Day 5.3: An Ode to Diamox...

... or more accurately, how to beat (or minimize) altitude sickness. And not look like this.

First of all, Stephanie is correct. Mt. Whitney of California is indeed the highest peak in the lower 48. My previous week's post stands corrected. Thanks Steph!

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day celebrating freedom. Because of this, this week's post will be short. I promise to make up in future weeks.

Today, we are going to talk about drugs. I know most of you are interested in the altitude stuff, but first, I would like to talk about other shots, and specifically malaria drugs.

Going to tropical Africa requires shots. Lots of shots. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends the following for Americans traveling to Tanzania:

• Routine: measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine, diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus (DPT) vaccine.

Everyone should have the routine ones regardless, obviously.

• Hepatitis A & Hepatitis B

Hepatitis was the big one for me. While I thought I had been vaccinated, to be safe, I did the three-part where you take two shots (for both Hepatitis A&B) within a month of each other prior to the trip, and then the booster six months after.

• Typhoid

Not much to be said here.

• Polio

I went to a local travel clinic to get these shots, and the specialist said I probably wouldn't need this one, unless I planned on going to India (it's in the water?) within the next five years. Since that was a possibility, I took it. You can get some of these from your doctor, but they generally don't have the more obscure ones available, so you have to go back for multiple appointments. Generally, travel clinics do not take insurance, but you can submit what you pay to your insurance company and get some of it reimbursed. For me, I got about half of my money back.

• Yellow Fever

The CDC says you actually don't need this one since Tanzania only really blocks people coming from yellow fever countries, I decided not to chance it and just took it. William was trying to be extremely economical, and called around to about a dozen pharmacies. Most of them did not have it on hand (for obvious reasons), and if they ordered it, they wanted him to buy the whole bottle, which would have cost a couple hundred. Luckily, the last one he tried was willing to just provide him with one dose.

• Rabies

The specialist said this wouldn't really be necessary unless I planned to go into caves and have bats bite me. While perhaps one may have been, safe to say both were not on the itinerary, so I passed.

Now, all these shots are listed on a yellow multi-page card that looks like this:

Unfortunately, for two other diseases, there are no preventative shots. The first is dengue fever. There is nothing you can do for dengue fever, whether it is prevention or treatment, unless you consider avoiding getting bitten by mosquitoes prevention. Supposedly, this isn't super difficult because these particular mosquitoes are big, slow, and red. If you get it, you just have to go to the hospital, drink a lot of fluids, take something for the pain, and wait it out, usually a week. My friend Tim got it in Colombia and was out for two weeks. But he's back now at full strength. Go Tim!

The second is the infamous malaria. Fortunately for malaria, there is prevention. Unfortunately, they are in the form of pills that require a disciplined daily regime - you have to take them at the same time of day beginning a few days before you enter the infected zone (to build up the drug in your system), and then keep taking them for a week after you leave the zone (to make sure all of any malaria virus you may have contracted has exited your system). It's easiest to plan to take them with a meal. Most doctors used to prescribe Lariam, but too many people got night terrors with them, so most people now take Malarone. Apparently, Malarone also has some night terror side effects, however, as a girl we met in Ethiopia who had spent two years in Tanzania in the Peace Corps said she stopped taking them after a few months because it wasn't worth the side effects, and she said she never even came close to getting malaria. So, there ya go.

And now for the Big Kahuna: altitude sickness.

• Q: What is altitude sickness?
• A: It's a bunch of things, but the most common symptoms are shortness of breath, nausea, headaches, fatigue, dementia, and the like at high altitudes.
• Q: How high are we talking?
• A: Can be any amount of altitude, but generally it really starts showing up at around 8,000 feet.
• Q: What causes it?
• A: A bunch of things, but mostly because the air is thinner at higher altitudes, your blood has trouble carrying enough oxygen to the brain. The level of oxygen at the top of Kilimanjaro is about 1/2 that at sea level.
• Q: Who gets it?
• A: There is really no way of knowing at sea level who is affected. You have to see for yourself.
• Q: I am a super athlete that runs amazing marathon times. Will it affect me?
• A: Yes. Athleticism is surprisingly decoupled with altitude sickness.
• Q: No really. I am an awesome athlete. I will be okay, right?
• A: See above, and get over yourself.
• Q: Is there anything I can do to mitigate it in preparation before the trip?
• A: Sort of. You can go train at higher altitudes, which your body may remember on future treks. At the very least, you can see how you feel at those altitudes ahead of time so you won't be surprised when it happens.
• Q: I don't have the time or money to go somewhere with high altitudes. What if I do aerobic training, like hiking up and down 3,000 foot elevation changes, albeit starting at way lower altitudes?
• A: Minimal. Your lung capacity is just one small component in determining whether you get altitude sickness.
• Q: Why won't you work with me here! There has to be something I can do to prepare my body better before the trek! This is the 21st century! I will not accept no for an answer!
• A: For whatever reason, God made us with specific altitude abilities. Deal with it.

Which brings us to the most important question.

• What can I do on the trek to minimize altitude sickness?

The first and most effective thing you can do is increase altitude as slowly as possible, particularly above 8,000 feet. The more you let your body adjust, the greater your chance of getting to the next higher altitude without suffering side effects. Now, of course, this is easier said than done. After all, on Kilimanjaro, time is literally money, as every extra day on the mountain is $100 in park fees, and another $100 in guide/porter/supply fees. So, as a general rule of thumb, people who have gone suggest doing no more than 2,000 feet per day, maximize the number of days spent over 11,000 feet, and sleep about 500 feet under the highest point you reach on a particular day.

Just in case, however, medical science has introduced a little bit of a helper with the drug Diamox. It does a lot of things, but in essence, it's a blood thinner that also increases the capacity of your red blood cells to hold oxygen - in other words, more bang for your hemoglobin. Now, there is a little bit of a dilemma of how you take the Diamox. Most people take it preventatively by taking two a day for the entire trek, hoping that it boosts your system somewhat for the entire journey. However, there is a risk in this, in that if despite taking Diamox, you still get sick, taking additional Diamox will not have any effect. Because of this, some people take it as treatment, as in they don't take it until they get sick. There is no right answer. Pick your poison.

Okay, back to the trek. The trek this day was to First Cave Camp about 4 miles, 3,000 feet (I know, I know, it's more than the 2,000 feet limit, but we end the day below 10,000 feet), and took about 3 hours.

The first hour, we went through farmland. The farms were mostly growing maize and trees, with the trees being placed in reasonably straight rows with no underbrush.

After that, we entered the jungle.

Only you... can prevent forest fires.

It didn't really stink.

After another hour, we quickly left the jungle to enter the moorland. This is where we would spend the next three days.

I don't know why William is squatting.

The first of many crazy trees.

The first running water we run across. In hindsight, it was stupid to be there because of the mosquitoes. It is also from streams like these where we would get our drinking water. Yes DRINKING WATER. More on that in future posts.

And we end this week with a "bridgehanger" (cue bad puns). Until next time...

Day 5.2: Rongai, Nalemuru...

... or Loitoktok. No matter which name you choose, they all go to the top of Kibo!

To make sense of all of these names, I designate today map and chart day, as I will go into the analysis of why we choose the particular route we did to get to the top of Kilimanjaro.

(Map courtesy of GrantToursandTravel.com)

In my previous post, we had just arrived with Ronald (main guide), Jonas (second guide), Goodluck (cook), and Modi (waiter) at the Rongai gate and met the rest of the crew. Rongai is at the upper right corner of the above map. All the routes get their names from the towns from which they begin, so the Rongai route (naturally) begins near the town of Rongai, and if you follow the trail further, crosses into Kenya to the town of Loitoktok. As the years have progressed, however, the location of the start of the trail has changed slightly such that the route now officially begins in the town of Nalemuru. This is why the sign in the photo at the top says Nalemuru. Regardless, you can call the trail by any of those names and the local people will know what you are talking. However, since most companies still use the old names, I will refer to this as the Rongai route.

(Map courtesy of www.AfricanOverlandTours.com)

Before I talk specifically about the Rongai route, however, I need to go into the other routes, and particularly the more popular ones: Marangu and Machame. To give a general overview, the Rongai route goes up the purple route and down the blue route, the Marangu route goes up and down the blue route, while the Machame route goes up the red route and down the yellow route.

(Map courtesy of www.AbsoluteKilimanjaro.co.uk)

Another way to look at the mountain and the routes are set forth above, with an elevation overlay. The elevations, and particularly the day-to-day elevation changes, are EXTREMELY important in choosing a route.

(Map courtesy of ZanzibarMagic.com)

By far the shortest, cheapest, directest, and popularest route is the Marangu route. Please note I did not say it is the EASIEST route. When doing high altitude climbing, easy takes on a whole new meaning. The route begins at the Marangu gate on the southeast corner of Kilimanjaro. It is the main gate of the park where pretty much trekkers on all routes check-in. It is nicknamed the "Coca-Cola" route because supposedly anyone who can drink Coca-Cola (from children to the elderly) can do this route.

(Chart courtesy of UltimateKilimanjaro.com)

The "basic" version of the Marangu route has the following itinerary:

• Day 1: Marangu Gate to Mandara Hut. A 5-mile hike and 2,800 feet elevation gain.

To give you an idea of the heights, you begin the day at the altitude of Mount Washington, the highest point in New Hampshire, and end the day the height of Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas (near El Paso). In between, you hiked the entire altitude of Mount Magazine (Arkansas).

• Day 2: Mandara Hut to Horombo Hut. A 7-mile hike and 3,400 feet elevation gain.

We are now at the height of Humphrey's Peak, the highest point in Arizona (near Flagstaff). In the process, you leave in the dust the highest points of Tennessee (Clingman's Dome), North Carolina (Mount Mitchell - highest point east of the Mississippi), and Oregon (Mount Hood), and are about on par with those of Idaho (Borah Peak) and Montana (Granite Peak). You climbed the entirety Backbone Mountain (Maryland) from the Chesapeake Bay.

• Day 3: Horombo Hut to Kibo Hut. A 6-mile hike and 3,200 feet elevation gain.

At some point on this day, you blow past the height of Colorado's Mount Elbert, the highest point in the Lower 48 (and indeed of the entire Rocky Mountains). Other victims include Mount Rainer (Washington), Mount Whitney (California), Boundary Peak (Nevada), Gannett Peak (Wyoming), Wheeler Peak (New Mexico), and (surprisingly) HAWAII (Mauna Kea). You went the entire length, from sea level, of Mount Davis (Pennsylvania).

• Day 4: Kibo Hut to Uhuru Peak to Horombo Hut. A 4-mile, 3,900 feet ascent to the top, followed by a 10-mile, 7,100 feet descent.

In other words, you climb the entire height from sea-level of Kansas's Mount Sunflower, and follow that up with a descent of Harney Peak, South Dakota down to the ocean in one, grueling day.

• Day 5: Horombo Hut to Marangu Gate. A 10-miler with a 6,200 feet drop.

Now, for some people, this route is going to be very tempting, especially for those who want to just get there and take a picture to say they had been there, without enjoying the ride. Korean tourists are notorious for this. However, as I will explain, all of the supposed "strengths" of the route are weaknesses. And after that there are some weaknesses, that, in fact, are weaknesses. In other words, don't do this route.

• Strength #1: It's short.

It's short alright. In fact, it's so short that you are guaranteed to fail. This is because this itinerary leaves no time for your body to get acclimated to the altitude. While you can add extra days to acclimate, this, of course, works against it being short. I'll do a detailed post about altitude acclimatization in another post, but suffice it to say that this is by far the most important reason not to do this route. And the numbers bear out. Officially, less than 50% of climbers on this route make it to the crater rim, and I think the actual number is less than 30%.

• Strength #2: It's cheap.

See Myth #1. Most of that applies, particular if you add extra days, PLUS, as I mentioned in my previous post in choosing outfitters, do you really want to trust people who are going to sacrifice things (like, oh, SAFETY) to save a few bucks? While you will be fine if you are careful, there are fatalities. So, take my advice, and don't do this if finances are remotely a concern.

• Strength #3: You get to sleep in huts.

It's true, you do get to sleep in huts (and bunks) as opposed to in tents. Here are some of the huts.

The top one is at Kibo Hut, the middle one is at Horombo Hut, and the bottom ones are at Mandara Hut. And to clear up some confusion, while the various "huts" do have one particular "hut" that it is named before, they more denote locations. So, at "Kibo Hut," there is indeed one "Kibo Hut" (usually where park officials live/work), but there are also a bunch of other huts there as well.

Anyways, while huts (and beds) may seem appealing at first, here are the downsides. First, they are nicknamed "rape huts." Now, before you get your panties all in a bunch (where does that saying even come from?), this is more of a historical nickname, as I saw plenty of women and families staying in the huts. Nevertheless, that is what they are nicknamed.

Second, the reason sexual assault is much less common now is because you sleep a bajillion people to a room. No matter how much you pay, there are no "private rooms" in these huts. Indeed, tents offer infinitely more privacy than the huts.

Third, due to the bajillion people staying in them, they stink. Maybe not bathroom stink (more on that in a future post), but "thousands of people's BO sinking into mattresses that don't get replaced" stink.

• Weakness #1: It's crowded.

Because it is the most popular, you will not have a moment to hear yourself think on this route. Well, maybe a stretch on the trail here and there in the non-busy season, but it's pretty much people, people, everywhere, and not a... well, you get the idea. And the reason it is crowded is because of all of the strengths set forth above, which can mean only one thing: lots of annoying people who shouldn't be on this trip.

• Weakness #2: Same routes up and down.

Self-explanatory. Which brings us to the final "strength"...

• Strength #4: It's pretty.

It is nice in that you get an equal taste of each of the climate zones (jungle, moorland, alpine desert, high elevation), but everyone says the most beautiful routes are along the south and southwest side of Kilimanjaro, which brings us to the Machame route...

(Map courtesy of www.AfricanOverlandTours.com)

Nicknamed the Whiskey route, the Machame route is pretty much every guide's favorite route. Starting on the southwest corner of Kilimanjaro, you make your way north up one of the valleys to the crater rim, and then come back down the Mweka route. Ronald said it was his favorite route because you get the most varied terrain, you get to see three sides of Kibo, and you enter the crater at Stella Point, where the trek to Uhuru Peak (the actual highest point) is much shorter than the Marangu route (and Rongai route), which enters the peak further east at Gilman's point.

(Chart courtesy of www.gdbnet.de)

(Chart courtesy of UltimateKilimanjaro.com)

Compared to the Marangu route, the main differences (other than those set forth above) are that it is one day longer, the initial ascent is faster, and there is a bit of inefficient climbing, in that you backtrack in elevation a bit. If I had to do it all over again (and I most emphatically do NOT), I would choose this route. There are some other, longer routes, particularly the Lemosho and Shira routes which start further east and enter Kibo over the Shira plateau, but I think the Machame is best of all worlds.

One of my friends did the Umbwe route and swears by it for being magnificently beautiful. Aside from length of trek, it is widely acknowledged to be the most difficult route. After talking to people in our crew, however, I think difficult is a misnomer because what they mean by that is while you ascend quickly, the ascents are very short and you still don't need equipment. Think of it as climbing on a stairmaster as opposed to a slightly inclined treadmill. So, I don't think it's particularly physically challenging compared to the other routes.

But of course, we didn't choose any of these routes. We chose the Rongai route.

(Chart courtesy of UltimateKilimanjaro.com)

There are, of course, several reasons we did this.

• Reason #1: It actually IS the easiest climb.

This is because it has the most gradual ascent of all the routes, and thus is the best suited for proper acclimatization.

• Reason #2: It's the driest.

People do climb Kilimanjaro during the rainy season. And they are dumb. Why you would want to make a difficult journey wet and yucky also is beyond me. And at a certain point in altitude, the rain turns to snow, meaning you can't even take good pictures. This was one of the mistakes tennis great Martina Navratilova made when she failed to reach the summit. And of all the sides of Kilimanjaro, the southwest is the wettest (and a reason why it is the prettiest) while the northeast is the driest. Where the Rongai route is!

• Reason #3: It's less crowded...

... although Ronald told us the route is becoming more popular for the reasons mentioned above. Plus, for awhile there were border skirmishes with the Kenyans (or was it Kenyans separatists?), so the route was closed for awhile. One time, they even had to hide people in caves because the separatists were taking Western hostages. To their credit, they got them out safe.

• Reason #4: It has Mawenzi.

As I mentioned in my first post, Mawenzi is one of the three peaks of Kilimanjaro, and it is a prominent way station on the Rongai route. Plus, we paid for an extra acclimatization day, and our day would have been around Mawenzi. As it happened, however, Ronald suggested adding the extra day earlier in the route, and, of course, we acquiesced to his expertise.

(Map courtesy of www.AbsoluteKilimanjaro.co.uk)

(Map courtesy of CopsOnTop.org)

As you can see on all the maps, there are actually several options for each route that you can take to the top. For the map immediately above, we took the Rongai route to the left.

So, our day-to-day itinerary went like this:

• Day 1: Rongai Gate to First Cave Camp. A 4-mile hike and 2,900 feet gain.

• Day 2: First Cave Camp to Second Cave Camp. A 4-mile hike and 2,000 feet gain.

• Day 3: Second Cave Camp to Kikelawa Camp. A 2-mile hike and 500 feet gain.

This was the additional day. Otherwise, we would have gone straight from First Cave Camp to Mawenzi Tarn. For acclimatization purposes, it was enough, however, that we were above 11,000 feet.

• Day 4: Kikelewa Camp to Mawenzi Tarn. A 4-mile hike and 2,300 feet gain.

• Day 5: Mawenzi Tarn to Kibo Hut. A 6-mile hike and 1,300 feet gain.

• Day 6: Kibo Hut to Uhuru Peak to Horombo Hut. A 4-mile, 3,900 feet ascent to the top, followed by a 10-mile, 7,100 feet descent.

Unless you camp in the crater, this long day is unavoidable, and for various reasons, it's not advisable to camp in the crater.

• Day 7: Horombo Hut to Marangu Gate. A 10-miler with a 6,200 feet drop.

Wow that's a lot of text. Okay, some pictures of this (relatively) uneventful day.

This is the tourist shelter where we hung out while Ronald got all of our permits and the crew figured out the logistics of who would carry what. As I said in my previous post, the divide between tourist and local was very noticeable on our climb, beginning with this shelter. Here, we met three very nice middle-aged British men from London who had taken a quick vacation away from their wives and kids to climb Kilimanjaro. Unlike us, they were on a tight schedule. They flew in that day, were going to climb Kili, and then fly out right after. Ouch.

This is a panorama of the countryside north of Kilimanjaro and into Kenya. I didn't know this before, but apparently farmland is generally at a lower altitude than jungles.

Our before picture taken by the Brits.

As you can see, William is very happy at this point.

Various signs, as we begin our trek.

And we're off...

... with the non-guide portion of the crew already leaving us in the dust.

Until next week...

Day 5.1: Let the (Climb) Begin...

... but first, a word from our sponsors.

Eunice wanted me to tag her as the baby elephant from a previous post. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do this, so consider this a "verbal" tag.

Resha wishes me to inform everyone that photos of me doing stupid things are "glamour shots." They will be so labeled from now on.

Back to the main event...

... that's Resha at the Marangu gate reception area, the beginning (and also the end) of our journey. Look how happy (and clean) she is. Regardless of which route you take up the mountain, everyone must check-in at the Marangu gate. But that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

Our trek actually began the day before when we said goodbye to David (and Hans - more on him in the food section), took a "pool shower," and then had an audience with Ronald, our lead guide. That's Ronald on the left...

... in front of that awesome view of Kibo, the largest of Mount Kilimanjaro's three peaks (see my first post concerning the general topography of Kili).

To say that David and Ronald were different is an understatement. Where David was loud and relatively verbose, Ronald was quiet and introverted. Where you immediately trusted David with your life, Ronald had a crafty/shifty air about him. Whereas David's English was impeccable, Ronald had a good but much more functional grasp of the language. This issue came up immediately, as after our experiences with public bathrooms on the safari, we decided we wanted (and were willing to pay extra for) a dedicated portable private bathroom carried by the affectionately named "poo porter." We asked Ronald about this, and he said that there indeed would be a "poo porter." We later found out, however, that there was a misunderstanding, and he thought we asked whether there would be bathrooms on the route. Oy vey! (There will be a whole future post on bathrooms. It's that important.)

In other words, it was immediately apparent that the Kilimanjaro portion of our journey was going to be completely different from our safari portion. But I guess that should have been self-evident.

So, after briefing us, Ronald arrived early the next morning to pick us up with another driver, Godwin. Godwin was an affable safari guide who we exchanged pleasantries with while Ronald loaded our equipment onto the vehicle. The most prominent thing that I remember Godwin saying was that he became a safari tour guide because after climbing Kilimanjaro twice, he thought anyone who would do this was crazy. Not exactly the paradigm of confidence.

After our stuff was loaded, we started our journey by picking up Goodluck (cook) and Mohamedy (waiter) in Arusha. Goodluck had to be in his mid-twenties at the latest, while Modi (what they called Mohamedy) was a little bit older. Goodluck was very cheerful with the biggest smile you had ever seen. His English was decent, and you could tell he was an extremely bright guy. Modi, on the other hand, was very nice, polite, and competent, but his English was pretty bad, and he also wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Case in point, this is a picture of Modi...

... with the reason his face is huge is because we asked him to take a photo of us, but he didn't know which way to point the camera. He was also the first muslim we met in Tanzania, where they are a sizeable minority. I had mentioned before in a previous post, that our taxi driver was from Arusha, and he had taught us a couple Swahili words, among them was salama, which we were told was one of the ways of saying "hello" or "greetings." Well, while we were talking to Hans (our cook on the safari) we mentioned this, and he asked what we had learned. We told him, and he understood (and was mildly amused) by most of what we had learned, but a quizzical expression came across his face when we said "salama." After repeating the word to himself a few times, however, he said "ah, salama. The man who taught you that must have been muslim," which then immediately made sense to me, as "salam" means "peace" in Arabic. The main reason I knew that was because I read in my book that Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, means "house of peace" in Arabic. So there you go.

Anyways, from Arusha we journeyed past Kilimanjaro Airport and Moshi. The drive up to that point was uneventful, as it was flat, dry, and straight, with fallow fields dotting the landscape, broken up only by the occasional hut and herd of cows tended by a group of Maasai.

It was right after Moshi and on the way to Marangu, however, where things got interesting.

(Map courtesy of GrantToursandTravel.com)

While I will explain in more detail later, basically, we began the day in Arusha on the left, drove about an hour and a half to Moshi, drove another hour to Marangu, and then drove two hours north around the right side of the mountain until we reached Rongai, which is right on the Kenya border.

From Moshi, we began ascending the mountain, and the dry savannah gave way to a winding road surrounded by lush green forests, with every inch of the road populated by homes and stores of the native Chagga. The most interesting point of journey was when we drove through Marangu on a market day, as we saw hundreds of men and women walking down the road bringing produce to sell, with the most impressive being the women balancing 3-4 meter stalks of sugar cane on their heads.

We continued the drive up to Marangu gate, only stopping once for Goodluck to jump out of the car and run into a random house. Ronald told us it was his parent's home where he was picking up his supplies, and that we would pick him up when came back down. At the gate, an armed guard eyeballed us in the car, and then let us through, upon which we pulled into a large parking lot on the left.

From this point on, there was a bit of an uncomfortable separation between us and the guides/porters, very much facilitated by the way the park operated. While on safari, us and David had pretty much eaten the same food, shared the same tent quarters, and occupied the same space, on Kilimanjaro, there was a very clear delineation where we could go, and where the guide/porters could go. What brought this to my mind was the "tourists only" bathroom at Marangu gate, but no similar counterpart of the guides/porters. The "tourists only" bathroom had flush toilets and even seemed to be a bit air conditioned. The rest of the gate area was also very nice, with a large multi-tiered wooden deck supporting the reception area...

... and a general store of sorts right across from it that sold trinkets, postcards, snacks, and cold beverages (very important later).

After about thirty minutes, Ronald said he had finished all of the paperwork, and so we went back to the vehicle to depart. When we got there, we saw that another older man had joined us, Jonas. Ronald introduced him as our second tour guide. This is Jonas on the far left...

... and he is hands-down our favorite person on the mountain crew, and came very close to eclipsing David. But not quite.

So what makes Jonas so awesome? Well, first of all, he is sixty years old. That's right, he's a SIXTY YEAR OLD MOUNTAIN TOUR GUIDE. Born on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, he said he first climbed all the way to the top when he was 16, and since then, he has been all the way to the top so many times, he has lost count. When I asked for a general estimate, he thought about it for awhile before answering "more than one hundred." Daaaaaaamn.

Next, he is small. In fact, I think it is because he is so small that I never saw him eat or drink anything except for the energy snacks and candy we had brought with us. And yet, he never showed the slightest bit of hunger, thirst, fatigue, sickness, or boredom.

Relatedly, Jonas was the only one who never left our side on the entire trip (even more than Ronald - more on that later), always keeping a comfortable pace and making sure we were okay, and never judging, even when he must have been completely frustrated by our ridiculously slow pace. In fact, there are many times where he would effortlessly walk ahead, look back, see how far behind we were, and then come back. It's like he was floating on air.

Finally, we loved Jonas even though his English wasn't particularly great. He knew enough mountain terminology and conversation to get by, but it was difficult for us to even get the above information out of him. One of the more interesting things we did find out, however, was that he also spoke a little German from the remnants of the days when the Kaiser was in charge. Fascinating.

Anyways, at that point we all stuffed into the car (pretty crowded at this point) and began the long drive from the southeast side of Kilimanjaro to the northeast side, and the beginning our route, the Rongai route.

(Map courtesy of GrantToursandTravel.com)

You could tell this part of the road was a new construction, as the sides of the mountain had been freshly carved out, and there was construction vehicles everywhere. We stopped at a town almost exactly half way from Marangu to Rongai to have lunch. We pulled into an alley, and walked about twenty meters to a bunch of covered picnic tables of what I assume was a restaurant. We got some looks from some gentlemen sitting at other tables having a few beers, but they quickly went back to their conversation. There we ate our box lunches. I found it a bit odd that we would eat lunches in someone else's restaurant without ordering anything, but no one seemed to say anything.

After lunch, we drove to the Rongai gate, where we met the rest of our crew. Fourteen (yes, FOURTEEN) in all. Seventeen, if you included us. And a motley crue it was.

More about them, and the actually beginning of our climb, next week...

Day 4.3: Goodbye Safari Miscellaneous...

... starting with the conclusion of Erica's/Ahadi's tale.

So, Erica is extremely friendly and chatty. I take it a lot of that comes from the fact that she is reasonably bored most of the time. Sure she has a business to run, but the lodge isn't huge, and it seems she has a naturally loquacious disposition which cannot be satisfied by the periodic visit of Westerners who, of course, come to the lodge when they are (a) tired or (b) want some downtime from constant sightseeing and being around people. And not all of them speak English.

Which is why on the last day before our flight, while Resha and I were determined to make the most of our last day by exploring downtown Arusha, Erica cornered William when he innocently went to ask about our room invoice and stamps, and told him her entire story. A bunch of it I have relayed in the previous post, but the most interesting parts concerned her views on the people of Tanzania, particularly her staff.

To put it simply, she has found it difficult to run a business in Tanzania. We all know of (or have been involved with) horror stories involving contractors in Western countries. Well, Tanzania is no different, and indeed measurably worse. The red tape here is the largest problem, as there is quite a bit of civil service corruption. We ran into a little bit of it on safari when we were pulled over by random policeman on the side of the road. I had noticed a ridiculous number of licenses and certifications on upper right side of the back window of our vehicle.

Well, David immediately began "politely" arguing with the policeman in Swahili. He then got out of the vehicle and walked to the back of the vehicle, and then they both began pointing at different decals, still "politely" arguing back and forth. Seeing as how we didn't want David to get in trouble and/or to be hauled off to a Tanzanian jail, I figured some money (on the order of dollar bills) would change hands, we would gladly reimburse him, and that would be that. To our mild surprise, however, David eventually just walked back to the front of the vehicle, got back in, and drove away. When we asked what happened, he said that it indeed was a shakedown over "papers," but that the country was actually making progress on corruption to the point that he knew this particular policeman was just bluffing.

So anyways, Erica was able to navigate the bureaucracy and shady construction companies to get the lodge built, but then she had to staff it, and the adage "good help is hard to find" apparently applies even more so in Tanzania. Everyone knows "hakuna matata," which roughly translates to "no worries." Now, that's a great life philosophy in theory, but like hippie culture, when it gets applied wholesale to an economic structure, problems apparently arise. Erica said that because of this "hakuna matata" mentality, many Tanzanians have an attitude that "life will just work itself out" and "everything happens for a reason." Because of this, she says the general populace has, laziness isn't the proper word, but more of an indifference to things, including employment.

To that end, she has had problems with her staff, not really for disobedience, but because they really aren't taking the extra logical step you would expect in a Western service environment. It creates an interesting dichotomy. For example, we had our laundry done both at the end our safari and Kilimanjaro. It was collected and completed within 12 hours. No complaints on our end. Behind the scenes, however, she has had to repeatedly tell her staff to not open a new box of detergent each day, even if it is the easiest one to reach.

While we were lounging by the pool, and at dinner, a hostess was very attentive to us, bringing us drinks and snacks. Behind the scenes, however, Erica said that it took months to realize that the staff was not taking inventory of what was available behind the bar, and that it took a customer commenting on the fact that they seemed to be out of most of their beer before she realized that no one had told her they were running out, costing her who knows how many sales.

The same goes for food. Apparently Ahadi is known in Arusha for having good steaks. Indeed, her daughter and grandchildren come by frequently for dinner because the food is so good, a fact that we also can attest to. In fact, there is a gentlemen who comes by several times a week just for the steak. One evening, however, he came by only to be told that all the steaks were frozen. He said he would gladly wait for it to thaw, but was told that by the cook that he (the cook) didn't really feel like going through all that effort, so the gentleman left. Now, that's bad enough, but when Erica looked in the fridge later that evening, she saw that there were actually four thawed steaks just sitting there. The cook hadn't bothered to open the fridge just a few feet away to check.

She sees the same attitude, for better or for worse, permeating her family as well. One day, she walked into her office to find one of her granddaughters ripping open reams of papers and coloring over them. Now, this is of course cute on some level, and she didn't really mind that much, but she did mention to her daughter that it had happened and if she couldn't speak to her kids about not destroying things that weren't theirs. After all, she was trying to run a business. However, her daughter just shrugged and said something along the lines of "eh, kids, what can you do," and left it at that.

Okay, enough philosophizing.

I really don't have any additional animal pictures that aren't duplicative, so I'll just devote this week to "miscellaneous."

At this point, we had been in Tanzania a few days and finally gotten over jet-lag to the point where we were more-or-less out of the "brain-haze" and back to our normal selves. Hence, we started having more fun with our photography. Or maybe we were just getting bored of animals.

This is the "mighty" Tarangire. I show you this to give you an idea of the canvas which the following masterpieces were placed upon.

You all know William "Beavis."

Well, this is Resha finally succumbing to the Beavis virus.

This looks like the work of a time-lapse shutter, but we did it the old-fashioned way - completely by accident. We were trying to time it to get the last picture (sans belly), but it just worked out that you ended up with the former pictures when we mistimed it (a lot).

This "strong" pose confirms what I said previously.

My karate kid "crane kick" impression.

Best picture of my doing martial arts through the air. Does this remind anyone else of the tornado move of Chun-Li in Street Fighter?

Worst picture of me doing martial arts. I suppose it could be a WWE or WCW stomp drop, but I'd be lying if I said that is what I had in mind.

Us crossing the mighty Tarangire as taken from the left side of the vehicle...

... and from the right. Woohoo!

Which brings me to my final safari topic: chochtkies!

Like any good tour operator, they wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't take us to one of the bazillion local dealers selling trinkets for which they (presumably) got some sort of kickback. David actually took us to two, and we didn't mind either of them. I actually got the above bookend for free, accidentally, as the place that (in a bit of poetic justice) drove us the hardest bargain mistakenly put it in our bag. There was this giraffe mask Resha wanted, and the guy wouldn't come down the last $2.

As far as I could tell, the entire Tanzanian souvenirs market consisted of three things. The first, and by far the least numerous, was Tanzanite.

(Photo courtesy of Cochise University)

Basically bluish/purpleish gems, they are only found in (and thus named after) Tanzania, and are specifically mined on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. William bought a rectangular piece set in silver for his girlfriend. Like any good gem market, you could haggle, and luckily Resha had bought Tanzanite recently so as to assist William in his goal of not being taken to the cleaners. As expected, most of the markets only take cash, but the ones who sell Tanzanite do take credit cards.

The next largest market is for these paintings of the African countryside, the Maasai, and animals. The ones above are about 8 inches by 20 inches, but they have all sorts of sizes. The opening price for these were $20 each, but I got them down to around $12. Of course, mounting them is a whole 'nother issue. We went to Michaels, and they said mounting one would cost about $150, even though I was named Michael. Ouch. William got a local frame store to do it for quite a bit cheaper, and they said that these were actually painted with house paint, as opposed to oil based paints, but I'm not mistaking these for Van Gogh's anyways.

By far the most numerous items, however, are these wood animal carvings. This giraffe stands about 10 inches tall. The opening price of the 16 year old kid with a backwards hat and sunglasses was $25 per animal, but I got him down to $12 without too much effort, and if you really cared, you can get them down to $10. For some reason, pretty much everyone we encountered typed out numbers on a calculator. I saw them being sold for about $15-$20 at the airport, so I knew I wasn't ripped off.

I tried to get the Big Five, but didn't find a leopard I really liked. These stand about three inches tall and are about six to eight inches long, and were also $12.

Sometimes the hippo is included as part of the Big Six.

Which brings us to the wildebeest. So, for some reason, I had a really hard time finding a wildebeest at the two markets David took us to. I looked around for probably a solid two hours total, but couldn't find one. Or at least one that wasn't made out of some crazy expensive wood, and thus triple the cost.

So, like I said, on the last day before our afternoon flight (and while William was having his ear talked off by Erica), Resha and I took a cab into town to look around and get some street food. Pretty much the only thing touristy of note in Arusha is the craft market, so the cabbie took us there with instructions to come back in precisely two hours. I guess it was a slow day there, because pretty much as soon as we entered the market, we were accosted by numerous sellers pushing their wares. However, Resha and I had a game plan where we were just looking for coffee for her (Kilimanjaro is known for its coffee) and a wildebeest for me, so we dutifully went around looking for just those things.

There were about four or five rows of twenty stalls each, and the first two rows were completely unfruitful. Finally, someone said they knew someone with coffee, and so we were led to another stall, which confused us a bit, since we thought the stalls were in competition, but maybe they had some sort of referral system in place? Anyways, we get to that stall and they have one box of about a pound of what looks like really old and stale coffee. "How much?" we ask. $20 they say. At this point, our Asian haggling radars go off, and we feel like we are being taken for a ride, so we pow-wow for a second and decide "you know what? There has to be a convenience store of some sort somewhere," so we decide to leave the market in search of this store. As we get a block away from the market and head toward the center of the "tourist" district part of town with nicer buildings that David showed us, we are definitely getting looks.

Anyways, we wander around for a bit, when we spot a food truck selling shwarma. Success in finding street food, we think. Unfortunately, we have come too early, and they don't have anything ready. We then duck into what looks like an internet cafe and find an Indian dude (a lot of the businesses here are run by Indians) selling samosas and pastries. We buy these and hungrily scarf these down. We had actually met an Asian girl in Ethiopia from San Francisco (and currently living in DC) who had been in Tanzania with the Peace Corps., and she had recommended a good pay-by-the-pound meat place, but we forgot to bring the address with us. She was on her way to Kenya to see her boyfriend. Her advice? "Don't eat the fish in Arusha." Duly noted.

As we wander some more and are about to give up, we finally do come upon a convenience store. It is run by a nice middle-aged woman who apparently is cashier, stockboy, and custodian all-in-one. The store is clean but not tidy, with unopened boxes everywhere and paperwork all over the front counter. We ask if she sells coffee, and indeed she does. $4 a pound. Bingo.

That's more like it. Resha buys 6 pounds, and I buy 2. We ask if she takes American money, and she says yes, but she doesn't know the exchange rate, and so asks another customer (she needs the exchange rate because she has to give us change in shillings). He says it's around 1400 shillings per dollar, which is pretty much the official rate of 1500, so we don't argue. I pay her in $20 bills, but again, she is not familiar with American money, so she asks the guy whether the currency is good. They have this thing here where they don't like taking old and ragged bills, so make sure any American dollars you take to Tanzania are relatively new (no more than 4 years old) and crisp.

Happy with our purchase, we go back to the crafts market to both wait for the taxi, and also to take one final stab at finding my wildebeest. As we get to the last of the stalls, we meet a guy who says he can find it, and makes me promise that I will stay right there for two minutes while he goes to get them, and then disappears. We wait for five minutes, but the time the cab is arriving is fast approaching, so we decide to leave. On the way out, I finally meet a thin man with gold teeth who has a wildebeest. It's actually quite a bit bigger than the other animals. Our conversation then goes like this:

Me: How much? You take dollars right?

Him: How much? You ask me how much? I have never been asked how much. People always tell me what they will pay.

Me: Well, okay. But how much?

Him: (Laughing) Okay, how about $20?

Me: $10.

Him: Haha, you see? I made a mistake by giving you a price first.

Me: Alright, $15.

Him: $16.

Me: $15.

Him: It's just one dollar.

Me: Right, it's just one dollar.

Him: Okay, okay, $15.

Me: Here is a $20.

Him: Is it okay if I give you change in shillings?

Me: Sure.

Him: Okay. (He hands the bill to a lady in the stall across the way, who runs off.)

... various pleasantries are exchanged...

Him: Okay, here you are. 5,000 shillings.

Me: That's not the exchange rate.

Him: I am just a poor shopkeeper. I don't know such things like the exchange rate. (He says all this smiling the whole time).

Me: Well, it's 1,500 shillings per dollar.

Him: What are these words? Fif-te-en hund-wad?

Me: Oh, come on, don't do this.

Him: Do what?

Me: One dollar. Elfu (1,000) tano (5) mia (100).

Him: (Has a puzzled and mildly shocked/amused look on his face that I know Swahili numbers).

Me: (I repeat) Elfu (1,000) tano (5) mia (100).

Him: (A smile comes across is face).

Me: Okay. Elfu (1,000). Just give me elfu shillings.

Him: Okay, okay. Wait a second. (Says something to the previous woman, who disappears again. She returns shortly thereafter with 1,000 shillings. We conclude our business and walk off).

As we walk off, the guy who had told me to wait before shows up with a bag full of wildebeests (how did I miss that many walking around?) and asks why I did not wait? I said it had been twenty minutes at this point, when he said he would be gone for like two. At this point, our taxi is definitely here, so we walk off, but not before I hear him (and others who were apparently sympathetic to him) saying things at me, of which the only one I could make out was Rafiki, which, of course, means monkey. I note the irony, inwardly chuckle, and step into the cab.

So, that's it for the safari. Next stop, Kili!