Summiting Mt Kiliminjaro, no passports at customs and more beautiful beaches.

The scams begin….

It took just one day in Tanzania for us to fall victim. Only a few dollars were lost in the brazen pre-dawn scam, but we quickly learnt that we’d left behind the relative innocence of Malawi and Mozambique, where people are yet to discover that Muzongo’s (white people) can be taken advantage of. As it turns out a security payment to ensure someone keeps an eye on your bags on a coach is not required.

Our next scam was potentially a series of scams, but we will never know…  Ali took our fancy above every other hustler selling ferry tickets to Zanzibar.   He was somewhat put off by our ability to check his hotel recommendations on the website ‘trip advisor’ on our phone while talking to him.  The scammers will have to develop new ways to get around the ability for travellers to instantly check hotel reviews and prices. As well as taking one of his hotel deals we ended up spending the afternoon with Ali who we took a liking to and seemed to be the man around town in Dar es Salam.

We thought we’d found a friend in Ali: the ferry was great; the hotel was clean; he took us to some awesome wooden carvings markets; and his mate Jack in Zanzibar really helped us out at customs at Zanzibar island…. 

We’d soon learn that Zanzibar Island (just 3 hours off the coast of Tanzania) is a semi-autonomous state, including passport control! This information would have been useful before we boarded the ferry with our passports securely at the Indian consulate for a week for some very slow visa processing.  

Disembarking we both had panic written all over our faces when we noticed the armed customs offices. It was only through some fast-talking by Duncan and later Jack that a ‘handshake fee’ for our offence was approved and access to Zanzibar granted.

A week later we returned to Dar es Salam and met up with Ali to help organise our transport to Arusha.  Still buddy, buddy until the next day when a furious Pip called him from a crowded bus that hadn’t moved from the depot for over two hours to inquire why the 40,000 luxury coach tickets said 20,000 and the bus was a long way from first class.  Ali simply replied that ‘I’m business man’, which is same, same but different to what he’d been telling us while we hung out - “I am a businessman and I know what you guys want.  I’ve been to Australia and Europe.  I don’t rip people off. Not good business”. 

And we are suckers.

On the phone!

Are we still in Africa?

Zanzibar has a reputation as a party island with postcard perfect beaches, so we were a bit taken back when we arrived in the capital Stone Town after finally making it through customs.   We weren’t sure if we’d gone back in time or arrived in the Middle East (or both).  Either way we quickly covered up Pip’s limbs and grabbed our cameras to wander around thin alleyways, trying to take in a culture so different to anything we’ve ever experienced before. 

Women in full burqa, or at least headscarf looked so elegant and mysterious in the ancient alleyways, lined with men selling coffee and women selling Zanibar’s famous spiced foods.  It was only some of the younger men in their western clothing that ruined the movie scene, but we were still mesmerised and totally fascinated by what we saw.

Two days turned into four. A tour of the old slave markets, lead to a half-day history lesson about Zanzibar, the slave trade and local Muslim culture.

Slave markets

Party Pip & Duncan in training

With nearly two months of early nights, Party Pip & Duncan were itching to be let out and. With a big beach party in the north of Zanzibar in a few days we decided to go into training. Managing to find a bar in extremely Islamic Stone Town was no easy feat, but three hours north up the coast was another story. 

Nyungi beach was unlike the chilled out beach spots of our trip so far, with mega-hotels lining the entire coast, all jammed with Italians on summer break.  Watching supposed ‘masai warriors’ cruising the beach to sell their wares and chatting fluently in Italian, took away the romance that the place once would have had, but was amusing to watch.  We haven’t been to the Serengeti yet, but there seem to be a lot of chiefs and tribal elders under 30….

A few blocks back from the beach in the local town is where we called home for a few nights, at James Place who had worked at the Dee Whey RSL in Sydney. Now firmly in backpacker savings mode we had a bottle of vodka, some water and a few limes and got carried away talking about Sydney with our host.  James was off to a beach party with a cover charge, so in our budgeting ways we decided to save our money for the big party the next night.  Somehow this plan ended up costing us more as we got bored and wandered down to a beachfront tourist bar, before later following our ears not once but twice to local bars, the first where we weren’t very welcome, but the second we ended up mates with pretty well everyone in there (mostly due to them being so impressed with our white man rhythm).  Sadly all our training would not be put to the test, with the party vibe gone the next day…

An unnecessary tragedy

We were met by a sombre and bizarre scenes when we went to the beach to swim off our hangovers.  Thousands of people, many in full burqas were walking slowly north along the pure white sand.  Duncan recalled hearing something on our local pub-crawl, about a boat crash and we soon learned the shocking news that a night ferry had sunk, with as many as 1000 people aboard. 

While eating breakfast in the town we saw two men being stretchered past, saturated and clearly very weak.  A little dazed and confused we joined the slow procession of people along the sand at low tide, which enabled the people to pass in front of all the mega-hotels, where guests looked out stunned at the scene.  Observing the personal tragedy of so many people was not for us, so we left the surreal scene of local fishing boats bringing in a few survivors, but mostly bodies from the ocean.  The official figure released by the government was 195 souls lost, but everyone we speak to says the figure is bound to be much higher.

Fake guests

The mood was very grim around the local town where we were staying, but while taking a shortcut to the road through the Hilton it appeared that for the resorts it was business as usual.  Still a bit dusty, a holiday from reality appealed to us and we quickly jumped in the sprawling Hilton pool to finally swim off our hangovers.  We enjoyed the facilities, but stopped short of putting drinks on ‘our room’, although we did chat to the swim-up-bar tender for a while.

Weary trekkers almost at summit

The toughest thing we’ve ever done

“We’ve both done some treks at altitude and are pretty fit” we’d tell people when they’d suggest that climbing Mt Kilimanjaro would be incredibly tough.  We neglected to mention that our training had consisted of two months on the beach drinking beer, or that when Duncan previously climbed the lower Mt Kenya he’d suffered quite bad altitude sickness.

Cut to being woken in our freezing sub-standard tent, in our 1980’s sleeping bags at 11pm for tea and biscuits before summiting Africa’s highest peak. 

'I don't have altitude sickness, I'm just tired' Band

Pip should have known something was up when old ‘hungry eyes’ wouldn’t touch any food, but she was eating cream biscuits like a 12 year old having a midnight snack at a slumber party. In fact hungry eyes needed encouragement to eat the past few meals that were served in our tent by our guide or one of eight porters (we never figured out what they were all carrying!).

After six days of walking 7-8 hours a day we were finally going to summit the highest stand alone mountain in the world and the highest mountain in Africa. All we needed to do was brace for the minus 10-degree temperature outside and see if Duncan’s insistence that ‘I feel totally normal, I’m just really tired and probably have a tummy bug’ was true.

Rasta hat out for ne of the few fine mornings of the trek - no
beanies in Tanzania it seems

Stepping out of the tent we were amazed to see the stars and rising moon out for the first time all trek.  At 4300m they were stunning, as was the line of head torches slowly ascending the mountain above base camp. “Poorly, poorly” (slowly, slowly or pole pole for those Swahili traditionalists) our guide John said for the zillionth time that week. 

Poorly, poorly was right, with Duncan’s denial of not having altitude sickness abandoned within the first hour for a very slow ascent. Just two hours in to the eight-hour climb Dunc was totally stuffed and taking just ten steps at a time, which quickly turned to just two or three before gasping for air.  It was obvious he was generally in trouble when he asked what the ‘procedure is for getting down if I can’t make it’, which is very out of character for the competitive Mr Band who could have been pro at most sports (he tells me).

With temperatures well below zero, Pip who feels the cold in Sydney, put everything she had into trying to keep warm without affecting the mindset of Duncan to keep going, by employing a technique of staying behind Duncan (so not to appear stronger and impact his Leo ego) and jogging on the spot in the frequent breaks.

The first rays over Africa

Eight hours later with dawn just starting to creep over the 360 degree horizon, our snail procession was close to the summit.  Convinced she was on the verge of hypothermia, Pip trotted off ahead for the first time, stopping to take photos and double back to put in some words of encouragement to Duncan who impressively had continued for the past six hours with pure mental strength and nothing in the tank.

Perhaps Duncan isn't the only one with altitude
sickness.....

Back at sea level we had made signs to say thank you to Duncan’s Granny for our wedding present, which had enabled us to climb Kili. John our guide suggested we move to another position to take another photo with the sign, which was almost the end of the road for Duncan.  Turning to face Pip with pure pain etched on his face he whispered ‘I just want to stop and go down’. If his voice box and tear ducts weren’t frozen, we are convinced there would have been some water works and loud sobs.

Some more encouragement and we made it to the summit.  We both stopped to marvel at the beauty of the glacier, surrounding moonscape and the rising sun over the valleys below.  Duncan, who later revealed he only pushed on because he couldn’t have his wife get one up on him in adventure travel, was thankfully at least able to partly share in the moment. 

12 tough hours after leaving our tent, we collapsed in our tent at base camp for a promised two-hour sleep, only to be woken an hour later and told we had to leave early because it was snowing.  So another four hours of walking (in the snow and then rain) we were at our final campsite, totally exhausted and looking forward to our first shower in a week the next day. 

Over seven days we’d walked through rainforest, the heath zone with amazing alpine flowers, the alpine zone with almost other worldly landscapes and finally the summit zone with not much aside rocks and glaciers and very little air.  We were dirty, tired, but stoked that we’d both been able to make it to 5895 meters above sea level and finally back at 1800m Duncan was glad to have the use of his lungs back.

Next stop safari….. just need to find our suits!

p.s. Thanks for the emails of news at home…. keep them coming.  We eat three meals a day together and occasionally need some new conversation material! Also Lucy thanks for the tip we have now fixed the blog so people can comment …. keep it clean!

More Photos

Stone Town, Zanzibar

Local butcher

Duncan can't resist a potato based treat...or 10

Lining up for some perfume

Zanzibar seafood extravaganza

'Excuse me is the internet working?'

Mt Kilimanjaro Trek

Day 2 with peak in the distance...spirits still high.

Day 5 - a bit more rock climbing than expected

Ultimate nerd attire

Just the three courses for breakfast in the tent

Rain coats got a good work out most days

Looking back at Mt Kili after summit - 5 days up, just 2 down!

Snow is all we needed in our 13th hour of walking on summit day

The trooper walks down from the summit at a snail pace

Not all groups ate in their tents...some ate off steel tables the
 poor porters carried up for them!

A rare treat of hot water to wash the face...then soak very soar feet

Unusual scenery in the 'heath zone'

Sleeping in soot on a ferry, diving in a freshwater lake, rustas and the art of siddling.

Unusual customs at customs

Malawi customs

Border crossings are usually quite stressful affairs; being dropped at one point, avoiding eye contact with men with machine guns, walking through no-mans land and trying to prevent getting ripped off by black market currency exchangers.  Transitioning in and out of Malawi was altogether different.

You'll find customs to the right of the sardines

Our first port of call in Malawi was Likoma Island, on Lake Malawi that we reached by local boat from Mozambique.  On the boat we were surprised to be able to strike up a few conversations – hoorah almost in an English speaking country!  Peter was a fan of Duncan’s ‘send an African a photo’ charity idea and in exchange agreed to help us through customs.  Carrying our gear to the beach we were greeted by a man in jeans and a t-shirt who introduced himself as ‘Jack from customs’ and suggested we ‘move somewhere for the formalities”.  We made our way between rows of sardines drying in the sun to find some space on the front of a dhou (local fishing boat) for Jack to open up his briefcase and hand us our immigration forms. 

Ten amazing days later we were leaving Malawi at a rather traditional looking border crossing, so put on our serious border crossing faces, went through the stamp out process only for Pip to receive a double thumbs up and giant smile and ‘kangaroo’ from the Malawi customs guy – we love Malawi!

The never-ending birthday

Beachside bungalow at Likoma Island

That looks like a draw

Being a bit disappointed with waking up sharing a single bed in a s**t hole for his 32^nd birthday, Dunc decided that arriving at Mango Drift on Likoma Island with our own bungalow on the sand, a beach side bar and other English speaking people was more than enough justification to recommence the birthday celebrations. Hours after the generators had gone out, a few arm-wrestles had been lost to the barman (see bulging muscle picture!) and the manager conceded defeat to the Aussie drinkers we called it a night.  The celebrations were reignited just two days later when we discovered that the much fancier sister resort of Mango Drift would accept our offer of a discount dinner for us and some English girls.  

So because it was ‘the birthday’ we threw our budget out the window and enjoyed a delicious 3-course meal at a private table on the sand with some wine.  Heaven, until we got the bill a few days later. 

Aside birthday celebrations we passed our time at Mango Drift reading, playing beach volleyball and diving in Lake Malawi.  Filled with tropical fish, fresh water Lake Malawi is a unique diving experience – spotted catfish, lots of fish-tank type fish and an amazing fish that when you approach gobbles up it’s babies to protect them, then spits them out when they are taken to a safe distance.  Very funny to watch.

Spotting that every male traveller has a beard Duncan also ended his days as a disciple revealing a much paler third of his face.

Stow aways

The Ilala - from a distance it looks almost nice...

The Ilala ferry is the lifeblood of Malawi, transporting people, food and other supplies up and down the length of the lake, which makes up almost a fifth of the country.  In the Lonely Planet the romantic idea of the Ilala had us wishing we had time to take the ferry the whole length of the lake.  After 14 hours on it we decided all future transport would be done by road.

First class sleeping section!

The manager at Mango Drift thought we would leave to meet the Ilala at 4pm.  At 8pm they finally got the call that it was approaching, so along with three medical students from England we got in the 4WD for a very bumpy half an hour to the harbour.  On the dark beach there were literally thousands of people, so we all nervously decided to wait in the truck for a while for it to settle down.  Rather than a jetty to get us on the boat, people were being ferried from the shore to the boat in smaller boats that were ridiculously overloaded, many just barely staying above water.  Two hours later it looked like it might be settling down, but when we got down there it was just way too crazy to take on one of the free shuttle boats, so we found a private boat that would take a safer number of people out for a few dollars.  Despite the comparative safety, there were still a few moments of terror on the ten minute trip as the boat tipped from side to side overloaded with gear and people.  Getting aboard the Ilala was particularly challenging carrying our packs up the ladder onto the crowded lower deck that was jammed with people, fish and other supplies.  Using elbows and force we pushed past people, trying to avoid stepping on those sleeping.  Up to second class, that looked marginally better and finally up to the fresh air of first class. 

The offending chimney that covered us in soot

First class in name only it seemed. We surveyed the open deck and quickly set about finding ourselves a bit of deck to call our bed that was out of the way of the drunken army men wandering back and forth to the bar. For some it seemed it was a booze cruise.  After a few goes we eventually got our sleeping sheets out squashed between our packs and the inflatable lifeboats.  Our next challenge was that we were essentially stow-aways, knowing full well that we didn’t have enough Kwachas ($) to pay for our first class tickets.  Being caught unprepared for the long trip out of Mozambique with no ATM’s or any ATM’s on Likoma Island we were very low on money (thankfully Mango drift was the first place we stayed that took credit card – probably also why the birthday was able to continue to so freely!).   We agreed on a plan to pretend to be asleep when the ticket man came.  It wasn’t a great plan, with the torch being shone in Pip’s face at the same time as being pocked in the back.  As always somehow things work out and Pip was able to negotiate for the ticket man to find someone to exchange our Mozambique money for the remainder of the money we owed him.  We got ripped off of course with the exchange rate, but we were allowed to stay on the ferry.

Sleeping surprisingly well we awoke at dawn to find that we were covered in black soot from the ferry chimney, but were glad to spot the land and people already unloading stuff.  Chatting with the English girls who were already awake however quickly dashed our excitement as it turned out we had reached the island next door, less than a few kilometres. It took another two hours for the smaller boats to finish ferrying people, food and other supplies between the island and the boat and we set off again for the next stop where we arrived dirty and very hungry five hours later. If only we had some money for water and food!

Rasta man

Our Nhkata Bay accomodation and one of
our nightly escorts

Disembarking the Ilala should have been simple thanks to some infrastructure at Nhkata Bay. A wharf somehow made everything harder with the usual lack of any system at an all time high.  There had been a gate that kept people on the land off the wharf, but after a few minutes of being docked they opened the gate and hundreds of people came running down.  The gangway wasn’t yet down, but people jumped up the side of the ferry and tried climbing up, only occasionally being beaten down by crew.  

Beardless at Rasta Kevins

We’d got ourselves ready to quickly disembark and were stuck on the stairs heading into a seething crowd of people and packages, before deciding to retreat back up to a higher deck. We got ushered back by the captain for being in his area, but not before Duncan asked him who was in charge, “everyone is in charge” and he didn’t take too kindly to 

the suggestion that it would be more effective to let people off first and then people on.  Or at least vice versa.  Eventually we thought it was a good time to go and after 20 minutes of elbowing and jamming our way through the tide of people simultaneously trying to get on and off we made it off the Ilala, vowing never ever to get back on.

The chaos of the ferry was quickly juxtaposed with what has to be the rasta capital of Africa.  Dreadlocked men were everywhere and aside a few non-rastas who had crazy eyes (no doubt the result of the local delicacy ‘space cakes’) Nhkata Bay was a pretty chilled place. A bit more touristy than we were used to and with more masungu (wondering white man) prices, so we tended to eat at Rasta Kevin’s place down the hill from the accommodation and got used to ordering something only to be told an hour later that they didn’t have the ingredients – ah Rasta time. 

Got to love a good siddle

At home we are always amused by watching people get sidled by someone or being sidled ourselves, but in Malawi each day is continual episodes of funny sidles.  Heading off on a walk for the second time in a day (the first time we mistakingly walked along the main highway for an hour before tweaking that we’d misinterpreted the direction) we’d just finished climbing a big hill that will most likely be our only training for Mt Kilimanjaro when we became aware of a new siddler and we went through the usual exchange.  “Mumbo” (hello), “mumbo”, “jumbo” (how are you), “pal” (we are fine) then to English “where are you from”, “Australia”, “Ah Kangaroo”, “yes Kangaroo”.  Then depending on how good the siddlers English is there might be a few more questions or more than likely a few minutes of silence as the three of us walk together before our siddler begins just repeating back things from our earlier conversation, “kangaroo”, “Sydney”, “Duncan”. This either gets a quickened pace or just nods and awkward looks.  Eventually siddlers either say goodbye or ask for some money or some other goods. 

The walk to Rasta Kevin’s each night was a bit hairy on rocky bush paths in the dark, but as well as our trusty head torches, we somehow always picked up a possy of Dogs from the guest house next to ours who escorted us there and back, barking away anyone that dared come near us and providing us with a siddle that didn’t require the same old conversation and awkward end.

Abort! One of the cliff dives.

Stowaways

The Dog’s weren’t the only good free thing we picked up from the better hotel next door.  When we were there buying some water and chocolate (the first place we’d been all trip that sold it!) we’d been mistaken as guests by one of the staff who encouraged us to go on a free boat tour they were organising that afternoon. Waiting to hop on some other stow aways were reprimanded by staff for trying to go on despite staying next door.  We got cold feet and pretended we just wanted to sit by the water, only to be encouraged back on the boat by the staff.  We had an awesome afternoon of watching fish eagles catch fish we threw overboard, jumping off rocks into the water and having a long-jump competition with the locals, which depressed Duncan to no end after another lapse in his sporting prowess (earlier he’d lost out in a game of netball to some school girls and a chess game to Pip).

Dr Livingstone I presume

A bumpy ride in the boot to Livingstonia

Cliff-side camping spot with amazing sunrise views!

Livingstonia is a community up in the northern hills of Malawi that was set up by the missionaries who moved up there to try and avoid malaria.  To get to Livingstonia is a challenge in itself, to find transport up the huge cliff face that only a serious 4WD can do.  Finding a 4WD going up is the main problem, but with luck on our side again, four Belgian people were dumped on the side of the road by a minivan around the same time as us and had organised a ride.  The cost was more than we spend on three nights of accommodation, but between the six of us it was a much better option than walking up with all our gear, which we had been considering.  Just a few hair-pin bends up the incredibly steep hill we exchanged looks from opposite sides of the boot we were in of ‘thank god we didn’t attempt this with our packs!'.

Mushroom farm was most definitely worth the effort.  We hired a tent and were lucky enough to get a spot right on the edge looking out over the valley kilometres down (Pip’s mum would have had kittens!).  To prevent ourselves plunging to our death if we woke up to use the loo in the middle of the night we made a wall with our packs and prepared to wake up to an amazing sunrise over the valley.  Truly magical. 

Dinner is served in the orphanage...a bit depressing but
yummy!

Shortly after sunrise we continued the walk up to Livingstonia, which took the better part of an hour – again thank goodness we didn’t try it with our packs!  The town is incredible when you consider how hard it is to get supplies up, with full brick buildings, including a huge church that we were lucky enough to be taken up the bell tower of to get a spectacular view of the town and valleys.  The museum was closed that day so unable to see the main attraction we went to the local waterfall where we enjoyed an afternoon of swimming in water holes and taking photos before having dinner at an orphanage we’d agreed to eat at earlier in the day. 

Malawi is going through some troubling times and the British diplomat was recently thrown out of the country for joining Malawians in criticising the governments corruption. In return, the UK through out the Malawian diplomat as well as suspending a lot of aid, which had hit organisations like the orphanage that we ate at hard.  We were glad to be able to help out in some small way with dinner and a small donation, although the lone table in a big room of the orphanage definitely wasn’t the most uplifting meal we’d had.

Next stop….Tanzania!

The King on his thrown.

More Photos

Likoma Island

Treating ourselves to another birthday celebration

Morning walk at Mango Drift to justify lazing
about eating and drinking all day

Sunset at Mango Drift

Nhkata Bay

Sadly Duncan and Pip got knocked out in the same
round of long jump...another sporting failure!

Our digs from the boat at Nhkata Bay

The luxury of some of our accommodation

Livingstonia

Sunrise at Mushroom farm.

Training for Kiliminjaro

Climbing up some rickity stairs to the bell tower.