And then the morning sunshine revealed all. What was once expansive tea plantation was now interspersed with subsistence farming plots and once the pouring afternoon rain set in and wet our 4 loads of washing and we retreated to what we thought would be the luxury of the hotel lounge, the true horror of the place was revealed! The blue floral wallpaper was so old it was pealing itself off the walls in shame and the green velvet chairs seemed to invite a herd of grazing cows more than the reluctant patrons sipping tea and wondering what on earth they were actually doing in a place as ridiculous as this! For some reason however, we managed to spend 3 nights in this set from Al'o Al'o thanks to the fact that our washing had to be timed with the morning sun and not the afternoon showers!
Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the cold electrical showers and the flooding toilets with no toilet paper and headed down to the Masai Mara. Now we had seen far too much game by this stage, but you cannot visit Kenya and not go to the Masai Mara. We spent out first night just outside the boundary on the banks of a sandy river overlooking the grazing herds of wildebeest at a fraction of what it would cost to stay inside, but this little money saver also served as our first introduction into Kenyan camping facilities which would make Kericho Tea Hotel look like the Four Seasons. Kenyans insist on pit latrines, which would be fine if they were maintained and cleaned like the Asian ones, but these aren't and induce possibly the most rapid latrine sessions on record! Our entrance into the reserve the next day was also rather chaotic as Shaun decided to not only look at the curios on sale by the Masai women at the gate, but actually ventured as far as asking the price of something, an action when performed amongst a cluster of curio stalls is somewhat like poking a stick into a hornets nest and thrashing it around wildly. I ran to the car for cover and "hapana sante'd" my way from the safety of the car while Shaun was mobbed and had me swearing profusely at him to boot! The wardens at the gate however were far more useful and friendly than their friends at Serengeti and recommended an awesome campsite right on the border with Serengeti on a river. Unfortunately we spent that afternoon watching 3 lion so when we returned to the campsite and found we were utterly by ourselves with the sun having set and the toilet and shower block 100m away through thick lion-cover grass, we hastily built our fire and tried to cook dinner while Shaun repeatedly scanned the surrounding bushes for encroaching wildlife - often more on his exposed side than on mine! That night we were also kept awake by the roar of lion which came far too close than was necessary and had me hatching escape plans into the safety of our car. Fortunately the sun cam up just as I was about to make a run for it and brought with it our usual daylight false sense of security! We spent the rest of the morning being engulfed by herds of wildebeest that stretched as far as the eye could see and truly getting our migration experience!
As though we haven't had enough of lakes either, we decided to make a stop at Lake Naivasha for 2 nights where the Kenyan pit latrines earned an even worse reputation and then headed south on the first decent road into Nairobi. Nairobi turned out to be the best treat and hugely successful as we managed to find all of our missing equipment for our assault on Kilimanjaro (even a size 13 pair of hiking boots for Shaun) while trawling the malls reminiscent of the glossy walkways of Cavendish Square. The best par however was the fact that we were able to stay with friends in a home with walls, a massive clean shower with HOT water and sleep in a clean and comfortable bed with white bed linen! Shaun and I did shower twice before contemplating touching the bed but once we did it was glory! Unfortunately staying with friends meant that we sat talking until the small hours of the morning and ended up drinking far too much red wine and eating mounds of home cooked food - not a good idea a few days before climbing the tallest mountain in Africa! Shaun actually enjoyed himself so much that he purposefully chose not to buy the only pair of gloves that fit him so that he had an excuse to stay an extra night!
Unfortunately we could only procrastinate so much but managed to fit in a one night stop at Amboseli NP which sits on the lower slopes of Klimanjaro, in order to get the picture of elephants walking with Kili in the background which graces the cover of our atlas. It was a rather expensive attempt at a photographic opportunity as Kili maintained her shrouded veil of mist despite the ellies making a good show of it all afternoon. We also realised that this would be our last national park as boredom set in far too early and we entertained ourselves rather illegally by playing the Hyena-call ring tone on our phone to a lone hyena who spent 30 minutes running around our car looking for the source of the call!
And then it was time for the activity which had been occupying our thoughts and actions for the better part of a month, as well as our budget for the better part of a year . . .
KILIMANJARO (OR KILEMACHJARO IN SWAHILI MEANING BIG HILL . . . NO SH*T!)
We decided on doing the 6 day Machame route as opposed to the 5 day "coca cola" Marangu not because we would intentionally chose an extra day on a freezing mountain for fun, but because it gives an extra day for acclimatisation which gives you a better chance of summitting - something rather important when you are paying that much money! Hiking from 1800m to 5895m above sea level was apparently not something to take lightly so our guide came and checked that he as happy with all of our gear before he would take us up the next day. I'm not quite sure if this was reassuring or scared us even more but before we knew it, we were being picked up and riven to the start of the route.
The first day was an easy introduction as we hiked through rain forest to our first campsite at 2900m. The hike itself only took 4 hours and it was surprisingly not the 170 other hikers on the route that got in our way. but more the 8 porters which accompanied every 2 hikers who pushed their way passed with their 24kg bundles on their heads and backs. Kili had not yet revealed herself to us as we arrived at our campsite that afternoon so we sat around chatting to other hikers to kill time. At exactly 6pm however, her misty scarf suddenly just evaporated and we were all left gawking at the sheer height and beauty of what we still had to conquer. Conversation died down quickly and we all went to bed!
The following 2 days were also relatively easy as we hiked to 3500m and then to 3900m via a 4600m acclimatisation accent respectively through what is known as heather and moorland but look more like the marshes around Mordor. Morale was high as we were all conned into thinking that this couldn't possibly be THAT bad! . . . Day four tried its best to shatter our illusion as the hike became increasingly steep, but we were all far too arrogant at this stage to listen to what the mountain was trying to tell us. We arrived at camp at 4600m at 4pm, had dinner at 5:30pm and were in bed by 6:30pm in preparation for our assault on the summit at 12am.
We managed intermittent sleep as nerves got the better of us and before we were ready, we received our wake-up call. Getting up at 11am at 4600m is about as fun as swimming naked with a hungry polar bear in the arctic, and about as cold. To make matters worse, our chef who had been turning out meals fit for a king decided it would be funny to mess up our porridge on summit day so we had tea and ginger biscuits instead. We set off at 12am dressed in all the warm clothing I could find on a lunar landscape illuminated by a waning full moon and a crisp black sky dotted with shining stars. The mountain was eerily silent as the line of hikers illuminated only by the odd headlamp concentrated on just putting one step in front of the other and breathing in as much of the thin air as possible on the steep path, constantly aware of the effects of not getting enough air. Unfortunately the ill-effects of the altitude soon got to many of the hikers as they vomitted their breakfast onto the side of the path in loud gut wrenching heaves. Unfortunately one man decided to do exactly this just as I popped a jelly baby into my mouth for energy, and it took a lot of concentration to keep my jelly baby from joining his breakfast! As the path continued and we silently made our way up the slippery scree, the mountain got the better of many and more and more people were taken back down by their guides, filling the rest of us with even more determination not to let the mountain get the better of us when we had come this far! The eerie silence was filled only by the singing of the guides to encourage their hikers to carry on. Each guide however took it upon himself to encourage hikers as they shuffled by with a "Pole Pole" (meaning slowly slowly in Swahili). It got rather annoying after a while because if we went any slower we would have gone backwards and summitted back at camp but just as I was about to shove my "pole pole" down one's "throaty throaty" we reached a rock climbing part so my guide took my pole pole away from me. What made the climb worse was the fact that you couldn't stop to rest because then your body would get too cold in the freezing conditions, so we were forced to plod on, very sorry that we had ever misjudged the power of the mountain! I started singing the Pina Colada song to remind me of the warm beaches that awaited us once we had done this but soon even my mind got too tired and I just focused on where I was putting my feet.
Finally, eventually, just as the sun cast a warm orange glow on the eastern horizon and slowly illuminated the surrounding white glaciers and black shadows turned into volcanic rock, we stepped over the crater rim and glanced around at the white puffy clouds far below the bleak grey volcanic landscape. It was another 500m to the actual summit along the crater rim but the sun was warming us up slowly and life seemed to be a little less painful. Finally, 6.5hrs and a frozen lifetime after we set off, we stepped onto the summit at a freezing yet spectacular 5895m ASL. The mood at the summit was jovial and festive for those of us that made it and we soon forgot about the hardship we had endured to actually get there. None of us were over happy though and Jacqui (an American we had befriended over the 5 days) probably summed everyone's feelings up the best when she turned to her boyfriend after having the customary summit picture taken and said to him "Now get me the hell off this mountain!" (Some expletives have been left out.)
The day and a half spent going back down seemed like a waste of time having made it to the summit and I would strongly recommend that the park authorities use the $100 per day they charge each person to not only install escalators to take hikers back down (it's called mountain CLIMBING!), but to also use the money to clean up some of the trash that litters the landscape or to possibly build more than 7 pit latrines with holes so small a mouse has to squeeze through sideways for the 200 odd hikers plus 8 men teams they allow onto the mountain each day.
I'm sitting here with the one line of the Pina Colada song that I actually know going over and over in my head as we get ready to make our way to sun, surf and sand on the Kenyan coast.
