The Kilimanjaro Trek, Tanzanian Tango
5. oct - 1. nov 1999
One week Kilimanjaro Trekking - One week Ngorongoro Safari - One week Zanzibar Sun & Comfort

This report is written for two reasons: as a memory of the trip for our own sake, and as an experience report for those who are planning on travelling to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. First there are a general description of arranging a trek in Tanzania. After this the trek is described day by day. We hope you like it.

Nota Bene! Every information in this document is from 1999.

TANZANIA, KILIMANJARO AREA

We arranged the whole trip through internet, send emails to several hotels and tour operators, and chose the best medium priced offer. Our choice was Harshit Shah (kilimanjaro@eoltz.com), also recommended in the Lonely Planet Tanzania guide.

Accomodation: Harshit Shahs hotel is Mountain Inn. It is allright in every respect, clean rooms, quiet, decent breakfast meals and service oriented staff. Drawback is that you need a car to get to Moshi (and closest shop). Though, if we travel again we would like to stay in Keys Hotel. Run by english couple it has a higher standard on rooms, better meals and is strategically placed in the quiet part of Moshi.

InternetConnection: There are several internet-places, we used Keys Hotel mostly. In 1999 Moshi City had only one server, but even then everything worked smoothly.

Mountain gear: There is not much to buy in Moshi. Perhaps your guide/company can get hold of some, but we brought all our gear with us.
What do you need for the trip? In daytime the sun makes it hot, but it is wise to cover your body. Light trousers, a hat, T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt and sun-screen are necessary. In the morning, evening and nighttime it is relatively very cold. Fleece-jackets and warm underwear are a must.
We could walk in jogging shoes all the way from Moshi to Kibo Hut. The last leg up and down the top it is necessary with trekking boots.

About Moshi versus Arusha
Arusha is the area capital and the largest city in the area. Moshi is the city closest to the Mountain. Arusha is closest to Serengeti and the other safari sites. Both cities have approx the same distance from the airport. There are hardly anything to do in any of the cities. Arusha has some sort of museum and a park, they were both miserable. Arusha also have the Impala Hotel which is high class western standard, and ditto high priced. We chose Moshi. This because Arusha has the highest crime rate, the most noise, the most dirt and was hardest to navigate on foot.

Economy for the Trekking (in US dollars)
Flight Stavanger-Amsterdam-Kilimanjaro-Zanzibar-Nairobi-Amsterdam-Stavanger : 7200 NOK / approx 970$
5 days Kilimanjaro Trekking : 720$
Additional tip trekking: 10$ per porter, 20$ for co-guide and cook, 40$ for the guide.
4 day safari in Ngorongoro : 520$
Additional tip safari: 60$ for guide, 40$ for co-guide/cook

Our medical kit:
Paracetamol, sunscreen, plasters/bandage (basic first aid kit).
Moisturising cream (it gets very dry above 3000 meters close to the equator).
Water purifier: jodintablets (used seldom), Micropur tablets. (We bought 90% of our drinking water.)

A scetch map of the location:

The trekking - day by day

Day One : 5. october : Moshi
The amazing flight over the African continent, watching great cumulus clouds stretching kilometers of height above the savanna, and landing on Kilimanjaro Airport. We were picked up by Shahs staff and after a quick dinner we went to sleep in Mountain Inn.

Day 2 : 6. october : Moshi
Resting day. A smart move to get the long flight out of the body and get used to the warm and humid weather. We went to Moshi, but not much to see here.
Moshi could have been a really nice place. The Keys Hotel and YMCA shows potential. But it falls between the "metropol" Arusha and the fertile Marangu, and it seems that Moshi was raped by Coca Cola and Pepsi (their signs are everywhere) and then left alone in the dust. There is a clocktower in one of the main crossings in the city. It is sponsored by Coca Cola. And the clock is not working... A symptom.

Day 3 : 7. october : Marangu Park Gate (2000 m) - Mandaru Huts (2700 m)
Start walking 11:00, Finish 16:00.
Drive from Mountain Inn to Marangu Park Gate. You cannot enter the Kilimanjaro Mountains without hiring guide plus porters. As we arranged the trek through Shah - and found it was a reasonable price - we were staffed with 8 porters, 2 guides and 1 cook/porter. That is many people, but we did not see the porters during day time. They took our backpacks in the morning and when we arrived at a new hut in the evening, the backpacks were allready there. We actually had to order specifically for a meeting one morning to get a picture of the whole team. In daytime during the trek we did only see our two guides.
First day we trek through fantastic rain forest up to Mandaru Huts. You can see monkeys and a lot of beautiful flowers. The huts on this trek are sponsored with norwegian money and it shows; well build and solid they all look as small replicas of the Fram-museum in Oslo. Several of the huts in Mandaru are put on solid pillars. Why, I wondered, and got the answer precisely 18:30 that very evening. The rain poured down. And it did not stop before 04 in morning next day. I was sure the whole mountain had washed away during the rainfall...


Day 4 : 8. october : Mandaru Huts - Horombu Huts Daytime: -> evening:
Start 09:00, Finish 16:00.
Morning shines and the ground is dry - besides some morning dew. The forest echoes of jungle noises and the air is fresh. My lesson in rain forest climate; rain pours down and disappears as if nothing has happened...
The trek up from Mandaru is going through jungle, then we gradually enter the marsh and finally walks in savanna-like vegetation. Slowly, slowly - pole, pole (swahili) - we move up to Horombu. It is a nice walk and there is much to see if you are interested in plants and birds. The sinezia is a plant which easily reaches 4-6 meters height. There is a whole forest of them close to Horombu.

Day 5 : 9. october : Horombu Huts (3700m) Morning: -> daytime:
We are freezing. In the morning the Horombu Huts are inside a cloud and it is hard to get out of the sleeping bag. Then the sun breaks through and the clouds evaporate, and we saw Kibo for the first time really. The icy top shone against the blue sky, and looking downwards, through the clouds we could see the brown savanna far below. A wonderful feeling.
We used our resting day to go up towards the second peak of the Kilimanjaro, the Mawenzi peak. It has a totally different look than the Kibo, it looks like it exploded... which it probably did. Anyway it is called the little brother of Kibo and the story tells that Kibo beat its little brother into the shape it has today. As big brothers commonly do... uh.
Both Margareth and Tom Egil felt the height and had a small headace.
The dining lodge is a bigger replica of the 37 smaller huts. There is a chaotic babble in english, german, norwegian, swahili and italian. The food is allright. Our cook is a charming person and we actually talk more to him than our guide which has a very limited vocabulary. The lights are switched off early (the elctricity comes from a few solar panels), it gets cold quickly and then theres not much else to do than snuggle into the sleeping bag.

Day 6 : 10. october : Horombu Huts - Kibo Hut (4700 m)
Start walking 08:30, Finish 16:00.
Up to Kibo the landscape turns to desert. Again it is easy to walk, but you feel the lack of oxygene and the burning sun. More than that you will (well, we got) get psyched out when you meet those who have been on the top the same morning and are on their way down. People really look sick. We met people that barely could walk, and even the strongest looked like they had puked one time too many... The phantasies and nightmares start to build up in the brain. Is this worth it?
The Kibo Hut is a the foot of the steep hill leading up to the top. Jump to bed, the ascend starts just after midnight.

Day 7 : 11. october : Kibo Hut - Top (5680 m) - Kibo Hut
Start 00:30, Gilmans Point 06:30, Back at Kibo Hut 07:30 (yes, 6 hours up, 45 minutes down)
"Jump to bed". In this altitude with Kili-standard ascend speed you are feeling the altitude sickness, its just some individual differences on how bad the sickness strikes you. Most people have a headace, no appetite and have trouble to sleep. We struggled to get some peanuts and a chocolate in our stomacks, and everybody felt terrible. When you lay down to rest your heartbeat works like your exercising in order to get enough oxygene around. Your breath is going rapidly and to spell it out; your blood turns slowly to acid. Dehydration is a danger and we reminded each other of drinking water all the time. Happy thoughts.
Margareth got such a bad headace that she decided to stay at Kibo Hut. The rest dressed up in everything we brought with us, attached our headlights and wandered out in the freezing night. Remember that it can be below 0 Celsius and your drinkngbottle may freeze during the night.
The nightsky in this altitude is absolutely stunning. And beyond the cold and the headace it is awesome to watch a billion stars and the Milky Way above you and above the steep route to the top. The route is zik-zakking upwards in soft sand and it goes really slowly. I will advice meditation mode and forget the small steps in front of you.
Tom Egil and Guro gave up halfway to Gilmans Point because of fever and bad stomack. Fortunately we had two guides so one followed them down while the other followed me to the top. The guide was part of the trip more sick than me, but we managed to pull ourselves to Gilmans Point.
On the pictures I look astonishing healthy and happy (at least I think so). The truth is that we came, puked, took pictures, and ran down. The morning sun warms and produces clouds that soon covers whole Africa. The view of Africa (Kenya and Tanzania at least) is therefore nothing to write about, but the view inside the crater with the white glaciers that sticks out of the lavasand is more interesting. The polar areas of Mars must look like this with red and barren landscape, ice capes half covered in the ground and probably not much more air to breeth either. Test ground for NASA?
The descent is really fast. Just fasten your boots tightly and run down in the soft sand. It is sometimes like skiing. And it feels like you are diving on 10 meters and goes really fast upwards to get air, only this time you run downwards to get more air. I was sick on the top and felt bad at Kibo Hut, but recovered fast as the day passed and we came further down the mountain.

Day 7 continued : 11. october : Kibo Hut - Horombu Hut
To repeat, going down is easy, but we felt our legs hurt after kilometers of downhill. Walking sticks may give relief. At Horombu Hut we suddenly found that we were experienced Kibo-trekkers and we could tell everybody about the struggle to get to the top. Among the trekkers on Horombu we met a norwegian team that were going to have a wedding on the top. We hope both the bride, groom and priest made it. Probably unforgettable anyways.


Day 8 : 12. october : Horombu Hut - Mountain Inn
We gathered all our porters for a group picture. This was the first time we saw all our porters at one time...
Not much more to report. We had a resting day when we came back to Mountain Inn before driving north on safari. See below.

Safari

One week safari north of Arusha. The Ngorongoro crater emptied itself milleniums ago and most of the pimpstone fell down straight northwest and created the fertile plains of Serengeti. It is a Jurrasic Park feeling to stand on the crater edge and look down into this enormous natural fugitive for African biology. We did not go to Serengeti and missed the cheeta and some gazelles, but the Ngorongoro plus the close by Lake Manyara national reserves gave us more sights than the brain can compute. Here are some pictures:

Zanzibar

After trekking Kibo and days bumping in a jeep through the african highland, it is the only right thing to visit paradise for some recreation. Stonetown, Spice Tour, and then up north, first to Nungwi, sailing a dow to Mnemba Island, and spending the last days in the romantic on-the-beach huts of Reef View, Kiwengwa on the northeast side of the island. Truly a paradise...


On the expedition: Tom Egil Herredsvela, Guro Torkildsen, Margareth Johansen and Brage W . Johansen



The gang eating the 'end of the trip feast dinner' in Zanzibar, Stonetown, Fishermans.
Page initiated: November 2002. ... Last update : November 2002
Brage W Johansen, Stavanger, Norway.
Mailto: bwj@statoil.com