Ancient Wonders

On our second day in Cairo, we visited the Giza Pyramids. Our driver, hired through the hotel, insisted that we go to the stables outside of the pyramids site, even though we told him we wanted to walk, not ride, around the pyramids. The man trying to sell us a camel or horse ride at the stables was particularly disappointed when we said "no" for the tenth time and he finally gave up on us. The ticket booth and "security" was particularly unimpressive, especially when they got change for us from another man on the street. The guidebooks we had read warned us to be sure to take our tickets back from anyone we have to show them to as it is not uncommon for someone to take your tickets, attempt to be your guide, and then demand a fee. We had not even left the tiny security building before an ancient man with hardly any teeth took hold of our tickets and attempted to convince us that we needed a guide. We demanded our tickets back but it took a while to pry them out of his hands. He was very persistent. Inside the site, every few minutes someone was asking if we wanted a camel ride or if we needed him to take a picture of us.

Despite being bombarded by people trying to make a dime off of us, it was truly amazing to see the Pyramids. After seeing them on tv and in pictures so many times, it was surreal to actually be there. Camels, horses, and stray dogs roamed the sand dunes. To enhance our desert experience, it was a really windy day and we ended up covered in desert sand.
After a few hours with the Giza Pyramids and Sphinx, we continued on to Saqqara, an ancient Egyptian burial site, where we saw the first step pyramid and visited a small, but nice, museum dedicated, to of course, ancient Egyptian architecture. Our final visit for the day was to Memphis, the first capital of ancient Egypt. There wasn't much to see except a few statues of Ramses II. Surprisingly, everything in this "museum" was in an open courtyard, unprotected from the weather.

While in Tanzania, we had debated whether it was safe enough to go to Cairo. We're glad we decided not to change our plans and think it was actually a great time to visit the Pyramids. There were not nearly as many other people as I imagine there would be if tourism had not declined since the revolution. When we walked over to the smallest of the three pyramids, we had it all to ourselves. If things were different, I doubt we would have a single picture without outher tourists in it. Overall, we've felt pretty safe in the city. The biggest threat to our safety is probably being run down by one of the crazy drivers.

Zanzibar

After a full day of rest and cleaning ourselves and clothes up from the safari, we said goodbye to L'Oasis Lodge, its resident dog, Skippy, and its resident crane, Henry. We opted to fly to Zanzibar and arrived at the Arusha Airport, which was not much more than an airstrip in the middle of a field. A chain link fence separated the "departure lounge" from the planes. We were given handwritten boarding passes and when it was time to board, someone just came over to the "lounge," called the flight number and walked us out to the plane. The flight, which started out a bit bumpy, ended up quite nice. It was only an hour, but we were still given a soda, biscuits, and cashews! Bonus!

Our hotel sent a taxi for us and the driver, Ali, whisked us away to the Twisted Palms Lodge in Bwejuu on the quiet east side of the island, giving us tidbits of information along the way. The Maasai security guard opened the gate for us at the Twisted Palms and showed us to the office, which is literally on the beach. Our friendly hosts, Laura and Renato, greeted us and gave us the rundown on the lodge. Breakfast is served in the beachfront restaurant everyday. There is a bucket in the room...keep it filled with water because the power frequently goes out and you'll need the water to flush the toilet. A list of excursions that they can put together for you is in the room and in the restaurant. Going for a walk on the beach to the left of the lodge is not recommended because there are people with knives in the bushes who will take your valuables. To the right is safe. Our final instruction...take off your shoes and enjoy!

We spent most of our time in Zanzibar just relaxing on the beach lounge chairs and hammock. We read books, listened to music, and snoozed. Being low season, there were not many other people there. It was peaceful. On day one, I forgot to put sunblock on my feet and Simon has since called me Captain Red Socks. I stuck to the shade after that. The shade had its own challenges though. At least three different times, a lizard fell out of the tree on me. They were small so it didn't bother me. What I didn't like were the giant bumble bees that flew around and around above me. Simon found it quite funny when one landed on me and I rolled out of the hammock onto the sand to get away from it.

We spent one of our Zanzibar days away from the beach in Stone Town. We had a guided tour of the town, including the market, the old fort, the old slave trade site and St. Monica's cathedral, and the National Museum. The National Museum offered a beautiful view of the whole area from the top floor. After sleepy Bwejuu, Stone Town seemed very busy. We enjoyed our outing but by late afternoon we were back in position on our lounge chairs at the Twisted Palms.

For Valentine's Day, we decided to treat ourselves and have lunch at the restaurant down the beach that boasted, "brownies, Ice Cream, mmmmm" on their sign. It turned out that they had no ice cream and the server looked at us like we were crazy for asking. Since we were there, we thought we'd have lunch anyway. It turned out that they also did not have any chips (french fries) as listed on their handwritten chalkboard menu. No problem. We asked for rice as our side. Twenty minutes later (food is not served quickly in Bwejuu), the server came back and advised that "there is a problem with the rice." We decided things weren't going well and said we'd pay for our water and go. Simon gave the server some money and he returned five minutes later asking if we had a smaller bill. Apparently he couldn't make change from what was a relatively small bill in the first place. We ended up getting the water at a discount. We wandered further down the beach to another restaurant that claimed, "Fast Pizza, Fast Wi-Fi" on its beach sign. The Palm Beach Inn restaurant, though completely empty, was very nice and had a wonderful view. Salum welcomed us and invited us to "be at home." Wi-Fi was available, for a charge of course, and pizza was in fact an option. Things were looking up. We each ordered a whole pizza..South Africa pizza for me and Zanzibar pizza for Simon...and waited...and waited...and waited. Over an hour later we had delicious pizzas in front of us. Even though the pizza was not exactly "fast" as claimed, it was tasty enough to lure us back for lunch again the next day. Salum again greeted us...this time by name, and we enjoyed another private dining experience before heading to the Zanzibar airport that evening to begin our journey to Cairo.

Safari

I cannot remember the last time I went camping before beginning our trip. Now, in two weeks, I have spent nine nights in a tent. The Safari camping seemed luxurious compared to camping on Kili. We had soft sleeping mats and pillows! Each night we got a shower to rinse off the dirt that we we were covered in from head to toe after driving around on dusty dirt roads all day. On our last night, the shower was even warm. Camping on Kili and in and around the Serengeti was a great experience, but there were no tears when my sleeping bag was packed up.

On safari, we spent a day driving through Lake Manyara National Park, two and a half days in the Serengeti and a day in the Ngorongoro crater. On the way to the Serengeti we stopped at the rim of the crater for a fantastic view. We then had lunch at Oldupai Gorge and had a look in the small museum there. There were Maasai villages throughout the Ngorongoro conservation area and at our campsite a villager tried to sell Simon his spear. He couldn't understand why Simon didn't want a spear that works so well.

Now for the animals. We saw every animal we hoped to see. Many of them were so close we could almost have touched them. Zebras and wildebeests were migrating and at one point we were surrounded by thousands of them. We saw a leopard hunting birds and a hyena hunting a baby wildebeest. A lion took a rest in the shade created by another safari truck. We saw a wildebeest give birth and watched as the baby found his legs and stood up within only about five minutes. In addition to all of this we saw baboons, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, warthogs, flamingos, cheetahs, gazelles, impalas, mongoose, buffaloes, antelope, crocodiles and all kinds of various birds.

Next stop...Zanzibar.

The Roof of Africa

We made it! On the fifth day of our hike we made it to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. At 19,340 ft, it is the highest point in Africa! Here are some highlights:

Day 1: We were picked up by Duncan and James, our guide, at L'Oasis Lodge after a nice breakfast. At the tour company office, we picked up four more guys who would be traveling with us - Nemis (our chef), John, Six, and Ibrah (porters). We thought we had quite a group for just the two of us!

We first stopped at the main gate for registration and then carried on to the Rongai route trailhead. We were in the car for about 3 hours and after traveling over numerous dirt roads with the windows open, we were already filthy. At the trailhead at the Nale Moru village we were met by five more porters! We would have a team of ten go up the mountain with us!

After a packed lunch of chicken, a muffin, chocolate, fruit, and potato chips, we began our journey starting at approximately 6, 397 ft. We passed by a small farm and a boy, no more than two ran out after us. Apparently he liked me since he ran directly to me and attached himself to my leg. The kid looked like he had never seen a bath but was just as happy as can be. James spoke to the boy in Swahili and seemed to be telling him that he was coming with us. After his mother took him back we continued into a pine forest, which gradually turned into a rain forest where we saw a Colobus Monkey!

At the slow pace and with constant reminders to drink water from James we made it to our first camp at about 8, 530 ft. The porters had all the tents set up by the time we got there and very shortly after our arrival we had tea and popcorn.

Day 2: Day 2 took us from the first Caves camp to Kikelewa Cave, which is at approximately 11,811 ft. The hike went smoothly again. The evening got cold and then some rain rolled in for about an hour. It was just enough to wet the ground and leave us with frost on our tent in the morning. We didn't sleep very well on night two, particularly with a pack of wild dogs roaming around our campsite and attacking some poor screeching creature.

Day 3: On day 3 we gained about another 2,500 feet, bringing us to 14,206 feet at Mawenzi Tarn Camp. Upon arrival, Simon and I made the decision to ask if we could skip our acclimatization day, which was supposed to be Day 4. We both felt that another night with little sleep would be more of a problem for us than the altitude. Up to day 3, we were still feeling okay as far as the altitude goes thanks to James keeping our pace quite slow. James questioned our decision but said we would do whatever we wanted and so on Day 4, instead of staying another night at Mawenzi, we headed to Kibo Hut.

Day 4. We set off to Kibo Hut, which is the final stop before summit. Kibo Hut is at approximately 15,419 feet. Since all of the routes lead to Kibo Hut, this was the busiest camp site we had been at. All of the other sites had no more than one other group. At Kibo there were tourists and porters all over the place...some had just come down and some, like us, were ready to go up. We had lunch and tried to get some sleep before dinner. Unfortunately the howling wind made sleep quite difficult.

At dinner, we had to make the decision as to whether or not we'd bring a porter with us to the summit. If we didn't bring someone else and one of us was forced to go back down, we'd both have to go since the guide could not leave either of us alone. We were confident that we would make it and decided that it would be just the three of us. After dinner, we went back to bed to try to get a few winks before starting our final ascent at midnight. Simon managed to sleep a little. I did not at all.

Day 5. At 11:30 pm, Ibrah (a porter) woke us for tea and biscuits. By midnight we started up the mountain. This was the most physically and mentally challenging thing I have ever done. It took 7 hours and a lot of encouragement to make it to the summit (19,340 ft). I was wearing two long sleeved thermal tops, two t-shirts, a fleece jacket, a windbreaker, and a down jacket and was still cold. After taking our photos at the summit we quickly began back down. I was ready to go immediately as the altitude, and lack of food and water (the camelbak froze) had worn me down. It was a very long 3 hours down, but not nearly as long as the 7 hours up. When we made it back to sleep we had a few hours of rest before beginning another 4 hour hike to the next camp below.

Day 6 - After a good night of rest I was re-energized and ready for the 5 hour walk to Marangu gate. It was nice to take a different route down and see another side of the mountain. Covered in dirt and with aching feet, we finally finished.

Tanzania Bus Ride

When we arrived in humid Dar es Salaam, we were greeted by an eager taxi driver and bus service representative. We purchased our bus tickets for the following morning to Arusha. We're pretty sure we got ripped off. The eager taxi driver took us to our hotel - the Jambo Inn. The power was out at the Jambo Inn so our room had no air conditioning until the power came back on in the evening. Even then, the air conditioning unit was ridiculously loud so we couldn't really leave it on while sleeping. The shower, if it can really be called that, let out no more than a sprinkle. We each had a rinse and tried to sleep.

Since the man we bought our bus tickets from told us to arrive at the bus station fifteen minutes before our scheduled 8am departure time, we arrived promptly at 7:45. The bus, however, did not leave until after 8:30. Obviously it would be silly to leave until the bus was full. We were told that travel time to Arusha was 8 hours. It turned out with all the stopping to drop off and pick people up that it actually took almost 12. The bus had no toilet on board but we did have two stops where toilets were available. Otherwise, protocol seemed to be to alert the bus driver to your needs so that he could pull over to the side of the road. Entertainment on the bus included various Tanzanian television programs and music videos. For a brief amount of time we were lucky enough to get some Madonna, Michael Bolton, and Christina Aguilera.

When we finally arrived in Arusha, we were greeted at the bus by Duncan, a driver for our tour company. We were very glad to see him and be whisked off to L'Oasis Lodge for dinner, briefing on our Kilimanjaro hike, and sleep.

Our Arabian Night

We arrived in Dubai after a 15 hour direct flight. The wide variety of movies, games, television shows, and excellent service made the long flight bearable. What we could have done without was the screaming babies. Thank goodness for noise blocking headphones.

At the terminal we patiently waited for our checked bags. After about 25 minutes and noticing that almost nobody from our flight was actually collecting luggage, Simon asked an attendant if we were at the right place. It turned out that when we checked in at LAX they neglected to tell us that we would not receive our checked bags until we arrived in Dar es Salaam the next day. So off we went with only our carry on backpacks for the night. Day one and I'm already being forced to wear the same clothes two days in a row.

Having our bags meet us in Tanzania ended up working out well. Our flight did not arrive in Dubai until after 7pm and we thought we may not make it to Burj Khalifa once we checked in at the hotel to drop of our bags and then went out again. Without the large bags we were able to go straight there. We searched out the ticket counter and bought our tickets to the observation floor. Of course, immediate entry tickets were quadruple the price of a reserved ticket. Since our only other option was to forego the opportunity to enter the tallest building in the world, we sucked it up and paid. We still are not 100% sure what the cost was in dollars and prefer to keep it that way. Even though it was dark, so views were somewhat limited, it was still worth it. The elevator that wisks you up 124 floors takes less than a minute and you can hardly feel it moving. My ears popping was the only sign of how high up we were going. We took in the views and I was also pleasantly surprised to find a fabled gold bar vending machine just inside near the gift shop. I wasn't quite sure whether I should believe Simon when he told me about these before our trip. They do indeed exist!

Driving through the city, it almost felt like we were still in the US as we passed Starbucks, Subway, Pizza Hut, and Tony Roma's among many other American stores and restaurants. We were grateful that almost every sign was also written in English. We'd have no clue what any of the Arabic signs meant. As Simon commented about the "Stop" sign in Arabic..."It looks more like two men sitting in a canoe than the word 'stop' to us."

Our hotel for our one night was not bad. It was spacious enough and clean. We were pleased with it until the nightclub below us started the music for the night. It was pretty difficult to sleep with the base vibrating the walls especially when we hadn't adjusted to our new timezone and so were basically trying to go to sleep at 11am. After a sleepless night, we headed back to the airport. There, we also considered purchasing one of the $45,000 gold plated cell phones. Seriously, who arrives at the airport and thinks, "I'd like to buy a phone made of gold today."

Next stop...Tanzania!