To the top of Africa--almost
That would be Mt. Kilimanjaro in
northern Tanzania. Kili is an extinct volcano, and at its official summit, you
can say you’re on the highest point in Africa, just over 19,400 feet. It was
something Dave and I had talked about doing for years, and this was it. We
trained hard for months with many visits to the gym to build up our strength
and weekend hikes around the area. Armed with new backpacks and plenty of other
gear, we flew out of Minneapolis on October 3, arriving in Moshi, Tanzania, the
next evening. At the hotel we met our climbing companions, 13 other folks with
a total of 5 countries represented. On the 6th, our outfitter,
Ultimate Kilimanjaro, transported us to the Lemosho Gate and we were off.
From the gate to the eventual exit
would be 43 miles, and there were no easy miles among them. In fact, it seemed
there were no easy yards; the trails were much more difficult than advertised,
strewn with rocks and sometimes blocked with boulders so large we literally had
to climb over them. But our outfitter did a great job, with porters rushing
ahead of us every day to set up camp and have it all ready to go by the time we
arrived late in the afternoon. The food was delicious and there was plenty of it,
our tents and sleeping bags kept us warm and dry through the frigid nights and
the guides provided excellent advice and checked our medical condition twice
daily. One gal, from Florida, had to turn back after two days due to altitude
sickness, but we did just fine. But the difficult trail took a toll on Dave,
who’d had foot surgery just six months earlier, and on the day we were to hike
to the base camp, we were told Dave would have to turn back. I accompanied him
as a guide and porter were dispatched to take us down to the exit gate, a
rugged journey that took us two days.We arrived back in Moshi a day before our colleagues, and when they staggered in they told us only 8 of the remaining 12 climbers made it to the summit, scaling the final 4,000 feet in the early-morning darkness, lit only by their headlamps and buffeted by bone-chilling winds. As dawn finally broke, the survivors made it to the summit after a 7-hour climb. Then they had to turn around after only a few minutes and go all the way back down, plus another several kilometers to the next camp. All told, they were on the trail about 17 hours that day.
Two nights in Moshi gave us a chance to clean up and get some rest, and then we flew to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, for the next leg of our trip, a safari outfitted by Alexander + Roberts. We stayed at the beautiful, historic Fairmont Norfolk Hotel—Dave was excited to learn our room was right next to the one Teddy Roosevelt had when he was there to start his own safari in 1909—and met our new group. After three nights in Nairobi, we set out for our adventure. Over the next ten days and nights, we stayed at five different camps and explored landscapes ranging from heavily forested to desert, and we saw animals. A lot of animals, in their natural state thanks to strict conservation laws in both countries.
More than once we saw lions, sometimes coming within a couple dozen feet of them. One morning we saw a group dining on a zebra, and the next day another pride was feasting on a wildebeest. Elephants walked past us without an apparent care in the world. There was an amazing variety of antelopes, ranging from small gazelles to the moose-sized eland. We saw hippos and crocodiles in the Mara River, including a tragic example of nature in action, when a croc captured a wildebeest that had made the mistake of trying to ford the river on its own. We saw rhinos up close and a leopard. Lots of giraffes, too; in fact, at the Giraffe Center in Nairobi we were able to feed some. There were large herds of wildebeest and zebras, the occasional buffalo and an amazing variety of birds. At our camp in the Amboseli region, black-faced monkeys were all over, and you had to be careful if you were dining out in the open, because it was not uncommon for a monkey to swoop in and grab something off your plate. We saw baboons and warthogs and mongoose and lizards and so much more.
The people we met, especially the ones who guided us on our game drives and staffed our lodges, were uniformly nice and provided excellent service. Yes, there were several moments when we drove through the crowded streets of a Kenyan or Tanzanian town and realized we certainly weren’t in Wisconsin anymore, but the people seemed relatively happy and hard-working. One thing was for sure, they really like Americans over there, and not just because we bring our credit cards. What we sometimes take for granted over here, they dream about over there.
An African safari, even if you don’t combine it with a climb of Kilimanjaro, can be one of the best travel experiences you’ll ever have. Interested in finding out more? Give us a call, we’ll help you put a trip together and you’ll have hakuna matata (Swahili for “no worries”)!