Day 1: The Saga of Ethiopian Airlines and a Shakedown...

... what you see above is the top of Uhuru peak swaddled in clouds as we passed just to the east of Kilimanjaro as we were about to land in Arusha. But that's later. How we got there:

Once we decided on Kili, the first thing we looked at were flights. The "least painful" way to get to Kilimanjaro is via a one-stop KLM flight that takes you from Dulles to Arusha (yes, directly to Arusha, and not through Dar es Salaam or Nairobi) via Amsterdam. When we were looking, that ran about $1700. When we hunted around a bit more and added an inconvenient stop or two, you could get that down to $1400 via Ethiopian Airlines (sidenote: Bing beats the pants off other search engines for international flights).

Early on, we decided that as long as we were taking a massive trip, might as well as add a few more days with a stopover at a "resorty" destination to unwind. And as we were going to fly through Europe, "logic" would dictate that spending a few days in a city we were going to fly through anyways would make the most financial sense. However, logic would be incorrect. Laying over a few days in Europe consistently ran an extra $400-$700. However, on a lark, we plugged in a layover in Dubai, the land of Ski Dubai, Palm Tree-shaped islands...

...the Burj Al-Arab (only 7-star hotel in the world), and the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world).

Ding ding ding! $300! We had a winner! And so an itinerary was born.

Our journey began on October 1st auspisciously enough. By coincidence, our taxi driver was from Tanzania (Arusha no less!), so he taught us a couple words in Swahili: jambo for "hello" (also salama); asante for "thank you"; and karibu for "your welcome." The language situation in Tanzania is complex. Tanzania has over 120 distinct ethnic groups each with their own language. So, each Tanzania learns their own tribal language first, but since various tribes need to communicate with each other, most Tanzanians also speak Swahili. Furthermore, Tanzania was a British colony before gaining independence, and since certain people, particularly academics, lawyers, and business people, need to communicate with the outside world, English is also widely spoken.

Back to the story, we ran into our first hiccup at the airport. The winner of the "take Mike to Africa" sweepstakes was Ethiopian Airlines. Despite being considered (along with South African Airways) one of the best airlines in Africa, when I tried to charge the tickets to my credit card, I got multiple fraud alerts. On some level, I guess that is comforting.

At the airport, the ticket agent insisted that I needed to provide the credit card I used to pay for the tickets in order to prove my identity, despite the fact that we had the passports of the very three people listed on the reservation. Now, normally this would not have been a problem... except I had my card stolen in the intervening months. Thankfully, after minimal back and forth with the agent, and the approval of a disinterested manager, we boarded our flight.

Now, one thing that had not been made super clear when we booked was that while there was only one change of planes, there were, in fact three total stops. So, our first stop was Rome.

The plane was about 75% full when we left Dulles, so the flight was fairly comfortable and sleeping was relatively easy. One 2AM stop in Rome and a gaggle of wildly gesturing Italians later, the plane was 100% full, and we knew we weren't in Kansas anymore.

This was my first time entering any part of Africa, over Benghazi, Libya. Muammar, we hardly knew ya!

My first African sunrise.

This was our first glimpse of Ethiopia, just outside of Addis Ababa, its capital. I was surprised how green it was.

We landed in Addis airport about 10AM, our first steps on African soil.

As you can see, Resha and I are pretty excited. We actually landed late enough (due to a late takeoff) that we were sweating our connection. As luck would have it, however, the plane we arrived on was also the plane we would be taking to Arusha. So, after we briefly unloaded, we were led back up the jetway for a short stop at the gate before reboarding the plane.

One thing I noticed when I got back on was how high in elevation Ethiopia appeared to be. After doing some fact checking when I got home, I found that my hunch was correct. Most of Ethiopia is on a plateau that averages one mile in elevation (Denver), with Addis being at 7500 feet (1000 feet higher than Sante Fe, highest major city in the U.S.). Crazy. Some pictures of Addis and the surrounding countryside.

Just before our first time crossing the equator on our way to Nairobi. Southern hemisphere! Woohoo!

This is more like what I expected East Africa to look like. Just outside of Nairobi.

And Nairobi itself.

And the last leg from Nairobi to Arusha. The natives were getting restless at this point, as we had been traveling 22 hours. Someone, who shall remain nameless, began uncontrollably wriggling in their seat, repeatedly mumbling "I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here."

And we come back to our first glimpse of the top of Kilimanjaro, which we would be standing on a short nine days later!

The Tanzanian countryside around Arusha.

We were a bit... how shall we say... flummoxed?... when the first thing we saw when we landed in Arusha was what looked like a tornado. Would our African adventure end before it began? After looking around, however, and seeing the unconcerned faces of the other passengers and flight crew, we calmed down. We learned later that these were dust devils which were fairly common at this time of year.

In any case, we were finally here. Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA). Which is where we hit our second hiccup.

Customs itself went fairly smoothly. Being the overly cautious type concerning paperwork, and due to the convenient location of the Tanzanian embassy in DC, my compatriots and I had already acquired a $100 multiple entry visa. Although there is a $50 single entry visa, it is not available to Americans. Don't ask me why. Timewise, we probably didn't save much by already having visas. Only one plane comes in at a time, and there are two customs officers. We were able to go the front of the line since we didn't have to fill out the visa application, only the customs forms, but that saved us maybe 30 minutes. So, if you are the last minute type, as long as you have $100 in cash (U.S. dollars preferred, actually), you will probably be fine getting a visa when you land. Still, it was worth the peace of mind on our part.

The trouble started after we got our bags (which was a small victory, as we had heard Ethiopian loses one in six bags). We had arranged for our outfitter, Maasai Wanderings (I will go into how we picked them in my next post) to pick us up from the airport, and the lady who I had communicated with said that someone would be there with a sign saying "Kim x3." So, naturally, when I we left baggage claim, I was happy to see a lady with a gentleman actually holding a sign that said "Kim x3." We walked over to her, introduced ourselves, at which point the lady happily greeted us, and said that we would just be waiting a little bit longer while she rounded up her other clients.

I got the first inkling something was wrong, however, when she said something along the lines of "we are happy you are here. We didn't hear from you, so we weren't sure you were coming." Weren't sure we were coming? We had pre-paid our tour in advance! I e-mailed with them four days earlier! They better have been sure we were coming! Still, I thought, "well, maybe it's common for people to flake on trips like this?" and so thought nothing further of it.

The second inkling something was wrong was when she said we would be going to a hotel in Moshi. That was different than our itinerary, which said we were going to the Ahadi Lodge in Arusha. Now, this was a bit more serious. As you can see, Arusha and Moshi are about 60 miles apart. While Moshi is closer to Kilimanjaro, Arusha is closer to the safaris. And since we were going on the safari first, this was a conscious choice. Still, I rationalized "well, maybe it's common to change hotels," and so, once again, I kept my mouth shut.

The straw that broke the camels back, however, was when the company the lady was with was not Maasai Wanderings. Now, I had gone to them based on the sign "Kim x3." However, in my travel stupor, I had not paid attention to the outfitter until now. So, I went up and asked her if they were affiliated with Maasai Wanderings. I got a non-committal "I don't really understand" smile, at which point the skeptical northeasterner part of my brain kicked in and sensed "scam." Thinking that it was too much that the wrong outfitter AND the wrong hotel AND their cluelessness as to my arrival could be a coincidence, I wandered the airport.

Sure enough, about fifteen feet away was Patrick with a Maasai Wanderings logo holding a sign that said "Kim x3." Bingo. After introducing myself to him, and being politely informed that he had been waiting "over an hour," I gathered my compatriots, told the lady that we had the wrong outfitter and left the airport. That's when the fireworks started.

As we were leaving the airport, we were chased down by the lady, who was yelling accusations at Patrick that he was stealing her clients. They exchanged some words in Swahili, at which point Patrick took out his cell phone and called the home office. I tried to explain to the lady that we had already made pre-paid arrangements with Maasai Wanderings, and that they were definitely our outfitter, when she then asked "how else could we have gotten our name?" I then remembered that yes, I had indeed asked for a quote from her company, as I had of many other companies, but I had eliminated them because they couldn't meet our itinerary dates, and so hadn't communicated with them in two months. At first I thought I had committed some big cultural snafu, but then I saw the gentlemen who had come with the lady try to pull her back into the airport with one of those resigned looks husbands give wives (or vice versa for you feminists =P) who have gone off the deep end. It was then it clicked that she was trying to shake me down.

At this point, Patrick got off the phone and confirmed that yes, he was supposed to pick us up, but then he was curiously quiet, as he left me to battle alone. After some more hostile banter, I finally convinced the lady that we had booked with Maasai Wanderings, but then she demanded to be compensated for the taxi she had brought for us, since we "obviously" had double booked. I then explained that no, we had no contract with her company, and thus I wasn't going to pay for anything. The conversation then took on a very "who's on first" turn.

Me: Ma'am, why would we pay for two outfitters?

Lady: But you said you contacted us.

Me: Yes, I asked you for a quote.

Lady: Right, so you said you were coming with us.

Me: No, I just asked for a quote.

Lady: Which is why I brought the taxi.

Me: Why would you bring a taxi when we never said we would go with you?

Lady: But you contacted us.

This went on for about five minutes. Finally, I realized that the problem was my legalese. The words like "quote," "contract," and "confirmation" had little distinction to her. So, I went with the words "spoke" and "promise." While I had "spoken" to her company, I made no "promises." At that, she seemed to get it (or just got tired of arguing and/or saw we weren't going to pay), and with a wave of her hand, dismissed us and left.

Now, even though I was in the right, I was a bit shaken. I hadn't been in Tanzania for more than an hour, and had already made any enemy. After racking my brain for a bit, I realized shortly thereafter that the lady was the OWNER of one of the larger companies operating on Kili, which is why Patrick had been mostly silent. Were slashed tents in my future? Would I wake up next to severed hyena heads?

Thankfully, as we got in the SUV with a German couple here on safari and started driving away, Patrick looked at me in the rear view mirror, saw the worried look, smiled, and said, "don't worry about them man. Hakana matata." At which point, he sang this song (no joke):

Until next week...

So you want to climb Kili...

... this will be a more or less weekly blog, in which I will tell stories of my travels around the world. And what better way to start than with my recent trek up Kilimanjaro in October of 2010. I had meant to do this for awhile, but between organizing pictures, the holiday season, and just general life, I didn't get around to it until now. I considered just blasting Flickr/Facebook pictures to everyone, but I figured doing it this way would serve the dual purpose of being (1) more interesting by adding context to everything and (2) cathartic for me. So here we go. And yes, while this first blog post is text heavy and photo light, future ones will have TONS of photos.

Our story begins with my buddy William, who had been at his job for a year, and had accumulated enough vacation days to take an extended trip. It just so happened that the beginning of the federal fiscal year in October was also the best time for me to take a trip, so we decided to combine forces and take the greatest trip ever... or something like that.

Now, William had really only been outside the country once; to Italy a few years ago (well, he had also been to Cancun on spring break, but that doesn't really count, does it?). So, as we were batting around destinations like Spain or Greece, I said something along the lines of "you know, we're young, healthy, and relatively unencumbered with familial obligations. Why not do something really different, difficult, and off-the-wall?" After minimal pondering, William agreed that this made sense, and in relatively short order, we decided to do one of those things that's on everyone's bucket list, but few had the time or energy to plan or do: climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. And so a journey was born.

Initially, our planning involved several other members, but due to various reasons, they had to drop out. We were able to pick up another member, however, Resha, and so the triumvirate was complete.

Let me begin by saying a little bit about Kilimanjaro, and by extension, Tanzania.

Contrary to popular belief, Mount Kilimanjaro is not in Kenya, but is entirely located within the United Republic of Tanzania, in the northern province of Arusha. So it does abut Kenya (hehe... butt). Tanzania is located in East Africa on the western edge of the Indian Ocean. It's land area is about Oklahoma and Texas combined, and is home to over 40 million people (a bit more than California). Dar es Salaam is by far it's most populous and important city, but Dodoma is its capital, and the aforementioned Arusha is its most important tourist city. The name Tanzania comes from combining the names of the mainland area Tanganyika with the island of Zanzibar. More on that in future posts.

Kilimanjaro is actually a group of three peaks, Shira, Kibo, and Mawenzi (shown from left to right on the above photo), of which the tallest point on Kibo, Uhuru, is the highest point in Africa at 19,341 feet (5,895 meters). To put this altitude in perspective, the highest point in the lower 48 is one mile less than Uhuru. It is the tallest freestanding mountain the world, meaning that it is the tallest mountain that is not a part of a larger mountain range. It is also the highest non-technical climb in the world, meaning that you can walk to the top without specialized climbing equipment such as ropes, harnesses, etc.

Now, my word of advice for people who want to Kilimanjaro is simple: DON'T DO IT! Of course, I look at everything from the perspective of having done it, so take with the appropriate grains of salt. However, even with the passage of six months taking a lot of the rough edges off of my memories, the excruciatingly difficulty and pain, and the marginal payoff at the peak (as you will see, it is FUGLY up there) are still exceedingly fresh in my mind. While I would recommend Africa to everyone, particularly safaris, and even trekking up other peaks like Mount Kenya and Mount Meru, I cannot in good conscious recommend trekking Kilimanjaro to anyone. It is, in fact, one purpose of this blog is to give you such an intimate and detailed description of our trekking experience, that you will have felt like you climbed along with us, and thus relieve you of the urge to ever go.

Having said all this, I can just feel many of you getting all indignant and thinking "you're not the boss of me. I do what I want!" Fair enough. Just don't say I didn't warn you, and also ask yourself, "does Mike look happy at all in the below photo"...

UPDATE: I think this picture of Bill more accurately reflects our sentiments.