Happy New Year, I spent the last two weeks of the year in the village for a taste of Ghanaian holidays, which everyone spent day drinking and all night dancing. All activities I would be glad to participate any day, except that I am a boring white person at site so I drank water and was in the house by 6pm instead.
In the mean time, there’s a lot to catch up, so let’s talk about the last couple of months of 2013 going backward.
TANZANIA – Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar Facebook albums here -->https://www.facebook.com/chau.d.ngo/media_set?set=a.10102061219785854.1073741828.3324650&type=3
I came back from a whirlwind 14 days in Tanzania with my friends Heather and Chris, two other PCVs. Heather and I needed a vacation and Chris was doing his Close of Service trip. We couldn’t really think of a better way to spend our times than trying to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest free standing peak in Africa. (Google it). So with minimal planning and maximal optimism, we headed to Tanzania with high hope, figuratively and literally. After the getting over the fact that I forgot my credit card and left our guide book (which was a bunch of pages about Tanzania that we ripped off from a real guide book) back at the office before we even left the country, we left Ghana for Tanzania.
The flights were uneventful, airplane food weren’t too bad, and I drank a lot of ginger ale before stealing a blanket. Heather and I arrived at 3am and slept at the airport for 6 hours waiting for Chris to come in so we can head to Moshi and meet up with our climbing company. Jetlagged and delirious, the first day was a blur. I think there was some talk about mountain and safety and other things. I managed to catch a cold on the way over and started some annoying cough. Fueled by excessive optimism, I was hoping it would go away by the next day when we start the climb. False, but we will get to that later.
The next morning, we enjoyed some scrumptious free breakfast, which was great because I couldn’t recall the last time I had some real breakfast food with fruits in Ghana. I was secretly hoping that we could have stay at the diner forever and didn’t have to do the climb, but sometime, hope falls, and by 8am, we were heading out to start our great adventure. (But not before stopping by the pharmacy for some cough medicine because my cough didn’t go away as I had hope.)
We saw some monkeys on the way to the base of our route. They were pretty cool looking; regular monkey faces with bushy black and white tails. We later learned that they were called Black and White Monkeys. Neither surprising nor unfitting. The second we got to the base of the mountain, it started to rain, and I immediately missed Ghana’s dry and warm weather. We had a packed lunch that was better than a middle schooler’s and began our walk to the base afterward, with me wearing everything that I had on since I was already freezing, a great foreshadow of the days to come.
We learned upon our arrival to the base of the mountain that it was currently the raining season in Tanzania, which explained the wind, rain and my shivering. It probably didn’t help us that we have been living in Ghana’s perpetual summer for the last 2 years. Regardless, we set out aiming for the top.
I have never really gone on a real hike or mountain climbing before, so signing up for Kilimanjaro was nothing less than a nosedive into the deep end of the pool, (I also don’t know how to swim, so there is a pun somewhere in this sentence), but the first day didn’t turn out too bad beside some serious soaking sweat on top of the rain water. Our first night at camp was great. Our cook fed us some great cucumber soup to battle the cold. We ate and joked and called it a night. I felt on top of the world while still at the base of the mountain, full of adrenaline and cough medicine.
The next day was cold. This might have been a bias recollection because no one else acted like they were cold except for us. It was probably our Ghana life style catching up, but no matter, we geared up for a long day, 5-6 hours of some up inclines. Since I wasn’t listening during the briefing, I didn’t know what to expect really. It was my approach to the mountain, and I don’t regret it. We had in some a good few hours of trekking through the rain forest. Chris, Heather and I followed our guide, Cash through some ups and downs, practicing the mantra, “pole pole” which mean, go slowly. We played some 20 questions along the way. Things were going great. I felt better about my coughs.
Then the rain came on our parade, and the rest of the time weren’t so great since it involved steep, muddy inclines. But eventually we made it to camp, shivered, and did some more 20 questions. If there was one thing that Peace Corps Volunteers know how to do best, is to be able to entertain ourselves in any situation. We learned a lot about each other that day. My shoes also broke and ceased to be water proof.
Our third day was a short hike, but somehow I didn’t feel too great. I guess being soaked in cold windy weather didn’t benefit my lungs, so snots started to happen, and my cough got worse. But I wasn’t too worried because the sun came out for 10 minutes and some of our wet stuffs were dried. Optimism was still in the air, but I took more drugs to hold my body together. Beside being cold, I recall Chris and Heather doing just fine.
Everyday, our head guide, Casper, took our pulse and oxygen level to make sure we felt okay from breathing to pooping, and I was still doing fine. The fourth day was a long day, and after making it to camp, I didn’t feel okay anymore. My cough medicine was officially not working, and I’m pretty sure I was single handedly responsible for waking up the whole camp with my coughing for the last 2 nights. The hike had been long, and somewhat enervating. We went up to 1599 feet and I experienced many first, walking on snow, walking in the snow, feeling really cold in the snow ect… The scenery was beautiful and if I wasn’t too out of air I probably would have take more photos.
We made it to camp, and I spent most of the night in my tent coughing, which was not a great sign. Caspar wasn’t pleased when he learned that I had a fever and was at 48% oxygen. After receiving oxygen and spending another night coughing. I was still ready to continue, but it wasn’t going to happen like that. So marked the day when Chris, Heather and I parted ways. They continued on their climb while I headed out for a quick descend route. We spend some few minutes taking goofy pictures with the porters and the guides. I tried to take in all the sceneries of the highest place I have ever been albeit the fog was already rolling out. Then we headed out to Umbwe route, a much more intense but quick route that serious climbers would take to get to the top. Normally they do it in 4-5 days.
Cash was my guide now, and we had my porter with us whose name I could never remember but whose shoes I was wearing. He sported pink crocs in place of shoes and was still a much much much better hiker than I would ever be. Umbwe route was pretty much hours of steep rock walls on top of each other. It was suppose to take us between 5-6 hours to descend, but it felt like I was there for an eternity slipping and sliding on rocky edges praying for my ankles. It rained the entire time we descended, which made the rocks wet and slippery and the moss dangerous. Cash slipped a few times, but would just stick out his tongue like a 5 years old who knew he did something mischievous and continued out. I slipped a few times and would poke every rock twice with my stick before putting my foot on it in case the damn thing is loose and decided to roll away while under me.
We were on the edge of the mountain for several hours as the rain slowed us (me) down significantly. I never thought I would see the rain forest. Several times, I contemplated asking Cash to play 20 questions with me because I was so bored of thinking to myself, but he was shy and so I didn’t it. So while him and the porter chit chatted occasionally, I found myself missing Chris and Heather’s company and wondered what they were doing.
We finally made it to the rainforest, which was the lower part of the mountain, and I was pretty excited. At this point, my shirts have been soaked and my shoes and socks were thoroughly wet, and I was looking forward to a shorter and less dangerous walk down. But Umbwe was a hard route for a reason. Even on the lower part, the walk was steep. The path was lined with small rocks and pebbles that rolled under your shoes, add rain water made slipping much easier. So we “pole pole” ourselves, and spend another eternity down some steep paths. I hated this last part more than the rain/snow/cold i endured the first 4 days. It was even more aggravating when Cash kept saying, “not long” until we reach the end.
When we finally did reach the base of the mountain, because of the rain, the car could not pull up to pick us, so it was an additional hour to get out to the car. This time, instead of pebbles, our enemy was wet mud. Pole pole.
By the time we made it to the car and down the mountain, ten hours had passed. That’s twice the amount of time that Caspar said. Somehow I was glad because if it was only 6 hours, and I was feeling the way I felt, I would have feel even more pathetic. My legs were done for the week. One day going down Umbwe hurt me more than 4 days up Lemosho.
The car took me back to the office, and I was a sad sigh. They wanted to send me to the hospital for my cough, but I just wanted to go back to the hotel. So after washing 4 days of mountain smell off in the shower, I spent the night and the next day watching Bollywood music videos recuperating.
I could have taken the time to explore Moshi, except that my cough was so bad that it was embarrassing, and painful. I went into a store to buy some gifts, and after suggesting that I should drink tea with honey, the owner took matter in her own hand and spoon fed me a honey straight out of the jar. Yes. She didn’t even let me hold on to the spoon. Then her neighbor ran over with some fresh ginger and wanted me to chew on them. She peeled and cut the ginger in small bitable bits and offered to send some with me. I bit into the ginger. It was painfully gingerly, but it helped, so I did it again. As suspected, every African woman is a sassy, loving and resourceful caretaker. I love it so much.
After that, I bought some heavy duty cough syrup that knocked me out and spent the rest of my time in my hotel being drowsy.
Chris and Heather surprised me by descending one day early and looking as tattered as a bunch of people who just climbed a mountain. After some needed showering, we regrouped to inspect Heather’s various war wounds that she collected after I left.
Both of her big toes were in trouble, and we decided that the toe nails might have to go. She was also partially blind at night because she accidentally left her glasses on the mountain, but that’s her story, so you’ll have to read her blog.
We spent the next day walking around town search for rooftop bars so we can drink and have a view of Kilimanjaro while getting Heather drunk enough that we can pull her toe nail out without too much pain. The original plan was to punch her really hard in the face while ripping the nail out, but this isn’t prison, or Boon Dock Saints, so in the end, we opted for just giving her a lot of whiskey shots instead. I lined up our medical tools, which were: a Leatherman tool, septic wash, antibiotic ointments, gauze and bandages. Chris blasted some music and was being zero help besides taking a lot of pictures. We soaked Heather’s drunk feet in warm water, and I played the most serious game of doctor yet.
We later learned that in this scenario, you should just let you body heal itself and push the toe nail out on its own, but we still had a few travel days left, and this toe nail was already off of her toe. It was that bad. Amputation was that needed. And so half a small bottle of whiskey in, I pulled the nail out in one yank, and all was well.
We decided not to touch the other nail because it was still intact, albeit hurting.
Chris said this was his favorite part of the time, albeit he just summit Kilimanjaro.
The rest of the trip was much less gory. We spent most of our times day drinking, and parted ways when Chris left for America and Heather and I went to Zanzibar. We bare our pale bodies to the sun for the first time in two years hoping not to blind any by stander, and pooled our money together for beers because we were that broke. Then as we were leaving, we asked a person whom we thought was just a tourist to take a picture of us, hoping that he wasn’t upset that we interrupted his beach whaling time. He didn’t mind, and even ushered us to sit for some cold drinks, then showed off his wallet by charter an expensive taxi ride back with us. We joined the taxi and after several scary speeding moments later, declined dinner invitation and rushed back to our lodge. But thanks to the free taxi ride, we had enough money for street meat for dinner and nothing but good memories from this trip.
That was probably the best vacation I have ever gone on to, even though we were so broke that we couldn’t even afford one can of beer at the airport. Luckily, an American couple overheard us talking, struck up a conversation and bought us 2 rounds of beers. Then when we got back to Accra and couldn’t find a cheap taxi, a Chinese expat invited us in his taxi and dropped us on the way. I couldn’t even lie and say that because Heather and I were such clean and fresh looking girls that we got this treatment. We weren’t. Maybe on better days. So overall, Tanzania was a blast, Hakuna Matata all around.
