Kenya, A Little Scary...

The day after returning from Kili, fresh from two great meals, three looooooooong hot showers, and a fantastic night’s sleep on my Splurge Hotel’s Queen size bed, I met my Kili guide, Arushaa, and his wife for lunch and a little shopping. First I set him up with an email account and showed him how to use it – he wants to start doing some guiding without the tour companies taking the larger share of the money, and I think the web is the small business’ key to the future. Then we went to an open air secondhand market and we found me some jeans and a pair of shoes. I’d been noticing strange American t-shirts all around Africa – "Lake HS Class of ’98," lots of college t-shirts, political slogans, work softball team jerseys, and a memorably profane one from a Fire Dept in Elkhart Indiana; now I realized where all these shirts were coming from! When you donate old clothes to charity, those that don’t get sold in the States are sold in bulk to people who ship them to Africa where they are resold cheaply to the locals. I wondered how long it will take for all the ones I gave away last April to get here, and half expected to spot one.

Then I bought Arushaa and his wife lunch at a tiny locals place that was really good. As I sat there at a common table rubbing elbows with the Africans on either side of me, eating I have no idea what, in a place whose conditions would have horrified me seven months ago, I realized moments like this are what I’m really going to treasure from this trip. It’s meeting people from all over the world, making friends and learning about their lives and how they look at life.

At 2PM I caught a shuttle bus to Nairobi for a three day visit before flying to Rome. With the recent post-election riots and mayhem on my mind, I had my eyes peeled for trouble but the only thing I noticed was squads of geared up riot troops on many corners.

The next morning, I met Waswa, a connection of Arushaa’s who owns his own business doing Outward Bound style team building and consulting with Kenyan companies. We decided to go to Hell’s Gate National Park for a day of mountain biking with all the herd animals I’d only seen from a safari truck before. We went off road to work our way closer to the animals and I followed gazelles, antelopes, and zebra until they got tired of me and wandered off. I chased some families of warthogs and tried to approach cape buffalo – but it was they who drove me off with their defiant formations and intimidating size. I didn’t want to push too close as I wasn’t sure I could pedal faster over the uneven terrain than they could run! It is safe to bike because there are no lions, but leopards have been occasionally seen and we kept out from under trees where they like to sleep on low branches during the day and ambush prey when hungry. Later we parked the bikes and climbed down into a beautiful gorge, past geothermal vents that give the park its name.

After a long drive back to Nairobi with a great conversation that could have lasted all night, I ate at the hotel bar and watched a French League soccer match. Due to the planned opposition rallies, I decided to stay in the city the next day and carefully poke around the city. After the game I watched the local news which included some pretty graphic footage of police shooting two protesters at close range with AK-47s, then kicking the wounded men on the ground as they died. Later, CNN had a story citing “alleged reports” of the deaths, and I wondered how they had missed the local footage, which didn’t look very “alleged” to me.

After breakfast the next morning, I headed out to look around. There were many people out but most businesses were locked up tight. All I saw were lots of riot police and some groups with clubs shooing people away. After the second time I was stopped by police or troops (I couldn’t tell the difference,) in riot gear, I was getting worried. They checked my passport several times and kept asking if I was a journalist as they reviewed the pictures on my camera. I wasn’t sure of the better answer and decided to hole up in the internet café across from my hostel for the rest of the day.

On my way to the airport the next morning, my taxi got stopped at a roadblock where the police tried to shake me down for not wearing a seatbelt in the backseat. Saying it was my responsibility to know the local laws, they were sorry but they “would have to take me to police HQ.” I just stayed calm, refused to get out of the cab, admitted nothing and kept saying they there was no reason to arrest me for that. When they finally did pull me out of the car, I just said that I lived in DC and to make sure they called the US embassy so someone would meet us at the station. That’s when they put me back in the taxi and waved us on. After, the taxi driver said it’s a common police scam to stop cabs on the way to the airport, invent an infraction and try to get bribes from foreigners worried about missing flights. What a racket!

Nairobi looked like a pretty modern, western style city at its center, and the rest of Kenya seemed intriguing too. It’s a shame I couldn’t see more of it.

Next stop – Rome!
Arrivederci,
Clemente

Slogging Up Kilimanjaro...

My flight to Tanzania had a layover in Nairobi, so on the southbound leg, my window seat included a great view of Mount Kilimanjaro. Her snowy peaks and crater burst up through the clouds into the sunlight and seemed to almost scrape the underside of the jet's wing as we passed overhead.
"I 'm going to attempt that?" I asked myself, trying to calculate how much worse 5896m (19,457 feet) is than the 13 thousand or so feet I endured skiing in Colorado last year. "Well, I am going to give it my best," I decided, worrying a little about the 30%-50% failure rate the guidebooks claimed.
Cut to: a couple of weeks later.
In Arusha, there are probably 50 companies running treks up the mountain and there are almost as many different ways to make the climb. There are around seven routes of varying difficulty and scenery, then you decide how many days from five to eight or nine with the longer trips offering more acclimatization time. Of course more days = more money. Next decide how "gourmet" you want to travel. There are all kinds of amenities and services offered from meal quality to better lodging and bedding. I even saw one group with a tiny, tented, private port-a-potty! No sharing the nasty wooden hole in the floor outhouse for these climbers. Of course more luxuries = more money! I got pretty lucky and found a group doing one of the routes I was interested in, Machamé (scenic and not too crowded but one of the harder routes,) leaving the day after I got back from safari, taking six days and in my price range - hooray! They even had cold weather and trekking gear I could rent.
So early in the morning, I joined a French couple, Christelle & Christophe (another language workout!) who live on Reunion Island near Mauritius, and set off with 12 porters and a guide up the mountain.
The climb is broken up into reasonable daily hikes to allow for some acclimatization and not completely exhaust the tourists. Our first day we were supposed to leave from the Machamé entrance gate at 1700m, but our van broke down a kilometer short of that so we had some bonus hiking right at the start at no extra charge. It was a very pretty hike through the green rainforest, moderately strenuous most of the way, but it got a little steeper after we broke through the treeline and approached our goal. Four and a half hours after starting, we arrived at our first night's camp at 3034m and found the porters had pitched our tents and dinner was almost ready. We all went right to bed after eating and I tried to sleep all bundled up in my chilly little tent.
Day 2 started with breakfast at 7:30 (porridge! - am I back in the -Seychelles?) and then hiked another 4.5 hours up to 3800m with great views most of the way, but the clouds closed in and it started raining just after we reached camp at 1:15. The rest of the afternoon was acclimatization time and we all napped after Christelle, who is a biology and geology teacher, worked on my French. Christophe has just a little English, but Christelle's was about level with my French, so conversation was pretty easy. It was a cold, cloudy, and cold (did I mention it was cold?) camp with some weird sci-fi looking plants growing in the rocks all around.
After a very cold night (-10°C) we woke up to sunshine glinting off the frozen tents and a beautiful view of the high peaks and glaciers up on Kili's summit. I had slept badly due to the cold - Nature Beauties gave me a crap tent and sleeping bag. And who designs a thermal mat that is narrower than a person? Every time a part of my body touched the ground off the mat, I was quickly wakened by cold seeping in through my layers. If I didn't lie like King Tut with my arms crossed on my chest, not moving at all, I kept waking up and I could feel exhaustion beginning to take its toll. I was chilled as I don't think my gear was designed with this kind of camping in mind. That day, we hiked six hours up to Lava Tower at 4600m and back down to Barranko Camp which is just under 4000m, to get more used to the altitude. It was bloody cold and even planning to wear most of the clothes I owned, I was not looking forward to that night. I had a solid headache due to altitude and effort despite hydrating like crazy. And peeing every hour made sleep even more difficult. I was worried what the next day would bring...
All the clothes did not help and I spent a mostly sleepless night trying to find the warmest position and then not move. After a quick breakfast that I really didn't feel like eating, we packed and hit the trail on a long ascent to altitude for our last camp before the summit push. The combination of altitude, hard climb, cold and lack of sleep were beginning to exhaust me and I felt awful all day. By lunch the hike and altitude robbed us of our appetites, and we huddled out of the wind behind some rocks, staring at bag lunches we barely touched. I forced down what I could and packed in a liter of water on top of that. I knew dehydration in the thin dry air must be avoided and I swallowed the icy water knowing that we would at least get a breather every time we stopped to pee. After lunch, conditions got worse - colder and wetter - and Christelle started getting sick.
Staggering along, I caught my mind considering ways to quit and end the misery and controlled it by forcing everything out and just counting my steps. Left foot odds and right foot evens and trying to focus on any interesting numbers I passed.
34- my lucky number...
1066 - William the Conqueror...
1492 - Columbus...
1776 - Declaration of Independence...
1968 - my birthyear...
1990 - college graduation...
2002 - CJ is born...
2068 - I turn 100...
3434 - lucky number twice.
Soon they lost all meaning as I moved slowly up the mountain and I really had to focus during the breaks not to lose count. Christelle got sicker, puking every couple hundred meters, and I was now fighting the nausea and taste of my own old food. "What is that awful taste? Hard-boiled egg? I threw mine away at lunch, can I be fighting down yesterday's lunch?!?" The step count grew until after six hours of hiking, finally we stopped at Barafu camp, altitude 4662m.
Step count - 7192.
The plan was to nap, grab some dinner, then sleep for a couple more hours before rising at 11:30PM for a midnight start on the summit climb - hoping to arrive around dawn.
Here is where I got lucky. I had been trying to come up with a better way to sleep and decided that half my trouble was the mummy style sleeping bag that I just could not get comfy in. So this time, I put on all my warmest clothes and lay down directly on the thermal mat with the unzipped sleeping bag over me like a blanket so I could lie on my side, which was all but impossible before. Our guide Arushaa had noticed my struggles with poor gear and the cold and dug up some decent socks for me. Between the two, I got a decent nap before dinner and felt a little better.
By then Christelle was so sick she could not even get out of her sleeping bag - she wouldn't be going any further and would head down to a lesser altitude as soon as possible. The thought of eating turned my stomach and Christophe had it worse - all the difficulties we were sharing, plus a ton of worry about his girlfriend. We stared at the food for a while, and I eventually managed half a bowl of soup with a piece of bread crumbled in, two spoonfuls of plain pasta, and some tea. Chris only had soup and I struggled to encourage and cheer him up in French. Then it was back to our tents for some sleep before the midnight hike.
As I zipped the flap, I noticed how the strengthening winds were rattling my tent and I thought it might blow away if me and my pack weren't inside holding it down. Every time I needed to pee, I stayed inside and used the water bottle trick I had discovered in the Serengeti. Only this time, I augmented my new sleep system by huddling around the warm bottle until its heat faded. When I woke with a stuffed nose, I just blew it right into the sleeping bag without even uncovering my head, "I've only got to sleep in it one more night," I thought as I drifted back to sleep, "my snot is the next guy's problem." This way, I managed to get another decent five hours of shuteye.
I awoke to a porter calling my name, quickly dressed in my planned ascent clothes, drank the cup of tea, and downed the cookies he left. The wind was really buffeting my tent as I put brand new batteries in my headlamp and mentally got ready for what lay ahead in the dark on the frozen hill.
Decent sleep made all the difference and I felt pretty good. My blood was up and I just knew my goal was within reach. Determination took over and now I just had to get it done.
Then Arushaa came and I crawled out into the frigid dark to begin the final climb to the summit of the highest mountain on the continent. Chris was nowhere to be seen as we started out, but I barely gave it a thought and just focused on keeping the beam of my headlight on Arushaa's boots and trying to step in all the good spots he used. "Poley poley," I thought, rerpeating the Swahili words for "slowly, slowly," over and over again in my mind. Step step breathe. Step step breathe. An hour and a half in, my head lamp died - the batteries killed by the cold. With chilled fingers like dead meat, I struggled to reinsert the half batteries I had pulled out in my tent, and opened my jacket to put the dead ones close to my body where they might get some more life as they warmed. The constant wind gusts were trying to knock me off the exposed rocks and for the first time, I feared not making it for reasons other than my own exhaustion or reaction to altitude. I knew I had the mental strength to drag my body to the top and well beyond, but "What a shame," I thought, "if I failed because of no lights or a fall in this shitty wind!" When the second set of batteries gave out, I pulled out the the dive light I usually keep on my BC and had luckily brought along as a third backup. Poley Poley, higher and higher.
Even though I could no longer feel them, I kept wiggling my toes and fingers, trying to keep the blood flowing. It hurt every time I scraped the snotsicles off my nose, so I figured I was safe from frostbite there, at least.
Around 5AM, the divelight died and when Arushaa seemed a little frustrated while I was switching back to the headlamp and changing out batteries, I almost snapped at him, "I brought TWO flashlights and THREE sets of batteries," I raged but kept it inside, "and you didn't bring shit - so get off my back!" This time, the rewarmed first batteries lasted no more than 20 minutes, and I was about to chuck it off the mountain. But Arushaa came through and scrounged two AAA batteries from another guide, and with the one leftover I remembered sticking in my pocket from the four-pack I had opened in the tent, I thought we would have light until dawn. Back to the climbing, up through the wind and the cold.
I was still plodding along, somewhere deep in my own mind where it wasn't cold and painful, when suddenly Arushaa was hugging me, "Congratulations," he shouted in my ear, "we're here!" and I realized that it was light enough to see and the slope had gotten more gradual. We had reached Stella Point, not the top top yet - that lay several hundred meters up, but was just a 45 minute walk instead of a climb through the really thin air. Looped on the lack of O2, I staggered into the wind on to Uhuru Point, arriving at 6:20AM, just over six hours after leaving camp.
I dragged out my camera, inserted the battery I'd kept warm against my body, and took some pics at the wooden sign. It was cloudy and the top is pretty flat so there wasn't really any views. I pulled out a sign I made as a joke for some GVI friends and found some people to pose with it. The relentless wind tore one of the pieces from someone's grasp and it was instantly gone forever - I didn't even bother to look. I just tried to shoot what was left before it got snatched away, too. Drunk with success and the thin air, I put the camera away and pulled out the Mars Bar I'd carried all week to celebrate and almost broke a tooth on it, "We'll eat that later," Arushaa cautioned, "you'll just throw it up, here." And with that we started back down.
Now I noticed the exhausted and desperate faces of those on the way up as we passed. "Almost there," I cheered them, "you're doing great!" I tried to give them some of my energy to make it. Few noticed and soon I was far enough down that I felt silly saying anything so I just looked at them, wondering who would quit. Lots had, I realized when I compared the numbers of people I saw around the summit with the hordes that left camp back at midnight - the cold and altitude had taken their toll.
We descended back to Barafu Camp to the east and soon the sun cleared a peak and shone horizontally under the clouds, warming me as we almost skiied down a dusty gravel slope. I could have slipped and fallen all the way back to my tentand not cared - I had made it! I'd been scared my body couldn't handle the altitude, but it had. I'd survived days and nights of dreadful cold I'd never expected and wasn't prepared for. I totalled the hours of climbing in my head and realized that I had hiked 4.3 km vertically and 26.5 hours to the summit in five days! Finally I reached camp around 9AM where Arushaa let me sleep for an hour before waking me with a quick bowl of soup and then we were off for another three hour hike to that night's camp down at 3089m.
I rolled into Mweka Camp on rubbery legs with a small smile and asked Chris & Chris how they were doing. Her stomach was lots better and they hugged me and we shared my Mars Bar. I know Chris could have made it, physically I think he was stronger than me, but I also think he had to stay with his girlfriend. I told him this and said he had made the right decision and he looked relieved. Then this Quebecois guy named Simon showed up and we talked in French until dinner. How did I get stuck with the only three French speakers on the mountain?? It was OK, though, I could follow most of it, and they talked slowly and helped when I needed a translation. Simon works in Montreal as a Survival Instructor (!) and incredibly he had summited in the dark before 5AM, took two pictures and was back in his tent by 6:30 - when I was still at the summit. Wow!
The next day was a quick morning walk in shorts and a t-shirt and we descended quickly in the newly thick-feeling air. At the gate, we signed out of the mountain and I bought the porters a round of beers (at 10AM!) to thank them for the amazing job they did. Their job is very difficult, walking with huge loads balanced on their heads at twice the tourists' speed, while we were struggling with a light daypack. By early afternoon I was checked into my "splurge" hotel and was vainly trying to run them out of hot water.
The grand totals? - Six days. 34 hours of hiking. 1600m to 5896m and back down, about 8.6km of vertical change, (actually way more with all the ups and downs in between.) Four huge blisters and about 2kg of weight lost. Most importantly, I'd found inner strength and resolve I never knew I had. Arushaa said the summit temp was -13°C and we had gone up in the worst wind storm on the mountain in five years.

I believe it.

-Clement

Wild Kingdom

One of my most vivid childhood memories was watching two nature shows on TV with my family: "The Undersea World With Jacques Cousteau," and "Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I'm sure everyone knows the French diving legend, but the other show (What was Mutual of Omaha anyway? A bank? An insurance company? Why Omaha? Did they do business outside of Nebraska? And what is so Mutual about it?) was as memorable for the amazing wildlife footage as for its host's wacky upswept hair. Every week, they brought new exotic wildlife right into my suburban home from all over the world, sparking a boy's imagination and generating an interest in animals and exotic destinations that has at least partially led to my present adventures.

Wild Kingdom and Jacques Cousteau eventually gave way to cable and my love of National Geographic and The Discovery Channel so it should be no surprise that the first thing I did on arrival in Arusha, Tanzinia, was to book a safari. I soon found a six day safari group that was looking to cut their price by adding a fourth member - that meant a good price for me, and since their plan included many of the parks I wanted to see, it was an easy decision to make.

The next morning I arrived at the safari company to find that things had changed a bit - for the better. Two of the other clients were held up by the violence in Kenya, so it was just myself and an Aussie named Libby to start and the others would try to catch up later.

Our first stop was Tarangiri National Park, and I could tell it was going to be great when we spotted impala from the entrance and an elephant only 500m inside the gate!! We spent the rest of the day riding around the park, standing on the seats for a great view out the open-topped Land Cruiser as our guide and driver, Bekka, described all the wildlife he was finding for us. We enjoyed close encounters with several herds of elephants, troops of baboons, some ostrich, giraffes, warthogs, waterbok, velvet monkeys, dik-diks, and even a lioness snoozing near her kill.

Next to a stream full of impala and a about 20 elephants drinking and tossing mud around with their trunks, I looked over at another approaching safari truck and one of the pasengers looked sorta familiar...

"Annette!" I called out, and sure enough, it was my friend - also fresh from dorm three and The Seychelles Experience - now enjoying Africa with her husband, Tim and we shouted updates to each other as our vehicles passed. Of course it's such a small world that when we camped for the night in a Maasai village, they were in the very next row of tents.

The next day we visited Lake Manyara Wildlife Conservation Area for more safari action, this time less wooded and skirting the edges of a massive lake where we spotted hippos and clouds of flamingoes. We also saw our first herds of zebra, cape buffalo, and wildebeest. Two of the zebras were injured and hobbling and the harsh reality of nature meant that they were probably someone's dinner that night of the next - and judging by the white bones scattered here and there on the green grass, there were definitely predators nearby...

The Lake was definitely better than Tarangiri, and we were beginning to see the massive amounts of wildlife Mutual Of Omaha promised. Annette had said that our safari route and park order was perfect - each would be better than the next and I couldn't wait for the next day and the legendary Serengeti!

The next morning, Libby and I awoke early and rolled out of our sleeping bags and tents to find our almost private tour had grown by one - the Swedish and Dutch girls were stuck in Uganda and had to cancel, but we were joined by Petr, a Czech engineer. So three people in a seven seat Land Cruiser was a hardship we would just have to endure and we got to know each other a bit on our morning drive to the next National Park.

In Swahili, Sirengit means "endless space" and long before we even approached the park entrance, I completely understood how the Serengeti was named. Formed when huge amounts of volcanic ash covered an older mountain range so only the occasional tip pokes out, the park is a vast flat grassy surface where animals roam everywhere. Our safari truck sped down a lonely unpaved track, across the dry grasslands and gently rolling hills. We passed Maasai villages or Boma with adorable kids frantically waving and yelling "Jambo! Jambo!!" and lean tall traditionally dressed tribesmen watching their herds of goat and cattle and gently shooing away some wildebeests and zebra tagging along for protection.

All signs of man apart from the long, straight, dirt road disappeared once we crossed into the National Park and it really began to feel like the Africa in the wildlife shows. Small groups of antelopes, impala, and zebra grazed together under the scorching sun from horizon to horizon as far as the eye could see. And the wildebeest were starting to mass together for their annual migration, not yet in the millions, but definitely in clumps of thousands. We drove through this magic environment for two hours with only an occasional stand of acacia trees or a kopje interrupting the vastness. It was here on one of these rocky islands that I got to see a young male lion, dozing like a prince on the sun, his half-grown mane styled like the Beckham faux-hawk - wow!

Our campsite was in a woodland area next to a riverbed so part of Bekka's evening briefing was a little off-putting: absolutely no food in the tents, and "if you need to get up to pee, shine your flashlight all the way around in a circle and look for eyes reflecting back from the dark." He recommended gathering a small pile of rocks next to the flap of our tents to chase animals away and wondered why I had only grabbed a couple?

"If whatever is out there doesn't leave after I've thrown this many stones at it, I've already pissed myself so it won't matter any more," I explained to the group's laughter. No one was laughing later that night when we heard the coughing grunt of lions and things breathing and sniffing around the tents. It's amazing how thin the fabric of a tent gets when your imagination is running away with you. It turned out two lions did roam through in the dark but most of the noises were from some hyenas in the bush and a pack of warthogs looking for scraps. I could have sworn something huge was testing the strength of my shelter all night. It was very sobering to see those big kitty pawprints in the dust right next to your tent in the morning light... After that, I started keeping an extra empty water bottle in my tent every night and then quietly tipping it out every morning in the bushes.

We had about two full days in the Serengeti and roamed all over. We saw many prides of lions, some with cubs, a leopard snoozing on a branch, hippos, a croc, and best of all - a cheetah moving through the tall grass! They have long been my favorite animal and I was hyped to get to really see one in the wild! Everytime we passed a herd of gazelles after that, I was secretly hoping to see a blur of yellow and black spots to ruin their day, heh heh heh.

Libby, Petr and I were a pretty good spotting team by our third day in Serengeti, and had seen so much that we were barely calling out sightings to each other unless there was something unusual to see like a baby giraffe or elephant, or vultures circling some doomed animal in the distance. Our last sighting before leaving that Park was just the bottom four inches of a leopard's tail as it snoozed on a branch obscured by the leaves, and we didn't feel like hanging around for an hour to see if it moved.

We packed up the camp and were excited to be heading to the famed (and almost unpronounceable,) Ngorongoro Crater National Park. After another long dusty drive across the savannah and herds of everything barely flicking an ear in our direction as we sped by, I convinced Bekka to make a slight detour so we could visit Olduvai Gorge, where the Leakey's made their amazing Australopithecus Boisei and Homo Habilus discoveries I studied in school. The gorge is not breathtakingly pretty, but it is awe-inspiring to look in and think that our ancient ancestors, as tiny and hairy as they were, once stood up, made basic tools, and walked around on the very earth I was standing on literally millions of years ago. It gave me the pricklies, anyway, and the museum was quite good.

That evening we arrived at the scenic Crater Rim and set up a camp as the sun set and the temperature plummeted, giving me a little unpleasant preview of my coming Kilimanjaro expedition... So cold I could barely sleep as the wind whipped around, I heard the familiar sounds of hyenas sniffing through the camp and suddenly remembered the bag of trail mix I had forgotten to store in the truck. So I huddled in the dark, headlamp and leatherman pocket knife at the ready, but I guess that hyenas don't like raisins, nuts, and M&M's too much so they wandered away after a while. Not a great night's sleep...

As the sun rose, we drove around the rim of the huge volcanic crater to the entrance road and headed down. The extinct structure is almost a kilometer deep and ten across so the view was fantastic! On the floor we headed towards the lake, passing elephants, buffalo, ostrich, zebra and gnus (same as wildebeest but the word is shorter and I'm getting tired of typing the longer one,) along the way. The lake had a pink tinge to it and when we got closer, we realized it was a huge flock of flamingoes, standing on one leg, scooping food from the shallow water. We spent the rest of the day cruising around getting very close to all the animals and I had a few highlights from the day. First was a black rhino trotting towards a morning drink or mudbath in the lake - this completed our "Big Five" (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhino - basically all the stuff that can eat you or stomp you to a pulp,) and we were all pretty excited about it. Next was the lion vs. buffalo standoff we watched until the lions gave up and wandered off into the river brushes. Though I think the 15 safari trucks jockeying for the best view had as much to do with it as the group defense tactics of the buffalo... At lunch, some kind of huge eagle swooped down and snatched a big piece of food right out of Petr's hand, scaring the crap out of all of us! Last was following some vultures to a group of hyenas tearing into something they must have just brought down an hour or so before - gory but cool - a true wild kingdom moment. Ngorongoro is especially terrific because the place is so scenic and all the abundant life is concentrated on the crater floor where they roam around almost uncaring of the humans trying to get a glimpse into their lives.

Too soon, our time was up and Bekka turned the car back towards Arusha and the end of our safari. We dropped Petr on the way, and Libby and I went to dinner at a rooftop lounge right near our hostel. It was not a big night as I knew I was leaving for a six day climb to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the morning...

I'll try to get the pics up soon - they are absolutely amazing!

Usiku Mwema,

Clement

Very Quick Update And Medical Question...

Hi there,
Tanzania wonderful.
Safari Incrrrrredible!
Just came down from Kilimanjaro this AM - I made it!!! (I'm the only one of group who did...) It was VERY hard, Lynne, Marc & Mike - it was way harder than the Boiling Lake. According to guide, the wind was the worst in 5 years, and the temp was -13!!
Here's the medical question for any of the RN's or MD's who read this:
My rental cold weather gear completely sucked, from the sleeping bag to the tent and clothes, too - especially the gloves. Although I never had any signs of frostbite like the whitening or grayness or blisters, my wedding ring finger tip has no feeling (no jokes about my related symptom of apparent lack of appeal to the opposite sex, please,) more than 35 hours after summiting. Color is normal, response to pressure is the same as all the other tips, and the skin temp feels the same as the other 9, too, just no feeling.
Any idea what this is?
Ahsante Sana,
Clement

There's Sand In My Toes

Zanzibar has many sides. Indian Ocean paradise with swaying palm trees overlooking crystal blue waters and pristine white beaches. Mysterious marketplaces where the senses are overwhelmed with the scents of a hundred spices and the sounds of haggling in another hundred foreign tongues. A historical crossroads of trade and power between ancient East, West, and African cultures. I managed to find all three in my short week on this tropical island off the east coast of Africa.

I had planned to visit for a week of fun dives and unwinding on the beach after months of working hard in the Seychelles, but finding a place to stay where I wanted was turning out to be impossible. I finally settled on a small beach lodge just outside the main town for a couple of nights, and would plan the rest of my stay from there. I spent some time exploring the twisting alleys and markets of Stonetown. I visited local museums, ancient forts, and art galleries. I dove in warm waters (medium vis,) with beautifel reefs teeming with fish and healthy coral. (And found some cool new corals - GVI has made me a coral geek!) The rest of my time I lazed along the miles of white sandy beaches in Jambiani. Running along the tideline at dawn, reading and relaxing in and out of the sun all day, and enjoying fresh seafood by torchlight under the stars at night.

Now it's my last day on a beach and there's sand in between my toes. There's also some in my ears, my hair, my pockets, the velcro on my watchband, and by the tiny itch I'm feeling I bet there's a grain or two in my butt I must have missed in the shower, too. It's Zanzibar sand - very white, powder fine - the kind that is hard to get rid of - and I know I will be finding gritty traces of it in the things I'm carrying for a long time to come. It will mix with the sand I've picked up from all the beaches and islands in Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sulawesi and the Seychelles I've visited, and soon the dust from the African Savannah and historic cities of Europe will be added to it.

These tiny unintentional souvenirs join the more conventional ones I've picked up along the way - lots of pictures, some t-shirts, and a gift or two. But what's really special to me are the things I've gained that are less tangible but just as solid - experiences, friends, stories, attitudes, outlooks, lessons, new perspectives, and the chance to share it all with you here.

I can squish my toes around and make little sand piles because I'm just finishing breakfast and that's one of the perks of sitting at a table on the beach. I'm enjoying Jambiani, on the east coast of Zanzibar where the almost deserted beach runs for miles in both directions. Blue green waters lap quietly and warm tradewinds waft traces of seasalt and exotic flowers across my browned body. I take a sip of my tea, stare down the gecko who seems to be debating a raid on my last piece of pineapple, and concentrate to fix this moment in my mind. Sadly, these are the last few hours of sun, sand and sea I will have for a while. After this meal, I will be heading inland to mainland Africa and eventually on to Europe and home to the States, so I don't know when I might have another magic moment like this. I'm not looking for pity, (after this trip, it's not likely you'd give me any, anyway,) it's just I've come to realize I'm a person who is called to the sea and it's unsettling not to know when I'll see her again. Soon, I hope...

A last chestful of ocean air, a long glance towards the blue horizon, and a half-hearted attempt at rubbing the sand off my feet just before I don my flip-flops and I'm off...

Stay wet and a little sandy,

Clement

PS: Now I'm ready to head to mainland Africa for a safari adventure!