At Least We Weren't Mugged

Post Safari, we hung out in Arusha for a couple of days figuring out what to do with the last week of our African journey. We decided to head off to Zanzibar for some island relaxation. While walking back to our hotel after booking bus tickets, we were pick pocketed.

Well, it was really an attempted pick pocket because they didn't get anything. Being the risk averse people that we are everything was tucked away behind zippers and under clothing. We were angry and rattled but the situation was really pretty funny. This was a typical scheme involving two guys. They picked an opportune time when we were sufficiently distracted, Najam was handing me his drink and we were about to cross a street. An older man, bumped into us and quickly grabbed the bottom cuff of Najam's pants, slapping it repeatedly as if to wipe the dust away and profusely apologizing. A teenage kid also bumps into us and, we're guessing, searched Najam's accessible pockets for goodies while our attention was being drawn to the older man and Najam's "soiled" pants. This all happened within maybe five seconds and ended when I nudged the old guy off insisting that we were OK. The two quickly dispersed and a few onlookers snickered. We were pretty sure they didn't get anything right after it happened but we had a nagging feeling for days that we would eventually discover something missing.

After the fact, we thought about how we responded. The best thing to do is just try to get out of the situation quickly and avoid conflict, which is basically what we did. I think it would have been funner though to mirror the older man, slapping the cuff of his pants and repeatedly apologizing. It might have been fun to reach for his pockets too, after all, he was distracted. The next time we travel, we're definitely carrying an extra decoy wallet with a booty of monopoly money inside covered with poison oak.

Safari

After climbing Kili, we went on a 4 day safari to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater. There were seven of us including our hiking friend from Kili, an academic from Mexico, a young lady from Finland, our rasta driver guide and a cook. We piled into a land rover and headed for the wild. Among the wild, we saw clans of baboons, herds of wildebeest, flocks of flamingos, families of hippos, prides of lions and a monkey with blue balls. No, seriously, velvet monkeys have blue testicles all the time and it apparently has nothing to do with that old adage.


The places we camped were not fenced or enclosed in anyway so we were told not to go on late night bathroom trips. On the second night, Najam heard rumblings of lions behind our tent. I was asleep, thankfully. I did get awakened by the shrill cries of hyenas in the night. In the morning, we saw both hyena and lion tracks confirming our late night visitors. On the third night, we saw elephants close to camp and heard that one of the guides had spotted a lion in camp shortly after dinner. We removed all food and anything perfume like from our tents to keep the warthogs away. Also, we were told to not make too much noise in our tents and especially not to shriek if we got scared. Apparently elephants respond to shrieking tents by trampling on them.

One of the more impressive sights was viewing the drama of a lion pride and their half munched buffalo carcass from the night before. A hyena stalked the food and was chased off a few times by a female and a cub. But, as the sun waxed the lions energy wained and the hyena's persistence paid off.

A number of land rovers carrying other safari goers clustered around the scene. With not much other shade in the area, the lions took advantage of the shade from the vehicles and sprawled right next to the trucks. Much to their dismay, the trucks moved occasionally. It was funny to watch the mild agitation of one alpha male when his shade truck moved. Bothered by the sun, he moved on to the next truck, rubbing up against it first just as my cat does to my legs, and then pissing on it which my cat thankfully does not do to my leggs.

I thought of Mr. Meows back home and felt warm fuzzies in the presence of his distant cousin. These warm fuzzies quickly fled when my eyes met with the alpha's near our truck. When my cat looks into my eyes, usually he's saying "pet me, feed me, let me out now." When the lion stared me down, it was as if he was saying "I know you're looking at me, I could eat you." Very unnerving.

Pole Pole

"Pole Pole" means slowly slowly, and is the mantra on Kilimanjaro. When we started, the guides seemed to creep along like snails and I wondered if I could take the madness of the pace. But the scenary was so amazing that it was madness to go any faster. Also, hiking the mountain too fast leads to altitude sickness and possible death.

Ahh, the landscape! We saw so many strange and breathtaking vistas. We hiked the mountain for 6 days and each day there was a new treat for our eyes. The first day we hiked through thick and humid forest live with bird songs and the occasional monkey call. By the end of the first day, the folliage changed suddenly and drastically to smaller trees covered with bright green moss. We hiked through barren scree, rocky moon like landspapes, alien folliage and water falls. The 4th day, we clambered up tricky switchbacks on a near verticle slope. By the end of the 4th day after gaining around 2,300 ft. over the course of 5 miles in about 8 hours, we reached a height of 15,300 ft. We reached camp by 5pm that day and were supposed to take a quick breather only to start the assent to the top that midnight. We had wanted to arrange an extra day on the mountain to acclimatize but the agency told us to play it by ear and pay for it only if we felt that we wanted it on the mountain. However, it became clear from the guides that another day wasn't possible. Therefore, after experiencing the worst headache I have EVER had and Najam having a headache and nausia to boot, we decided to bundle up and sleep for the night rather than another 4000 ft ascent to the peak. We are not unhappy with our decision. The peak wasn't as important to us as the journey. The sunrise from Barafu camp was no less spectacular. As a bonus, we were rid of writhing tourists gasping for air and wincing from headaches. For anyone completely hooked on getting to the summit, however, we recommend taking the extra day up front.

The social experience was as interesting as the physical one. The agency had arranged for another Seattle based trekker to join us, to make the trip more cost effective for them. For three trekkers, we had 7 porters, one guide and one assistant guide. Each day, we got up, scrambled to get our things together, ate breakfast and started the day. After we left, the porters cleaned and packed up the camp, including the tents, and then started after us. At some point, they always passed us carrying around 50lbs typically on their heads, and had camp set up for us once again when we reached our day's destination. Two of the porters also worked as a cook and a server. Each breakfast and dinner, they would set us a tent with table cloth and dishware and serve our meals in multiple courses restaurant style. We felt both guilty and grateful at being served to that extent. We did eat separate from the porters and we believe we ate more complicated and possibly more expensive food than they ate. On the final day, we made a special request that we pool all of the food together and eat as a group to get to know them a little better and to sample what they ate too. But it seemed to be either too difficult or too inconvienent for them to arrange. Another interesting and unnerving fact was that all of the trekkers we saw were white and of Euro descent, except for Najam of course. We looked through a guest log book at one of the campsites that had people's nationalities in it and it confirmed what we saw. There were however a couple of Sherpas from Nepal registered therein. The contrast between black porters and guides and white climbers was stark.

Since Kili we've been on a 4 day Safari to lake Manyara, the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater. We saw Lions, Zebras, Hyenas, Hippos, Elephants and the beginnings of the Wildebeest migration. We saw a lot more, but we'll talk about it later. Tomorrow we take off for Dar Es Salaam, and possibly to Zanzibar. We have a little less than two weeks left here, we'll keep you posted!

To Arusha and Beyond!

We flew to Nairobi on Monday, after spending a Beautiful Sunday at a flee market in Joburg, Eugene or Portland Saturday Market style with artisans and performers. We discovered that the people most friendly and willing to help out are those that also want to help themselves out. Our first lesson was after retrieving our baggage at the airport in Nairobi when a very friendly cab agent volunteered to reserve our hotel and book our shuttle tickets to Arusha. It was so easy... too easy. The cab and hotel we believe we got for a fair market value, we did however pay an unintentional convenience tax of about $30 US for the shuttle, almost double what we would have paid.

Tuesday morning we left for Arusha, Tanzania. A bumpy ride took us across the border where we paid an especially hefty $200 to get visas to the land of Kilimanjaro. Everybody else was either getting in for free, or paying half or less. We consoled ourselves by viewing this as 'Bush Tax.' More bumps and dust through Masai land finally brought to another set of very friendly people. A group networked by cell phones politely stalked us, tracking our every move and offering to hook us up at every corner. After we talked about a particular tour company at our coffee shop table, Najam left to buy something at a store near by. Apparently a guy was waiting for him inside who introduced himself as being from that very tour company. His buddy had phoned him from the table next to us. It seems many people in the tourism industry here make money by inserting themselves as middle men. The situation was annoying but a little comical.

One aspect of Arusha that we did not know about before coming here is that it is the home of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. It is an international court set up to deal with the war crimes of the infamous Rwandan genocides. Visitors are allowed to observe certain sessions from a glass viewing gallery, with ear phones for translation in multiple languages. We attended an open session for the trial of Augustin Ndindiliyimana, one of the individuals charged with masterminding the genocide. When we walked in we didn't have any context, and the proceedings were a little difficult to follow. Clearly whatever was taking place was slow and arduous. It was quite creepy to be separated by little more than a thin sheet of glass from someone who may have been responsible for the murder of close to a million human beings. The smiles and the joviality of the accused were disturbing to say the least.

On to what we came for ... we are now booked for a 6 day trip up the mountain, via the Machame route, for tomorrow, December 6th. Wish us luck!

Their Leader is Better than Ours

and AIDS crisis in Sub Saharan Africa. This event was part of a campaign and concert series put on by Nelson Mandela called "46664," named after his prisoner number. Peter Gabriel, Angelique Kidjo, Annie Lennox, the Goo Goo Dolls and many other local and international artists played the event. The music would have been incredible enough, but the highlight was seeing Nelson Mandela. What a reaction he got from a crowd of around 50,000! Everyone stood. Everyone cheered. There was so much love and admirationWhen we got to Joburg, we saw advertisement everywhere for a benefit concert helping to raise money and awareness for the HIV for him. Coming from a country so impoverished in leadership, it was refreshing for us to see a real leader respected and admired for the right things. One who is still, at the age of 89, solving real problems as opposed to invented ones. We felt very fortunate to be there.

A disturbing statistic shared last night was that close to 1 in 3 pregnant women in South Africa have HIV. It's estimated that 20 % of the South African population is currently living with HIV or AIDS. The main message from the event was that it is "in our hands," meaning that everyone has a personal responsibility and ability to take care of themselves and each other. Use a condom, talk openly, get tested and treatment works.

Check out our video or one on you-know-who-tube. Website: http://www.46664.com/

We fly for Kenya tomorrow morning.

Jo'burg

This is our third day in Jo'burg and as you can tell, we are already getting hip to the lingo. We will be here for another 2 days. The good news is that we have finally figured out how we are getting up to Kili. The bad news is that we won't be going through Botswana and Zambia. Instead, we got a flight to Nairobi, Kenya that leaves Monday morning and will find our way four hours south to Arusha. We are hoping to be on the mountain by the end of next week.

So, we are getting to know Jo'burg a bit. After staying one night in a more expensive motel the first night, we found a much more affordable hostel: Eastgate Backpackers (53A Van Der Linde Road, Bedfordview/ tel: 011-616-2741, cell:082-936-2396. ZAR 80 per person for dorm beds). This place is located in a safer suburban neighborhood 10 minutes walk from Eastgate, supposedly the largest mall in Africa. We did not exactly come to Africa to visit a gargantuan consumer mecca. Mall rats are the same everywhere. But, this is a safe place in a city where safety is a big issue. We've heard that Jo'burg is the murder capital of the world. Apparently, all business has moved away from the city center and the Eastgate mall near us is more like the city center. The downtown has been described as a ghost town where only the very poor and criminals dwell. Many skyscrapers can be seen from a distance, but you won't see any people in business suites walk in with their lattes. We've been told that these buildings have been abandoned except for squatters paying rent to Mafia organizations. We don't particularly feel like testing that limit so we are keeping our distance.

So, we've hung out at the mall for food, money change, travel arrangements and Lattes. We've had two Lattes here and they were gourmet to the core. Perfect taste, artistic froth and your own maitre'd all for less than $2. Most other goods have been comparable in price here, but high quality coffee is way too cheap. Bad for our caffeine habit.

Some coffee sipping observations. Our lattes were served in clear glasses and were segregated, espresso floating over the milk. Ironic. All of the waiters were black. Most of the clientele was white. Economic apartheid?

Paris

We are currently in Johannesburg staying in a motel like compound surrounded by concrete walls and electric and barbwire fences. But first a bit about Paris...

We landed in Paris in the morning and had the whole day to play until our 11pm flight. With our backpacks strapped on, we hopped onto the train and headed to down town Paris. Paris is quite walkable. The city was sunny but a bit nippy.

First stop: The Notre Dame Cathedral. Didn't see the hunchback, but gargoyles were reminiscent of the awful disney movie. A grumpy Frenchman made Najam take his Chapeau off. I think we sneaked in the backdoor. Beautiful stained glass, dark gothic atmosphere. Oldest place Susan has been in. Got out of the church and into a cafe for a quick drink of a tiny cup thick, dark, crunchy coffee with three morsels of various desserts. Good stuff.

Next: The Eiffel tower. Overrated. At least Susan thinks so. The lines to get up there by elevator were long. There were no lines for the stairs, but we had backpacks which weren't allowed up there. So we appreciated the tower from the ground floor only. Both here and at the cathedral we were approached several times by women who would first ask "speak English?" and then show a card with a story of their being Bosnians, poor and stuck in Paris.

Finally we walked over to the Grand Arche, but didn't actually cross the road to it. Couldn't figure out how to get there actually. Besides, we were getting hungry. So, another over rated Paris attraction bypassed. Oh well. We ate at a little cafe no too far from the Arche. We had Salmon Crepes and Beef Bourguignon. Salmon consumption should be saved for our little corner of the North West and mom makes way better BB. Beautiful christmas lights visible from the cafe windows. We "people watched" as we ate.

The French like their cigarettes and smoking is still permitted in restaurants. The city was relatively clean except for the butts strewn about. It seems there is a direct correlation between the size of vehicles and the size of people. The US has some rather large vehicles and people to match. The only people of size that we saw in Paris spoke some sort of English. Even their little street crossing light stick figure looked skinny. We saw SUVs rarely and no hummers. Their larger cars were the size of our Honda civic. Maybe they don't eat as many freedom fries here.

The Stuff

If the first hallmark of humanity is our intelligence, then the need and want for stuff is definitely a close runner up. Much of the preparation that has gone into this trip has revolved around stuff. We need stuff to sleep in, stuff to wear, stuff to ingest, stuff to protect us from what we ingest, stuff to help us find where we're going and stuff to help us remember where we've been. And of course, we need stuff to put stuff in.

I joke about stuff, but we really are incredibly fragile beings without our stuff. We will be gone for a month. The weather conditions will range from the upper 90s to many degrees below freezing. Among the concerning things are the bugs, viruses and bacteria O MY!

Here's a list of the stuff we are bringing:

• Clothing: Includes 3 trekking pants, 2 tanks, 2 sports bras, 4 underwear, 2 shirts, 1 base layer, 2 pair of thick socks, 3 pair of thin socks, 1 hat, 1 balaclava, 2 pair of gloves (one thick on thin), a fleece (maybe 2), a rain jacket, a down jacket and a partridge in a pair tree. We plan on getting woolly hats while we are there. Najam's clothing is basically the same without the bras. We also each have a pair of pre-broke in hiking boots.
• hand sanitizer
• sleeping bags
• head lamps
• duct tape
• extra ziplocks
• trowel
• 1 mobile phone
• walking poles
• limited toiletries including lip balm and moisturizer
• 1 platypus, 1 water bottle and water insulators each
• water pump purifier (big stuff), ultraviolet water purifier (viruses), and water tablets
• sunscreen, bug spray, sunglasses
• camera, lots of SD cards, lots of batteries, outlet converters, SD card backup
• pocket all in one including knife and can opener
• compass, whistle, maps and travel books
• energy bars and chocolate
• utensils, we will get aluminum dishes when we get there
• friend if they fit
  

Our HMO's travel clinic was incredibly helpful on the internal protection front. We got:

• Yellow fever vaccination (with yellow card documentation for the borders)
  
• Polio booster
  
• Hep A vaccination
• Typhoid vacination
• anti-malarial medicine
  
• imodium, hydration salts and antibiotics for when it gets really bad

The post trip list would probably look quite different. I will be sure to make a posting about what stuff was missed and what stuff could have been left behind when we get back. One thing is for sure, we need to be very selective about what to bring since all of it will be on our back. Although porters are going to lug most of this stuff up the mountain, we will have to lug this stuff for 3 weeks across Africa.

The travel book we have said that we would need both a backpack and a day pack. The porters carry the backpack up and the trekkers carry their day pack with a few essentials. Najam and I don't really want the weight of an extra back pack during our entire trip. Instead, we are going to put all of our stuff into large nylon sacks and use our back packs. The nylon sacks we have are the same ones that we are stuffing our backpacks into in order to check them onto the flights. Hopefully they will be durable enough for the trek up the mountain.

It's funny that one would climb a mountain and hire other people to carry their stuff for them while they do so. At first look, it seems like the wimpy way to go. However, climbing to that altitude is difficult enough without the extra weight and porters are likely more acclimatized. I still can't help but feel a twinge of guilt even though I know that it would probably be impossible for me to make this trip without porters. Porters have a rough job and from what I have read, they are not always treated fairly and working conditions aren't as good as they could be (i.e., better equipment, better nutrition). We are going to attempt to choose a trekking company that is known for treating it's workers well and will also donate some of our equipment to the porters when we leave.

The Plan

We are going to be gone for a month. We'll be backpacking. The goal, to climb Kilimanjaro, and to witness the Serengeti migration, incorporating whatever else we can fit in between. The plan is to arrive in Johannesburg by air, and make our way to and/or from Kilimanjaro by ground transport. The route is still a little uncertain.

Originally we were thinking of going south to Cape Town by coach, then continue north through Namibia, Livingstone in Zambia, and finally Tanzania. All this to avoid taking the more direct route via Zimbabwe, a country currently not of very pleasant disposition from what we hear. Najam was also fantasizing about the beautiful Namib, the oldest desert in the world, home of some of the most breathtaking views, and unique flora and fauna (see also this). He's got a thing for deserts. But, that track side tracks us quite a bit, and we are afraid we won't have enough time to do what we really want to do.


So, the new plan is to go through Botswana instead. I don't know why we didn't think of that before. We got very enthusiastic about it once we learned that it is the only blue rated country in that region on the world peace index, almost twice as peaceful as USA! There's got to be something special about the place, and we hope to sample some of its peace in our journey.

The Dream

We have our plane ticket, the majority of our gear and a loose plan for trekking through the southern region of Africa. Like many adventures, this one started as a dream. Well actually, it didn't start out with some grand vision of traveling the world -- although that is where we're at now. Najam literally awoke to the Toto song "Africa" ringing in his head. You know, the one that goes "I bless the rains down in Africa" often misconstrued to say either "I guess it rains down in Africa" and "I wrestled Marines down in Africa."

He's not sure where or why he awoke to this song but the unconscious works in funny ways.

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in twelve-thirty flight
Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say: "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become

Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you

The words had a strange ambient relevance to the time and place we were at, and suggestions of new times and new places we could be. So, tallest peak in Africa, here we come!