Arusha, Tanzania - PreClimb

July 14-15, Getting rested up before the hike

A City view while we were driving

Our first day in Arusha (we arrived at about 10 in the morning) was quite uneventful.  Emmanuel, our driver, met us at the airport and was waiting with a ClimbKili sign.  He was very friendly and talked about Tanzania the whole way to the hotel.  He had been a porter and had been promoted to driving once he passed driving school and he enjoyed driving much more than being on the mountain.  It took us awhile to get used to African driving again - not only do they not care about traffic signals (they're just traffic suggestions), but since Tanzania was a British colony, they drive on the left.  Strangely, the driving didn't bother me nearly so much as it did in Ethiopia four years ago - maybe I've mellowed.

We got a pizza at the hotel, SG Premium Resort, for lunch (it was awful, really – undercooked and weird tasting) and then Marc took a nap in the afternoon and I attempted to stay up, reading my book by the side of the pool outside, which was beautiful.  I wandered around, looked at flowers, and did everything I could to keep myself awake.  It is a lovely hotel – too bad the food left something to be desired.

The good part about lunch was the staff – they were watching a movie about a Pastor who was cheating on his wife with another woman and all of them ended up with aids.  It was in Swahili with English subtitles and we all got into it.  It was just a surreal story, honestly – a Pastor?  A morality tale, I suspect – there’s a lot of trouble with AIDS in Tanzania.  The waitress thought the movie was great and was really excited while she was trying to explain it to us (I don’t think she realized we could read the subtitles).

I should talk a bit about our “Neo-Africanized” resort.  It was under construction, so only about half the hotel was usable, which was fine, really.  Our room was very disco, with blue lights along the ceiling, a lighted headboard which hummed if you left the lights on too long, and lots of switches.  It took awhile to figure them out and you had to leave your key in a pocket near the door to keep the electricity on.  We could get one channel on the TV reliably, which was movies and in English, so that helped.  And we had a shower and a flushing toilet, so can we really argue?  It was a comfy room, good bed, nice pillows, and the ability to charge our electronics.  So really, it was perfect.

Square toilet - and the nozzle hanging on the wall is for rinsing your butt!

We went to bed rather early, knowing that the next day we would meet two more climbers in the AM.  Sure enough, their plane had arrived so early that they were already at breakfast when we came down.  It was exhilarating to meet them face to face after so many weeks on facebook together.  Jen and Sandi are both from Burbank and had been friends for awhile.  Both of them turned 40 this year and were doing the same thing I was doing - celebrating by torture!  We had a tasty breakfast, then spoke to the groups that were leaving that morning to do their routes.  Lillian from ClimbKili was there and we asked if there was a driver who could take us to the Masai Market to do some shopping.  She found someone for us and they took us to the market, leaving us there for an hour while they ran a few errands before picking us up again.

The market stalls were all this small and crowded.  Great stuff!

The Market was a real experience.  Bargaining is key and the vendors are very aggressive as they try to get you into their shops – they will actually stand behind you and try to prevent you from leaving without buying anything, forcing you to be aggressive in return if you want to get out!  I bought some bracelets for people at home and noted a few other things I might want to buy later, but we left without spending a huge amount of money, which was good.  We got a small basket for Dagny, a few soapstone items, and the bracelets.

She was beading the edges of baskets for tourists

In the afternoon, we spent more time reading around the hotel pool and trying to stay up, though it didn’t work too well.  Most of us fell asleep, which was okay.  We met a young woman who was climbing the Machame route the next morning with a big group and she seemed quite interesting – a solo traveler who really enjoyed being by herself.

The trees above the fence are banana and avocado

We had our pre-climb meeting at 4:00 PM with our guides Meckson (Mad Max) and James, his brother.  It was fun – they gave us a lot of information to get started with and answered some questions which had been bugging us.  A great quote of the meeting from James about going potty on the mountain: “Small poop, big poop, be free.”

James and Meckson, brothers.

After our logistics meeting, we had dinner at the hotel.  Tonight it was buffet and was vaguely acceptable, though not that great.  I found myself hoping the food on the mountain would be better.  After dinner, we went to our rooms to organize the laundry we would leave for the hotel to clean while we were gone and to organize our bags.  We left our suitcases at the hotel in storage, taking our duffels and packs with us.  That way, clean clothes, passports, and souvenirs could stay under lock and key and be safe while we were gone.

The Local Market