by Elizabeth

Having recovered from our Kili descent and washing much (but not all) of the safari dust out of our clothes during our rest day in Arusha, we were faced with the question of where we would go next. The obvious option — what nearly everyone suggested and most tourists were doing — would have been to head to Zanzibar. The problem was that we sort of suck at beaches (we burn and get bored way too easily), we’d heard mixed reviews on the scuba diving options, and at this point in our trip we weren’t interested in many of the attractions (coffee and spice tours). Also, Zanzibar isn’t exactly known for being budget friendly and our climb and safari were both budget busters. What we really wanted to do was go for a hike. Surprising, I know.

Hiking independently in Tanzania presented many of the same problems that we ran into in Bosnia (lack of information and infrastructure), with the added challenge that guides are required in many of the parks, park fees can be exorbitant, and I guess lions that might eat us. We were also limited by our reliance on public transit and had no interest in renting a car (they drive on the other side of the road, we don’t drive stick, four wheel drive is necessary for most places we’d want to go, etc.). Based on our limitations, our guide book and Google both suggested that we head to the town of Lushoto, although it was still unclear to what extent we might need to hire a guide.  Lushoto is located in northeast Tanzania off of the road between Arusha/Moshi and Tanga and is considered one of the gateways to the Usambara mountains.  It is the base for several popular multi-day hikes in the mountains between villages, as well as various day hikes.  

Continue reading →

by Elizabeth

[I kept a daily journal of our Mt. Kilimanjaro summit attempt along the Machame route on my phone. That summary from our summit attempt, along with some of our photos, is below.  The summary of the first four days of our climb can be found here.  We’ll post a separate description of how we chose a climbing operator and our post-trip reflections.]

Day 5 (Aug. 12): 

5km ascent plus 22km descent, Barafu Camp (4681m/15,357ft) to Summit (5895m/19,340ft) to Mweka Hut (3090m/10,138ft) to Mweka Gate (1641m/5384ft)

We did it!  We both summited Kilimanjaro!  And we are never doing that again…

Continue reading →

by Elizabeth

[I kept a daily journal of our Mt. Kilimanjaro summit attempt along the Machame route on my phone. That summary from the first four days of our climb, along with some of our photos, is below.  We’ll post a separate description of our summit attempt, how we chose a climbing operator, and our post-trip reflections.]

Day 1 (Aug. 8):

11km, Machame Gate (1828m/6000ft) to Machame Camp (3020m/9900ft)

Day one is complete and we’re both doing really well.  The key for us today was to accept the chaos that often accompanies budget tour operations and to go with the flow.  We were supposed to be picked up from our guesthouse in Moshi between 9 and 9:30am.  Of course, they couldn’t find the place and got lost.  Our host helped us to call the trekking company and we were finally picked up around 10am.  The van picking us up was filled with our guide (Alfred) and porters, but no other climbers.  We figured that they must have been picked up separately (we had been told that we would be joined by two Austrians).  Our morning was filled with a number of stops — the gear rental shop to pick up warmer clothing for us and sleeping bags (I picked an awesome hat), a shop for snacks, and a few other stops for miscellaneous supplies. 

Continue reading →