal!
And then we were off to Uganda…
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