Having arrived at our hotel for the night, I've finally been able to steal the pen and notepad back from Sean. I can see that this is going to be an on-going problem.
The flight from Manchester to Doha was comfortable and we
watched a couple of films. We had dinner and a glass of wine and, before we
knew it, we were only 2 hours away from Doha. I then made the error of taking
my Doxy (Doxycycline as an antimalarial) without food. I have learnt from
numerous previous trips to high risk Malaria areas that, unless I take my Doxy tablet
with food (and I mean literally half way through a meal) I feel very sick. So I
then spent the last hour to an hour and a half feeling like I was about to throw
up. Not at all pleasant.
We arrived in Doha just before midnight but despite this, we
were still hit by a wall of humid heat as we stepped off the plane and bundled
into the airport transfer bus. Airport security was painless and, after taking
a quick photo of Sean with a dinosaur, we found some seats to set up camp for
the night as our next flight wasn’t until 7am. Needless to say, neither of us
slept very well. Why is it that, even though you have an alarm on, your body
won’t let you sleep when you have an important wake up call? I managed to have
an hour’s sleep on the floor underneath the chairs with a scarf over my head.
Our next flight was from Doha to Dar es Salaam. The flight
went really quickly but, unfortunately, I was sat next to a guy who smelled quite
bad and kept elbowing me throughout the six-hour flight. On the other side of me was Sean - what's that saying again?....oh yea, stuck between a rock and a hard place! After watching another
film and sleeping for a little bit, we were soon landing in Dar es Salaam.
Quite
a lot of people got off the plane but nobody else got on so we had plenty of
space to spread out once we set off for Kilimanjaro airport. Looking around the plane, it was apparent that most of the
people who were flying to Kilimanjaro Airport were here to climb the mountain
itself with lots of whispers about walking boots being worn in (or not!) and altitude
sickness. Listening in to everyone else's conversations and sensing the excitement in the air made me realise that we're actually about to do this - we're here to climb the highest mountain in Africa! The flight to Kilimanjaro Airport was 45 minutes but it only felt
like 5 with fantastic views over the plains of Tanzania.
When we stepped off the plane at Kilimanjaro, the heat hit
us like a wall – it was so hot! I knew immediately that Sean and his super pale
skin are going to struggle here. Luckily, we had both printed out and
completed our visa forms before we left the UK (something I would recommend to
save time once you arrive in Tanzania) so we got through immigration quickly and
with minimal fuss, the only difficulty being me trying to stand in the right
spot for my photo to be taken at the passport desk. Epic fail on my part when trying to identify my left and right.
Kilimanjaro Airport is tiny so it didn’t take long at all
for our bags to come off the plane and into the luggage collection area. You
could actually see the guy picking the bags off the trolley and putting them on
to the conveyor belt – that reminds of something that happened in Doha Airport
that I forgot to write about yesterday. When we got on the plane at Doha I was
sat by the window and saw my bag fall off the trolley as they were putting the
bags on to the plane. I genuinely thought it was going to get left there so
went to tell one of the air hostesses who just looked at me slightly strangely
and reassured me that they knew how to do their jobs! (Upon reflection that probably wasn't interesting enough to have written down.....)
Anyway, back to our arrival at Kili Airport….we were greeted
by Fitael (who, admittedly, we called Fritelli for the first three days. He’s
even referred to as Fritelli in my hand written diary but I feel it would be disrespectful
to call him by a made up name now that I actually know what it is. Well that,
and I don’t want to look like an idiot!) After a quick change of clothes in the back of the huge Land
Rover we were ready to set off for Arusha. I was really surprised by how
similar Ghana and Tanzania look (I appreciate that it quite a generalisation
and it may be more accurate to say Arusha and Accra but you get the point).
It took the best part of an hour to get to our destination
for the night, L’Oasis Lodge, where we have a massive self-contained double
room. For some strange reason we have three beds in the room but I’m not going
to complain about that. I’m very impressed with the fact that we have hot water
in the bathroom as this is the thing I always miss the most when in Ghana.
We dropped our bags off in our room and headed to the bar to
meet Achmed who was already there talking to two guys from Canada who are also
here to climb Kili with Base Camp (Base Camp are the company we arranged the
whole trip through and, in all honesty, looking back over the trip now, I could
not find a single fault with them. If you’re considering it, you should definitely check them out http://www.basecamptanzania.com/ )
Achmed bought us all (me, Sean, Logan and Ryan) a few
beers which was an excellent welcome. We tried Serengeti as well as Safari, the
latter being my favourite so far. The food at the Lodge was really nice and, on
Achmed’s recommendation, we all had some variation of curry. Talking to the other guys who are here to climb Kili has
really started the excitement but first we have four days of safari ahead of
us. Climbing into bed after 36 hours of travelling feels like bliss but we have
to be up early tomorrow as Fitael is coming to pick us up at 8 am and we need to
sort out what we are taking with us and what is being left here. Time to call
it a day I think – Good night!
