Lions and Leopards and Elephants, Oh My!

I went on a five-day safari, through Tarangire National Park, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater immediately after I climbed Kili.  Overall, the safari was a wonderful experience.  The people I was with, on the other hand, were a different matter all together.

I left Moshi at 4:30 in the morning.  The safari had actually started the day before, but of course I was just coming down off the mountain.  Daniel, from Tro-Peaks (the company I did the Kili climb with) picked me up and drove me to the campsite, Zion Campsite, just outside Tarangire National Park.  We arrived just in time for breakfast, and I got to meet my travelling companions for the next five days.

I was with 5 Italians.  If they had been dwarves they would have been: Complainer, Princess, Clubber, Insufferable and Nice.  (Yes, one of them was actually a nice person, the others not so much.)  Of course, the first day I didn't know this.  But over the next five days, their personalities became very clear.

We set off for Tarangire right after breakfast.  After registering at the gate, the top of land cruiser was popped open, and we began our game drive.  We saw hundreds of elephants within the first half hour.  (We were also charged by an angry elephant within the first half hour.)  Most of the day was filled with different animals sightings - giraffes, zebras, gazelles, impalas, elephants, baboons, even a lion.

Around 5 we headed back to the camp, and the complaining began.  About the food, about the driver, about the campsite, about the stretch of time in the afternoon that we didn't see any animals.  (As if they can be ordered to appear on demand)

The next day it was off to the Serengeti - a long drive that took us through a few small towns (including a stop for groceries, and to get a fuse fixed so the Italians could charge their phones using a plug in the land cruiser.), and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. 

The Serengti was indescribable. I'll still try, but it was....one of the spots that you could easily see yourself spending the rest of your life. The light in the morning, when the sun rose was an incredible rosy colour, and at dusk when it was setting, the light seemed to hang in the air. We saw evrything - leopards in trees, more elephants, more lions, cheetahs, zebras, antelopes, a hippo pool. At times the animals were close enough that we didn't need a zoom - we saw a coalition of cheetahs lazing under a tree on the side of the road; at another time we saw a pride of lions (including an adorable baby) resting under a tree, you guessed, on the side of the road.
At night, you could hear the hyenas as they prowled near the kitchens. Thankfully, they were the only visitors (that I know of) to our camp.

Our final morning in Serengeti we woke early to take an early morning game drive through the park. Then it was back to pack up the landcruiser, and head to the Ngorongoro Crater, after a stop at a Maasai village straddling the Serengeti the Ngorongoro conservation area.

At the NCA, we set up camp at Simba camp, the most popular camp at the top of the crater. It wasn't hard to see why - with an elephant grazing on trees and bushes behind the mess hall, and a herd of zebras chilling on the grassy plain of the camp site, we had our fair share of wild visitors.

As in our camp in the Serengeti, we had electrical outlets in the mess halls to charge any electronics - phones, camera batteries, or tablets. Very useful for those of us who had spent more time camping with no electricity than in hotels! If only I had brought my chargers with me...

Our final moring we started the drive into the crater. One word of warning to anyone hoping to do a game drive in the crater, it's cold. Pack several layers of fleece because you will definitely need it. One of the Italians on my trip pulled out her sleeping bag - another solution, but one that leaves you with fewer photo taking options. The Ngorongoro crater was...flat. There were a few trees, but for the most part you could see it stretching out in all directions until it was lost in the early morning haze.

I have to admit that by this point I was a little safaried out. I had seen pretty much every animal there was to see, with two notable exceptions. Servals, a small(ish) wild African cat, and a rhino. There aren't many rhinos in Ngorongoro - there were 18 in 2001 (statistic found here), and the crater itself is 260 km sq, or 100 sq mi. However, withing a very short time of arriving, our driver suddenly changed directions, and began driving off down the road into a great expanse of green. We all wondered what was going - we had just been watching a mating dance between ostriches, and couldn't figure out why we had so suddenly taken off. Turns out our driver had either heard news of, or had seen himself, a rhino off in the distance. And there he (she?) was - lumbering away in the distance. The closest we got was maybe 100 metres (maybe 150 - it was hard to judge the distance) but it wasn't particularly close. With my zoom lens (35x zoom) I got a fairly decent photo.

I never did get to see a serval.

Staggering up Kilimanjaro

I booked a 7 day Kilimanjaro climb back in April. 5 and a half days up, one and a half days down.  I figured I'd need the 5 days for acclimatization - Ottawa isn't exactly at a staggering altitude, you know.  Turns out - I was wrong.

I started the climb back on August 7 from Machame Gate (I was taking the Machame route).  It turned out that I was the only trekker - so it was just me, and 6 support crew (1 guide, 1 chef, 4 porters.  That's a lot of people for one person to summit a mountain!)

The first leg took me from Machame Gate to Machame Gate, and from there the next day to Shira Camp, where we get our first taste of "high" altitude (i.e. over 3000 metres).  I had just spent 4 days in Addis Ababa, which sits around 2500 metres, so the first two days were easy.  Which probably explains why I was the first tourist to arrive in Shira Camp.

The day after we hit Shira Camp, we hiked to Barranco, via Lava Tower.  The side trip to Lava Tower is important for acclimatization - you hit over 4600 metres, before descending back down to just under 4000 metres at Barranco.

The next day, our fourth, saw me tackle the Barranco wall (aka the Breakfast Wall, because you do it right after breakfast).  I have to say - I loved this part.  I loved scrambling over the rocks, hugging them as I swung a leg out to land on the next "step".

From Barranco, our goal was Karanga Camp (which in my mind will always be Kangaroo Camp).  Being the speedy trekker than I am, my guide and crew decided that we should push on for Barafu camp - the camp before the summit.

Did I mention that my guide thought I could summit a day early?

So on day 5, at 5 am, I made the push for Uhuru Peak - the highest peak in Africa.  After what seemed an interminable age of zig-zags up the cliff face, we finally (and I mean finally - there were six or seven false summits!) came up to....Stella Point.  The second highest point in Africa.  Another hour of staggering found me at Uhuru Peak.  Where I promptly fell against the sign while my guide too my photo.  5895 metres is nothing to sneeze at.

We quickly descended, and I found a mild-to-moderate case of altitude sickness come on.  No headache, which is normal for me in high altitudes, but nausea.  And back at Barafu, where I gratefully fell upon my sleeping bag for a quick nap, I actually vomited upon waking.  Classy as always.

We pushed on from Barafu that day, to Millennium Camp - a new campsite that was installed in 2000 as a relief measure for all the people wanting to celebrate the New Years on Kilimanjaro, but who couldn't take the altitude.  Needless to say, I was in my sleeping bag early, exhausting after the 7 hour hike to the summit, and 3 hours descent.

The next morning we pushed on down to Mweka Gate - a leisurely 4 and a half hour hike down slippery, rocky paths.  I seriously started to consider that they should award certificates for getting down the path safely, rather than for making the summit!

Oh, and the certificate for making the summit?  I have one of those!

Cue the nerves in three.....two....one

That's it - day of departure.  Time to blow this popsicle stand of a city, and catch a flight out.  I've got my bags pack and I'm ready to go (note to self: Play "Leaving On A Jet Plane").

I've got two bags of checked luggage (Ethiopian Airlines is not on the one bag only rule, thank goodness) and I'm probably straining the credibility of carry-on (I've got one carry on bag.  I've also got a purse and a camera, which are supposed to be allowed on top of the carry-on bag.)

The current plan is to mail home the remnants of clothing from my Kili climb - the fleeces (minus one fleece top, which will be my sweater for the cooler days and nights on the rest of my trip), the gaiters, the heavier weight socks, and the wicking base-layers.  And since the Kili climb is at the beginning, all the energy bars and snacks (trail mix, energy chews, granola bars) will be mostly gone as well, freeing up even more space.  I'm hoping to be down to one bag by the time I fly to Rwanda.

I'll update when I can.  I hear internet can be spotty at best in some of the places I'm hitting.

A.

This is all moving so fast

I'm not sure what happened, but sometime between buying the plane ticket and today, I hit the warp-speed button and things are just moving along at a slightly-too-fast clip.

So, yet again, let me catch you up.  (Do I hear a new catch phrase?  Something to rival "I'm not wearing pants" maybe?)

First thing to happen:  I emailed the Rwanda tourism office to see about a permit to go gorilla tracking.  They issue 56 permits per day (note:  they don't only issue 56 permits a day, as in they work slowly, but for each date there are only 56 permits available.)  So they are incredibly hard to get, and they go incredibly quickly.  You need to book months in advance.  Why?  Because gorillas are endangered, you're in a protected park, and they don't want humans bothering/scaring/stressing the animals.  Each permit is $500US, but is, I have been told, completely worth it.

So I emailed them, and it turns out there are permits available for the 23, 24, and the 25 of August.  Which works out incredibly well with my schedule.  It allows me time to acclimatize in Addis (we're getting to this point), climb Kili and do a safari.

Second thing to happen: Originally I was planning on doing the safari first, then Kili.  I thought, on the safari, I could climb Mount Meru to help with the acclimatization.  It's a three-day climb- 2 up, 1 down.  But with the gorilla trek, it makes more sense to climb Kili, then do the safari, and let my legs rest before doing the gorilla tracking (which could include up to 8 or 9 hours of hiking).  So I won't be able to acclimatize on Mount Meru.  Then, while doing some researching on Ethiopia, and Addis, I found out that the elevation of Addis is 2300-2400 metres above sea level (I have found differing numbers between those two points.)  That will do nicely to help me acclimatize to higher altitudes!

So that's where things are.  I have my gorilla permit booked, and I've emailed two companies about Kili.  I still need to do some research into the safari, pick the company I want to trek with (and hopefully do a safari with, as that usually ensures a slightly better rate.) and research things to do in/around Addis and Kigali.