My last entry ended the night before i began my epic climb up Kili. It was Wednesday morning when i started, and after a dissatisfying breakfast i met again with my guide to begin walking. My guide was a 26ish yr old skinny Tanzanian man, who for privacy purposes i shall call George. I was so nervous as i knew ahead of me i had 5 nights on the mountain and a serious amount of walking which would require some intense endurance and motivation. It wasn't long before we walked through the rainforest level, and we were lucky enough to spot some blue monkeys migrating. It was a fantastic moment and would have been one of the highlights of my trip. Unfortunately it was ruined slightly by the fact that George tried repeatedly to hold my hand. It's a little disconcerting to be alone with a strange man in a forest who is trying to hold your hand. I wasn’t sure if it was a cultural thing, but as the behaviour continued it intensified through the day and into the next. I've said all along that nothing would stop me getting to the top, (except perhaps imminent death). I didn't expect the challenge to come in the form of inappropriate behaviour, so it was difficult to deal with on that first day. I found myself having a strong word with him about the differences between Tanzanian and English cultures, and after that he kept his hands to himself...
Lunches on the mountain were quite nice - cucumber sandwiches, roast chicken leg, cake, biscuits, mango juice, boiled egg, and whole lemons. Apparently the lemons were oranges but I wouldn't believe it, I said to George if that is an orange then it is the spawn of an evil lemon and a very pale looking orange. The second day I had hoped for better fruity news in my lunchbox but alas, there sat another lemon. As I’m not partial to eating whole lemons as snacks I gave it a miss. At least my lemon could masquerade as an orange, the poor girl next to me had been given a lime...
They give you a serious amount of food on the mountain, to keep up your energy levels. For breakfast you're given 3 bowls of porridge, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and cucumber, and hard cold bread that they've mistaken to be how we make toast, followed by some pineapple. Then there's lunch, and dinner is 3 bowls of cucumber soup, 3 pancakes, a massive plate of rice, chicken and beans, and half a papaya. Also, when you finish your days climbing they give you a plate of popcorn and nuts and about 6 biscuits, and insist you have at least 10 cups of tea a day. I ate what I could but make no mistake, this food was all barely edible, you may think, well sausages are quite nice to have, but these sausages would be blood red and spicy, the cucumbers had hard pips in, the pineapple would be off or the rice would be starchy and cold. I don't mean to complain, I ate everything I could, but it was very difficult at times, especially as I started to get higher and feel sick from altitude sickness.
The second day passed and that evening I shared a hut with a Swedish girl and a Japanese girl. The Swedish girl was on her way down the mountain and had not made it to the top. This didn't give me much confidence, coupled with the fact that I spoke to loads of people coming off the mountain and asked them if they'd made it to the peak and I would say about 1 in every 10 made it. It seemed everyone had got to 5,700 which is the first peak on our route, but altitude sickness meant they couldn't get any further. I felt that if I could get to 5,700 without any complications I would know whether I could get to the top or not – in essence, getting to 5,700 was vital.
The third day I couldn't get my pace right. I would go too fast and George would say 'pole-pole' which means 'slowly' - the catchphrase of Kili, so I’d slow up and he'd say 'we're not supposed to be last you know' so I’d speed up... It was a long day and by the time I got to the third camp I was willing myself on by counting every rock that I passed and setting myself little challenges on the way. I arrived at camp 3 exhausted with a bad headache. I was worried that altitude sickness had already got to me, it would be a tragedy if I couldn't even have attempted the final summit after what I’d been through for the last 3 days. I had a real lonely, miserable moment that evening where I convinced myself I couldn't do it - exactly the reason you need to be in a team. I don't know how but I got through it and even managed to get to sleep that night.
I was woken up at 11:30pm where I had to dress and have breakfast. I was a bit casual about the whole thing really but climbing Kili is a very serious affair and when George came in and found me sipping tea without my shoes and gaiters on he was a bit cross with me. I quickly sorted myself out and we were off, into the minus 20 degree temperatures and pitch blackness. We quietly made our way up the scree path, pole-pole. It would take 7 hours in total to get to the summit but I didn't dare look at my watch, anything like that would de-motivate me. I regularly passed two Norwegian girls and we'd have little chats and they spurred me on a bit. After climbing for 4 hours without a break I started to lose it. We got to 5,200m and I blacked out and fell over. I was obviously very concerned, but after some thought I felt i could continue. I then proceeded to have 200 metres (of height, not distance), which takes about an hour, of pure hell where I was dizzy, sick, headachy, my nose was chapped and stinging like mad, I lost my hearing for a time, I was delirious and became convinced a massive gerbil was sat on the top of the mountain egging me on (i have no idea why), my tendons had all ceased up and were causing me immense pain so that I had to continually flap my arms to warm them up, I must have looked ridiculous. Then I got to 5,400m and I had passed the Norwegian girls again and George said something to me about needing to be strong, and I just pulled myself out of my slump and became strong again. I got through many of these tough times on the mountain by repeating my mantra: "Goonies never say die. Goonies never say die..."
I walked the last 300 metres (approx 1.5hrs) to the peak with little problem except for the tendon issue and a bit of a headache. I also got strength when I saw the sun rising. I knew that I was supposed to be at the top for the sun rise so when I saw a thin strip of orange on the horizon I smiled to myself knowing that it wouldn't be long before I made it. And when I did, well I was ecstatic. Not just because I’d made it to 5,700 but because I didn’t feel completely exhausted and my altitude sickness wasn't that bad, so I knew then that I would make it to the peak, or so I thought. I started crying with happiness, and George pointed to a flashing light across the way on what looked like a different mountain. I said, 'what's that?' he said 'the peak' I said, 'of which mountain?' he said 'of Kili!!!' it then dawned on me that I literally had another 2 hours of climbing ahead of me to get to the peak.
We got going pretty quickly and didn't really stop at all. It was all about exhaustion at this point because the altitude would only increase another 180 metres in total, but it was about 4-5kilometres away. I kept pushing and pushing, I got to the point where I couldn't even lift my feet, or even put them a full foot length in front of each other. Over the entire trip I had 5 walking speeds. This is how I classified them, starting with the bottom of the mountain through to the top. 1: 'Walking-to-the-shops' 2: 'Pride-and-prejudice-meander-by-the-river' 3: 'extreme-teenage-moping' 4: Frodo-Baggins-scramble-for-the-pit-of-mount-doom' 5: 'Zombie-mummy. What-a-slow-death-would-look-like-if-it-was-a-walk.' I cannot tell you now how I got to the end. At times I was sort of dragged by George and other guides, other times I just pushed myself along. The whole time I was on the brink of throwing up and if I thought about cucumbers for too long I retched. The last few steps are a bit of a blur, but I am delighted to tell you that I made it all the way to the 5,895 metre peak! We took some photos and every time I smiled tears would fall out of my eyes. I wandered around a bit and picked up a rock, then I just sat by myself and had a moment to think about what I’d accomplished, and have a good cry. If anyone tries to make out that Kili isn’t a big deal, they are lying. It is the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life and even if you're incredibly fit, it is a tough old challenge. I can only liken the feeling to what some might feel to get married, or when they see their first born. To me, I felt complete, like I’d got a bit of my soul back. Funnily enough though I now feel like I left a little piece of me on that mountain... Namely about half a stone of fat from my mid-drift (saved especially for such an occasion).
The walk back down was easy and event-less, so I won't bore you with tales of what the scree was like to ski down or what I listen to on my iPod between camp 3 and 2. What I will say though is that after Kili I became very philosophical and thought a lot about stuff. On my final evening I was sat in Springlands Hotel restaurant listening to people complain about the food and the air-conditioning and I smiled to myself... I finished dinner, and decided, without hope, to check if there was any dessert. Low and behold, there sat a massive chocolate fudge cake with green icing. So I think the lesson to be learnt there is to always give it a try, because you might just get lucky.
I had hoped that was the end of my adventures and it would just be a simple ride back to Nairobi for my plane. Alas, it was not to be and my final bit of excitement came when my bus driver decided not to stop at the airport at all and instead take me directly to Nairobi central bus station. He insisted he had asked three times if anyone wanted to go to the airport but I insisted I hadn't heard him, perhaps because he was pumping out Michael Jackson Thriller at such decibels that would blow my eardrums had I not have had my fingers in them. The arguing was pointless so I just sat back down, broke out into a cold sweat, and planned what I was going to do, which was to get a taxi back. 20 dollars (grr) and 2 hours later I was at the airport.
Having a near heart attack and being unceremoniously dumped outside the airport was not the way I hoped to end this story! Instead I’ll end it by telling you that at the other end of the airport I had the most amazing surprise – my lovely boyfriend surprised me by picking me up, it was like the icing on the best chocolate cake i’ve ever eaten :)
If you are considering volunteering, then i would whole-heartedly recommend that you choose African Impact for your experience. If you’re still unsure about volunteering, you can talk to me on Twitter: twitter.com/lydiawalker, or find African Impact on Facebook and talk to them.
If you have been inspired by this blog and would like to donate any money, then i have a donation page set up where the money will go towards Hope school, their chicken project, and Mary’s training to be a qualified teacher – a worthy cause, i hope you’ll agree. You can visit it here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/LydiaWalker
Thank you so much for reading my blog, i hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as i’ve enjoyed writing it!
Lydia xx
Saturday 9 April 2011
Monday 4 April 2011
Final day with African Impact and a trip to Mombasa
My penultimate blog entry is about my last day with African Impact, and my time in Mombasa with my African Impact friends. I left off on the last Friday where we were going to the slum schools...
The second slum schools was a very different experience from the first. The slums were in essence the same, but these weren't built on a rubbish tip, they were just a normal shanty town. The school was much bigger and the kids were well dressed (relatively speaking), spoke good English and went right up to the age of 16 - staying in school until your 16 is unheard of in village schools, they're mainly pulled out before or during secondary to start working. The teacher liked to show us around each class, where the kids would all sing a song and recite a little piece about themselves, such as: “my name is George. I am a boy. I am eleven years old. I go to so-and-so school and I am in class 7”. It feels very formal and regimented, I tended to feel a little embarrassed by it but for them it was an important ritual to show us how welcome we were.
We were asked to split up and help out in class. Meg and I paired up and chose to go into the top class - I wanted to see what they were learning and I’d been with pre-schoolers up to that point so wanted a change. Our class were learning algebra and at once Meg and I realised our mistake when the teacher said, 'so you can just go around and mark their books and give them help where needed' - well I haven't done algebra in over 14 years... But we sat at the back and listened to the examples and we started to get it. Then the teacher left us to run the class... I realised that the kids did not understand even the basics of algebra and did classic time-wasting such as write lines through their books so they didn’t have to start the sums. When they did start and got them wrong, I carefully explained how to do it, and had immediate results where the kids would realise what the method was and started doing it right. I really enjoyed helping them and seeing the instant change, and was almost annoyed to be dragged away to go to the Maasai markets. If I had my time again I’d ask to be placed at that school, i could see how i could help immediately and got so much out of it myself.
That was my last African Impact working experience, and it was a lovely way to end my time on the programme. It didn’t dawn on me until a week later what an effect all the school kids, teachers and communities had on me. It’s difficult to explain my feelings on Kenya and my time with African Impact because i have so many feelings about it. With reflection, i think one of the most surprising things about my time is how incredibly comfortable i felt with everyone and everything. I got so used to the squalor, the poverty and the deprivation that i hardly noticed it, and perhaps eventually felt a little like the people who actually live there. I found everyone’s friendliness, enthusiasm and motivation to be contagious; it really was the best time of my life.
When i speak to people about volunteering, they tell me they are concerned with feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of the problems that they’ll see and fear that knowing that they can’t fix it would be too much for them, almost burdening them for the rest of their lives. I think that as a volunteer you have to accept the inevitable, that you cannot fix the big problems such as the economy, disease, human rights, abuse, poverty. But you can help to ease these problems within a small community, and work from the roots upwards. To me, African Impact is one of the first organisations i’ve ever truly believed in. I feel 100% confident that they know what they’re doing, that if i give them money they’ll spend it wisely, and that they are committed to building a sustainable future for those communities. As one little person there’s not much i can give to the world, but being part of African Impact makes my contribution that little bit more effective.
It now feels wrong that i left the slums and went to a tourist district whereby we essentially contributed to the problem of the rich/poor divide. However, at the time, we were all so exhausted from the week that a break by the beach seemed a great idea...There were five of us that travelled to Mombasa on the night bus. We were giddy with excitement and behaved like teenagers all night.
The bus was uncomfortable, okay the seats reclined but only a bit, and the roads were really bumpy so if you did finally get to sleep you'd be bounced right out of your chair. I think the driver turned up to the wrong venue as he clearly thought that we were at a disco - all night he pumped out 80's disco cheese so loud I could hear it through my own music turned up full - strangely everyone else including all the girls could sleep right through it! About 3 in the morning I had to say something and he turned it down, a fraction... It was like trying to go to sleep in a tumble dryer with MC Hammer banging at my head - impossible. I did discover though that I can sleep if I listen to Mumford and Sons, a trick I used repeatedly throughout my time in Kilimanjaro too. I was so tired when we got to Mombasa that I wasn't overly impressed that before we even got off the bus we were inundated with men shouting at us 'tuk tuk!' 'tax, tax!' 'm'lady!' I literally couldn't even get off the bus. Not fun. We were swiftly picked up and taken to our hotel, where we had been upgraded to the penthouse suite! It was incredible, especially compared to the places we'd been living and seeing. It did make me feel very ashamed having such luxuries and knowing what people in the villages were living like in comparison.
We spent our days by the pool relaxing and sunbathing as some of the girls had gone to the beach in the morning (I was asleep on a sun lounger by then) and found they were again surrounded by men, so it wasn't very enjoyable. For me sunbathing is a full-time, arduous task as I’m so white I’m almost translucent - a stage further and you'd be able to see my internal organs. But I religiously stayed in the sun and covered myself in factor 50 until finally, by Sunday evening, I had a nice mild, reddish tan.
On the Sunday, I was just relaxing on the sun lounger when to my horror I noticed a massive line of ants walking to and from the pool. I'd never seen so many in all my life and watched in fascination as they converged near a hole next to the sun lounger, all with a piece of sugar in their mouths. I realised when they started to congregate underneath my sun lounger that they were in fact conspiring to lift me up and take me to their queen. A panicked decision led me to order their genocide by the poolside attendant. I am ashamed that i’m responsible for wiping out an entire colony of ants - karma is definitely coming for me. On Sunday night the girls and I had some crazy girl time in our penthouse, playing music and eating cake, I haven't had a girly weekend like that in years and I loved it. I can’t believe what amazing friends i’ve made in such a short space of time, i feel like i’ve known them forever. I think that African Impact has brought us together in a way that nothing else can, because we’ve all shared such an incredible experience.
Monday morning, very very early, I got up to catch my bus to Moshi, sadly leaving all the girls behind who were spending another day by the pool. It was pretty daunting, being taken in a blacked out car to the bus station in Mombasa and getting on a local bus by myself. I was sat at the very front of the bus, which meant I got to see every little twist and turn, donkey, goat, pot hole and cliff edge in the road. Awesome. Next to me were two little Kenyan girls, one of which had amazing red glittery shoes on.
Now i don’t want to generalize, but the drivers in Kenya all seem to be completely mental. The driver from Mombasa to Moshi was a perfect example - he made some seriously questionable decisions in his terrain-avoidment-strategy. Of course, the bomb under the bus would have exploded if we dropped below 50mph so he must be sure to maintain the speed at all times... Nothing could induce this man to slow down - pot holes in the road, blinding sandstorms, oncoming juggernauts, all three at the same time, he wouldn't even stop for passengers to get onboard. Kenyans seem to like to jump onboard moving buses, and this wasn't an open-sided bus, it had a door and everything, but it's all part of the challenge they like to give themselves. At times like this all you can really do is plug yourself into your iPod and listen to Rage Against the Machine on full blast. When I didn't have my eyes clamped shut, I noticed that the scenery was beautiful as we drove through the Serengeti national park.
Considering I was on my way to the biggest mountain in Africa, the terrain seemed worryingly flat, so it was a good sign when I was finally given a Tanzanian immigration form. You fill out a form, get your passport stamped, walk through about 20 metres of no country whatsoever, then come into Tanzania, fill out a form, passport stamped, and you're in. I sat and thought about those 20 metres a lot on that 7 hour bus journey - where exactly was I?!
I chose a terrible time to develop narcolepsy. It happened just as we were pulling into Moshi, a time where I desperately needed to keep my eyes open and find my hotel, as the detour to Mombasa meant that I was now not being dropped off directly outside it. Nothing, however, could have kept my eyes open at that point. Not even the promise of a cheese sandwich. I've only known myself this tired once before, on a flight back from Benidorm when I was 17 and had lived off pro-plus for 3 days - I woke up with peas stuck to my face where I’d fallen asleep in the airplane food.
Eventually we pulled up to the bus station and I woke up, confused and disorientated. There were a couple of other western girls sat at the back of my bus, who when leaving the bus were greeted by another western woman who whisked them off in a smart Jeep, leaving me in the dust, with three bags too heavy for me to carry. At this point I wished that previous me had thought about future me and organised some transport. It's lucky that Tanzanians are just as friendly as Kenyans, and one of the bus porters went and found me a taxi, got in it with me and all my luggage, charged me 6 US dollars (grr) to drive round the block a few times then a few hundred metres down the road to my hotel.
I had 2 days relaxing at Springlands hotel where I spent time organising my bags for Kili and burning my stomach to a sort of tomato-red colour. That evening I went to the orientation session and learnt that despite me booking myself into a group, I was in fact climbing Kili all by myself. This did not go down well with me at all. I wanted to be in a group so that I could have the mental support of other group members, so that I was safe, and so that I didn’t have to tip as much at the end. It would mean that I would have all to myself 3 porters, 1 cook and 1 guide, it seemed a little over-the-top. But there was nothing I could do, so I made the best of it.
The food in the restaurant was very average and I complained to myself that the food wasn't half as nice as Brackenhurst, that the place wasn't as friendly and that the fan/air conditioning in the rooms was dreadful. Ahh, post-Kilimanjaro I think back to that naive person and shake my head at them, as little did I know what I was about to endure in the next 5 days...
The second slum schools was a very different experience from the first. The slums were in essence the same, but these weren't built on a rubbish tip, they were just a normal shanty town. The school was much bigger and the kids were well dressed (relatively speaking), spoke good English and went right up to the age of 16 - staying in school until your 16 is unheard of in village schools, they're mainly pulled out before or during secondary to start working. The teacher liked to show us around each class, where the kids would all sing a song and recite a little piece about themselves, such as: “my name is George. I am a boy. I am eleven years old. I go to so-and-so school and I am in class 7”. It feels very formal and regimented, I tended to feel a little embarrassed by it but for them it was an important ritual to show us how welcome we were.
We were asked to split up and help out in class. Meg and I paired up and chose to go into the top class - I wanted to see what they were learning and I’d been with pre-schoolers up to that point so wanted a change. Our class were learning algebra and at once Meg and I realised our mistake when the teacher said, 'so you can just go around and mark their books and give them help where needed' - well I haven't done algebra in over 14 years... But we sat at the back and listened to the examples and we started to get it. Then the teacher left us to run the class... I realised that the kids did not understand even the basics of algebra and did classic time-wasting such as write lines through their books so they didn’t have to start the sums. When they did start and got them wrong, I carefully explained how to do it, and had immediate results where the kids would realise what the method was and started doing it right. I really enjoyed helping them and seeing the instant change, and was almost annoyed to be dragged away to go to the Maasai markets. If I had my time again I’d ask to be placed at that school, i could see how i could help immediately and got so much out of it myself.
That was my last African Impact working experience, and it was a lovely way to end my time on the programme. It didn’t dawn on me until a week later what an effect all the school kids, teachers and communities had on me. It’s difficult to explain my feelings on Kenya and my time with African Impact because i have so many feelings about it. With reflection, i think one of the most surprising things about my time is how incredibly comfortable i felt with everyone and everything. I got so used to the squalor, the poverty and the deprivation that i hardly noticed it, and perhaps eventually felt a little like the people who actually live there. I found everyone’s friendliness, enthusiasm and motivation to be contagious; it really was the best time of my life.
When i speak to people about volunteering, they tell me they are concerned with feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of the problems that they’ll see and fear that knowing that they can’t fix it would be too much for them, almost burdening them for the rest of their lives. I think that as a volunteer you have to accept the inevitable, that you cannot fix the big problems such as the economy, disease, human rights, abuse, poverty. But you can help to ease these problems within a small community, and work from the roots upwards. To me, African Impact is one of the first organisations i’ve ever truly believed in. I feel 100% confident that they know what they’re doing, that if i give them money they’ll spend it wisely, and that they are committed to building a sustainable future for those communities. As one little person there’s not much i can give to the world, but being part of African Impact makes my contribution that little bit more effective.
It now feels wrong that i left the slums and went to a tourist district whereby we essentially contributed to the problem of the rich/poor divide. However, at the time, we were all so exhausted from the week that a break by the beach seemed a great idea...There were five of us that travelled to Mombasa on the night bus. We were giddy with excitement and behaved like teenagers all night.
The bus was uncomfortable, okay the seats reclined but only a bit, and the roads were really bumpy so if you did finally get to sleep you'd be bounced right out of your chair. I think the driver turned up to the wrong venue as he clearly thought that we were at a disco - all night he pumped out 80's disco cheese so loud I could hear it through my own music turned up full - strangely everyone else including all the girls could sleep right through it! About 3 in the morning I had to say something and he turned it down, a fraction... It was like trying to go to sleep in a tumble dryer with MC Hammer banging at my head - impossible. I did discover though that I can sleep if I listen to Mumford and Sons, a trick I used repeatedly throughout my time in Kilimanjaro too. I was so tired when we got to Mombasa that I wasn't overly impressed that before we even got off the bus we were inundated with men shouting at us 'tuk tuk!' 'tax, tax!' 'm'lady!' I literally couldn't even get off the bus. Not fun. We were swiftly picked up and taken to our hotel, where we had been upgraded to the penthouse suite! It was incredible, especially compared to the places we'd been living and seeing. It did make me feel very ashamed having such luxuries and knowing what people in the villages were living like in comparison.
We spent our days by the pool relaxing and sunbathing as some of the girls had gone to the beach in the morning (I was asleep on a sun lounger by then) and found they were again surrounded by men, so it wasn't very enjoyable. For me sunbathing is a full-time, arduous task as I’m so white I’m almost translucent - a stage further and you'd be able to see my internal organs. But I religiously stayed in the sun and covered myself in factor 50 until finally, by Sunday evening, I had a nice mild, reddish tan.
On the Sunday, I was just relaxing on the sun lounger when to my horror I noticed a massive line of ants walking to and from the pool. I'd never seen so many in all my life and watched in fascination as they converged near a hole next to the sun lounger, all with a piece of sugar in their mouths. I realised when they started to congregate underneath my sun lounger that they were in fact conspiring to lift me up and take me to their queen. A panicked decision led me to order their genocide by the poolside attendant. I am ashamed that i’m responsible for wiping out an entire colony of ants - karma is definitely coming for me. On Sunday night the girls and I had some crazy girl time in our penthouse, playing music and eating cake, I haven't had a girly weekend like that in years and I loved it. I can’t believe what amazing friends i’ve made in such a short space of time, i feel like i’ve known them forever. I think that African Impact has brought us together in a way that nothing else can, because we’ve all shared such an incredible experience.
Monday morning, very very early, I got up to catch my bus to Moshi, sadly leaving all the girls behind who were spending another day by the pool. It was pretty daunting, being taken in a blacked out car to the bus station in Mombasa and getting on a local bus by myself. I was sat at the very front of the bus, which meant I got to see every little twist and turn, donkey, goat, pot hole and cliff edge in the road. Awesome. Next to me were two little Kenyan girls, one of which had amazing red glittery shoes on.
Now i don’t want to generalize, but the drivers in Kenya all seem to be completely mental. The driver from Mombasa to Moshi was a perfect example - he made some seriously questionable decisions in his terrain-avoidment-strategy. Of course, the bomb under the bus would have exploded if we dropped below 50mph so he must be sure to maintain the speed at all times... Nothing could induce this man to slow down - pot holes in the road, blinding sandstorms, oncoming juggernauts, all three at the same time, he wouldn't even stop for passengers to get onboard. Kenyans seem to like to jump onboard moving buses, and this wasn't an open-sided bus, it had a door and everything, but it's all part of the challenge they like to give themselves. At times like this all you can really do is plug yourself into your iPod and listen to Rage Against the Machine on full blast. When I didn't have my eyes clamped shut, I noticed that the scenery was beautiful as we drove through the Serengeti national park.
Considering I was on my way to the biggest mountain in Africa, the terrain seemed worryingly flat, so it was a good sign when I was finally given a Tanzanian immigration form. You fill out a form, get your passport stamped, walk through about 20 metres of no country whatsoever, then come into Tanzania, fill out a form, passport stamped, and you're in. I sat and thought about those 20 metres a lot on that 7 hour bus journey - where exactly was I?!
I chose a terrible time to develop narcolepsy. It happened just as we were pulling into Moshi, a time where I desperately needed to keep my eyes open and find my hotel, as the detour to Mombasa meant that I was now not being dropped off directly outside it. Nothing, however, could have kept my eyes open at that point. Not even the promise of a cheese sandwich. I've only known myself this tired once before, on a flight back from Benidorm when I was 17 and had lived off pro-plus for 3 days - I woke up with peas stuck to my face where I’d fallen asleep in the airplane food.
Eventually we pulled up to the bus station and I woke up, confused and disorientated. There were a couple of other western girls sat at the back of my bus, who when leaving the bus were greeted by another western woman who whisked them off in a smart Jeep, leaving me in the dust, with three bags too heavy for me to carry. At this point I wished that previous me had thought about future me and organised some transport. It's lucky that Tanzanians are just as friendly as Kenyans, and one of the bus porters went and found me a taxi, got in it with me and all my luggage, charged me 6 US dollars (grr) to drive round the block a few times then a few hundred metres down the road to my hotel.
I had 2 days relaxing at Springlands hotel where I spent time organising my bags for Kili and burning my stomach to a sort of tomato-red colour. That evening I went to the orientation session and learnt that despite me booking myself into a group, I was in fact climbing Kili all by myself. This did not go down well with me at all. I wanted to be in a group so that I could have the mental support of other group members, so that I was safe, and so that I didn’t have to tip as much at the end. It would mean that I would have all to myself 3 porters, 1 cook and 1 guide, it seemed a little over-the-top. But there was nothing I could do, so I made the best of it.
The food in the restaurant was very average and I complained to myself that the food wasn't half as nice as Brackenhurst, that the place wasn't as friendly and that the fan/air conditioning in the rooms was dreadful. Ahh, post-Kilimanjaro I think back to that naive person and shake my head at them, as little did I know what I was about to endure in the next 5 days...
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