Travel Story «Strange Encounters in Serengeti»

Tanzania | 0 Comments 14 June 2009 - Last Update 14 June 2009

Hamjambo and Karibu Arusha! The mzungu capital of Tanzania, where you can't walk ten steps without being offered a safari, a painting, or some ominous sounding 'stuff'. Here, I am staying in the world's smallest hotel room, in Arusha backpackers, where the room must have been built around the bed.

It has been only two weeks since I left Kilombero with many tears and heartbreaking moments, and so much has happened in that time. I won't go into the goodbyes in too much detail. The only moment I will describe, as it pretty much sums up how difficult it was to leave, was at 5.20 am on the day of our departure. We had stayed up all night packing, reminiscing and drinking with a few of our closest friends there. The staff bus, which would take us to Ruaha, the village, was arriving in 10 minutes. I closed up my room and went into the girls' room to see if they were ready. Standing in there, shivering in his shorts, with them was Nelson, a ten year old boy who lives down the road, who had snuck out of his bed to see us one last time. This broke all of our hearts, and is a memory that will probably last with us forever.

So, sad times to one side, and on to more exciting stuff. First was Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa, the highest free standing mountain in the world, the highest non technical climb in the world, basically a very high mountain. Five of us, me, Simon, Josh, Rachel and Laura, had signed up to climb it. We paid a huge wad of cash (literally), borrowed a ton of clothes, met the fifteen members of our 'team' (10 porters, 3 guides and 2 cooks) and set off. What surprised us was how easy it was. For the first few days we strolled along for a few hours, then spent the rest of the day chilling in our sleeping bags, eating and drinking copious amounts of tea. The sparse, barren landscapes were undeniably beautiful, with unusual plants and great views of Kili. It also quickly got very cold, which felt nice in a way to escape the African heat we were used to. But up to peak day, we didn't feel challenged by the climb. Then it changed. I have heard that statistically somewhere between 1 in 5 to 2 in 3 climbers fail to make Uhuru peak (the first was word of mouth, the second Rough Guide - I'll go with the second as it sounds more impressive). The ascent to the peak starts at midnight. We were incredibly lucky to have a full moon to light our way, but we still wore head torches on top of around 28 layers of clothes. You go polepole sana (very slowly). I began to feel the altitude at around 5000 metres, my head felt light and dizzy, and I felt a bit sick. By this point, the boys had separated from the girls, and were going at a relatively fast pace, aiming to reach the top by sunrise. I felt worse and worse, and at Gilman's point, which is the top of the steepest, hardest and longest bit of the climb - roughly a kilometre up of an incredibly sheer path that you have to zig zag your way along, or risk slipping down to the bottom - I almost collapsed from lack of energy, and threw up my dinner from the previous evening. I had got so far, though, that I had to keep going, and with the full moon still high above us, and a pink line of the sun appearing on the horizon, I dragged my feet along, with a bit of support from Emanuel, our guide, and finally, at 6am, we made it to the peak. It was truly beautiful, the moon over a huge, wall-like glacier on one side, the sun rising over the vast expanse of Kilimanjaro crater on the other. It was also definately the biggest achievement of my life so far, and I felt so good having fought through such bad altitude sickness to make it.

Having got back down a couple of days later, I split off from the group to go on Safari. I joined a group of two German women and a Dutch couple to spend 3 days in Serengeti and 1 in the Ngorongoro crater. At first, I was not enjoying myself as much as expected. I felt confined by the roads, and every time we saw something good, such as a pack of cheetah with a fresh zebra kill, the joy was reduced by the dozen or so other cars surrounding it. However, my opinion was soon changed by the beauty of the Serengeti, some good finds by Lawrence, our guide, and the animals, which were amazing. We saw pretty much everything, and I also had the strangest moment of my life, when, while sitting in the entrance to the Serengeti while Lawrence sorted paperwork, contemplating the beauty of the endless grassy savanna, John, my friend from England, came strolling up to me. He is on an 8 week safari going all over Southern Africa, and purely by coincidence was in the same place as me at the same time. We separated after only that first day, his group moving on before mine, but it is possible we will meet again in Zanzibar or Dar in a few days. Strange world. 

So that's all for now folks (I say folks, although I'm not sure who's still reading this...if you are, send me an email - I like hearing from home). Probably see you next time in Mali...x