2. Tanzania
Crisis 2001 Tour
The thinking man's alternative to a small red sportscar
2. Tanzania |
Crisis 2001 Tour The thinking man's alternative to a small red sportscar |
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Safari in Serengeti, climbing Kilimanjaro. 2 - 18 March Links:
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| Dispatch from Tanzania: This postcard has been brought to you courtesy of my mate Carl Thomas, who's helped me overcome the limitations of internet cafes in Africa by doing the update from the wilderness of North London. | |
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3/3 (Day 16): Initial sightings of giraffe, zebras, warthogs and bisony things on route to lodge. These, together with some teasers from David our guide, gives me great anticipation both for the safari and the - apparently arduous - trek up Kilimanjaro.
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Chance (?) conversation with Linda leads me to start replanning July so that I can attend NLP Master Practitioner training in California - shoot off an email to try to book. This would mean missing a chance to visit India, but sounds exciting so am going for it. Further tales of how bloody cold and difficult it is to climb Kilimanjaro. |
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At the balloon, we start our launch like Apollo astronauts, in seating position but rotated by 90 degrees so that we're on our backs. As the balloon inflates, the basket moves to the upright position and we're ready for takeoff. The pilot - Rob - is masterly. He flies us straight at a tree, and magically we rise to just brush its upper branches about 15 seconds after his last blast of air. I can't figure out how it works! From the balloon, it's easy to see why the Maasai call this place Serengeti ("endless plains") - it's vast, partly enclosed by mountains on the horizon, partly stretching out to infinity and beyond. Magnificent. |
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Sharon tells us that climbing Kilimanjaro was harder than giving birth.
11/3 (Day 24): Drive to Moshi to prepare for the Kilimanjaro trek. Tales of death on the mountain - in a summit attempt in recent months. Apparently some parties are so keen that they instruct their guides to literally drag them up regardless of whether they are suffering from Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). 13/3 (Day 26): Very limited sleep last night, mainly I think due to David's snoring. He denies this, but was asleep at the time and so is in a weak position to argue.
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Bed at 18:00 in preparation for the 23:00 wakeup call to begin The Longest Night. |
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Kit for the final ascent: mind, body, spirit, boots, inner socks, outer socks, boxers, tracksuit bottoms, combat trousers, overtrousers, undershirt, T-shirt, thin pullover, fleece, down jacket, rainproof jacket, sunglasses, daybag, walkman, CD selection, water bottle, platypus with sucking tube, tame pygmy elephant, 1 bar Cadbury's Whole Nut, 2 Mars Bars, 1 Snickers, Merocain, 250mg Diamox, Nurofen Plus, penknife, plasters, sunscreen, lip salve, camera with 100 ASA slide film, inner gloves, outer gloves, walking pole, toilet paper, scissors, TCP. 17/3 (Day 30): Impromptu St Patricks Day parade from Horombo to Marangu, using Tanzanian Shoe Shamrocks to mark the event. No satisfactory answer from Fiona to whether a four-leafed shamrock is bad luck. Farewell dinner with a great bunch of folk tonight, and on to Leg 3 - Borneo - tomorrow morning. |
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Sharing my very comfortable little hut with Graham, who is sleeping very badly. Is he a dyslexic agnostic insomniac lying awake wondering if there is a Dog?
4/3 (Day 17): Sight the Dik Dik, the smallest and cutest antelope in the non-virtual world. Sightings of the Pygmy Dik Dik, like the Pygmy Elephant, are rare and we didn't strike lucky.
5/3 (Day 18): Set up camp (small, leaky 2-man tents!) and start our first game drive in Tarangire. Baobob trees everywhere, squat and thrusting like the Llanelli front row. They fill the landscape like packs of animals, keeping within eyeshot for comfort but fearing nothing, even the passage of time (just stick to the facts - Ed.).
7/3 (Day 20): Arise at 05:24 with good reason - today is the Serengeti balloon safari. On the way, we spot a leopard in the headlights, strolling down the road towards us, nonchalantly coming to within 5 metres before strolling off into the undergrowth.
8/3 (Day 21): Last night the bush pigs visited the campsite and wreaked havoc on David and Sharon's tent, breaking in by ripping the groundsheet and snaffling David's rucksack so that he had to give naked chase by moonlight - a sight I dare not imagine.
Our long drive back from the Serengeti to Ngorongoro was punctuated by the sight of a long line of wildebeest migrating towards the lusher grasses. They ran with a sense of urgency in a sort of ungainly loping gait, in single file and - presumably - with a single purpose.
9/3 (Day 22): Today, a journey into Ngorongoro crater, a journey which may as well have been back 2 million years. This 19-km-wide caldera is simply stunning. The scenery itself is breathtaking, a flat treeless floor surrounded by a 600m-high rim, topped by clouds and lit by a low sun. But it was the animals that made the scene awesome - packs scattered around, grazing like extras in Jurassic Park. Rhinos, wildebeest (like ungainly animated cave paintings), impala, cape buffalo, lions, hippos and plenty of birdlife. Magnificent - but still no sightings of the elusive pygmy elephant.
Now at 3700m but feeling great, partly since I've just had a "shower". This consisted of manipulating icy water from a tap 2ft off the ground in a cubicle in the Ladies toilet unit. This may sound unappealing but two days' walking in the heat has given me good incentive and the results are a great improvement. I think I got away with my response to the lady who said she hoped there were no men in the unit - "I do hope so too", I said in my best Home Counties accent, an octave above usual.
14/3 (Day 27): Up at 07:00 to stand on a rock overlooking the coveted Western toilets and an amazing vista - dramatic white clouds above, a vast expanse of Africa below. Yesterday evening I had stood in the same spot with a thunderstorm raging in the distance, dramatic flashes of lightning over the moonlit landscape. This was after Sabina had listened to Eva Cassidy singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow on my walkman from a similar vantage point. When she returned her face was ablaze with the music, the storm and - I imagine - anticipation of the climb ahead.
15/3 (Day 28): And so, The Longest Day begins. As we arise at 06:30, we know that within 24 hours we should be on our way from Gilman's Point to Uhuru Peak, at 5895m the highest point on the continent and bloody high. Dinner was quiet last night as we each contemplated the task ahead. We're at Kibo Hut at around 4700m. David lends me a CD and I spend a full 15 seconds wondering why there's no sound coming from my walkman, until I realise that I don't have the earphones in. Clearly a result of the altitude.
16/3 (Day 29): A half moon lit our journey up the scree slopes of the mountain. This gave
wonderful views both of Mawenzi behind us, its precipitous rock towers looking like some unreal Disney design gone wrong, and of the inside of Kilimanjaro's great snowy crater, all the more beautiful for being somehow unexpected.
On the way up, Tripod Dave and I had searched for the elusive Nocturnal Mountain Pygmy Elephant, said to graze on the scree slopes of Kilimanjaro at night before bedding down on the windswept peaks during daylight. We must have scared them off with our howling and yelping as we danced wildly up the primal slope, incanting songs of atavism and wonder.
