The reason I went to Tanzania is to rendezvous with my cousin Travis, his wife Shauna dnd their friend Missy for a safari. The three of them were scheduled to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro for 6 days while I was at the beach in Zanzibar and then we met up to do a 6 day safari together.
Let me explain what a feat climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro really is. Like I said, it is a 6 day trip, and they hiked approximately 36 miles in total. The elevation of Mt. Kilimanjaro is just under 20,000 feet (according to Google, 19,340 feet). Mt. Everest (tallest mountain in the world in Tibet/Nepal) is just under 30,000 feet. The tallest mountain in the US is Mt. McKinley in Alaska at 20,320 feet. As for the lower 48, the Rocky Mountains have the tallest peaks in Colorado. There are 54 peaks which are over 14,000 feet. All of which, my stepdad, Larry has climbed and my mother has climbed most of them too(40ish I think).....I have climbed a wimpy three of them....
Anyway, Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa and the route they took had them go up and down a bit the first few days to get them acclimated to the altitude. Their pictures are amazing! They had guides and porters to carry their gear, fix meals, set the pace and keep them on schedule. A very strict schedule and the health of each individual is monitored closely for altitude sickness.
On the day to summit, they were woken at midnight in order to climb and reach the summit w/ good weather and catch the sunrise. Travis, Shauna and Missy all made it to the top!!!!! CONGRATULAIONS!!! The descent is approximately 15 miles so they cover some ground quickly down the scree slopes (loose gravel)....poor Missy's toe rubbed in her boot so much, that by the end of our safari it had fallen off and we threatened to amputate her toe....j/k....So by the time I saw these guys, they were exhausted, elated, smelly, no shower for 6 days, Travis was sick and all were ready for a beer. I couldn't wait to see them and was very ready to be with family.....Missy and I really hit it off which was fabulous bc we were roomies the next 6 days, we had a ball! I was hugging and kissing all of them so excited to be with my peoples :)
The original plan for the safari was to camp along the way, but since these guys were sick of camping on the mountain, they wanted to upgrade during our safari. I was down w/ that since I really had no camping gear and after seeing what WOULD HAVE been our camping spots, I was very grateful they upgraded...Camping is hard enough in the states, much less in a 3rd world country.....
The first part of our safari was at Lake Manyara. This is a very lush jungle type of terrain, very green, cool and beautiful. How the safari works is that we ride in the jeep and stick our heads out of the roof to observe the animals. Like a jack-in-the-box we decided.... We don't get out and hike around, don't really stray from the jeep, stick to the roads and stay in the jeep. The weather was great, this is the dry season, mostly cool and sunny.
This part of the world has 2 seasons, wet and dry.
We had our guide, Joel and our cook, Abdula. These guys were really funny, very friendly, informative, patient, safe....Joel told us to push the button on his head and he would do a "network" search to find our desired wildlife. By this he would make a circle in the air w/ his finger like a cell phone would be searching for a network. Great guides!
Baboons everywhere! Elephants, velvet monkeys (smaller white ones) giraffs, lots of large termite hills, pink flamingos.....,
No comments:
Post a Comment