Chapter 2

It all makes sense when your sat at home planning, it seems like the easiest way and of course the cheapest. I decided to fly to Dar es Salaam to meet my friend Dave rather than take the flight to Kilimanjaro International Airport. As it happens I took both, flying direct to Kilimanjaro and then waiting before taking the short flight onwards to Dar. I was told to expect corruption in Africa, although this was my first trip I knew it was common. It would seem that the Tanzanian police are a little over eager, I had been in Dar for less than 30mins when the police pulled over the car we were travelling in looking for ‘Bacshesh’, a bribe. They picked the wrong guy, not me I would have paid, but the driver, a friend of Dave’s was adamant he wasn’t paying and asked to speak to the big cheese at the police station, they let us go.

I planned the trip so that the climb was at the beginning leaving the rest of the time to relax and recover from the exertion. I left all the luggage I needed for the rest of my holiday with Dave just taking was necessary for the climb. Some how Dave read my mind, the fridge was stocked with a good selection of local beers and we sat talking until dawn. We got a taxi to the station where I boarded the nine-hour coach back to Kili. Leaving me with plenty of time to regret not getting of the plane at Killimanjaro airport, I had already wasted a day.

Busses are a good way of seeing a country, this was one of the major reasons for me doing what would appear to be something totally stupid. It was hard to sleep partly because I was new to the country and didn’t feel I could trust any one yet and also because the scenary was so spectacular. I hadn’t expected to see so much greenery and certainly not the thousands upon thousands of Pineapples, row after row after row. After the pineapples came the hills around every bend came another each taller than the one before it. Every hill I saw I thought must have been Kili, I desperately wanted to see what had been the object of my thoughts for the previous year.

Kilimanjaro is so big it has it’s own weather system, which is why I didn’t see it. I arrived in a small town called Moshi where my hotel was based and from where the beginning of my trip up Kili would begin. The heat was stifling, the noises smells and people were all very different from what I was used to. I was swamped by people trying to sell me things as soon as I got of the bus. I took the first taxi I saw I knew I shouldn’t pay more than 2,000 Tanzanian Shillings which is less than $2. With all the commotion I didn’t care when the driver said $5 and I just agreed. I was a little concerned when he drove straight into the petrol station rather than to the hotel but you get used to it, they never keep fuel in their cabs in Tanzania.

I imagined a mafia style shooting when he took me to the hotel, we went of the main road and onto a dirt track. We drove passed several mud huts and corrugated iron roofed shacks, next to a railway. He pulled in to what looked like some kind of military compound. There were no signs to say it was a hotel, nothing I said ‘are you sure this is the Springlands Hotel’ to make me feel more confident he asked one of the guards who replied ‘yes’. I was expecting to be robbed as I walked in, you can imagine my surprise when I saw a nice hotel.

After a shower and a quick nap I went down to the bar, where I spent the rest of the evening chatting to an English couple called Rachel and Toby. They were about half way through a trip travelling around Africa. We exchanged stories and fears of the climb as they too were due to scale the mountain. After a good few beers and dinner I took an early night tomorrow was going to be the sum of all my efforts.