Tanzania

Sunday 20th March 2016 – After breakfast we spent a few hours in our room learning simple Swahili vocab and practicing greetings and simple phrases. By dinner time we were ready to unleash our stuttering Swahili upon the hotel staff who took the whole thing in good humour. At dinner a Tanzanian businessman staying at the hotel sent a couple of drinks over to our table. Earlier Alysa had innocently given him her WhatsApp address and we had a laugh when he later messaged her “I like you.” Nevertheless, not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth we enjoyed our first free drinks of the trip. Before bed we booked a taxi to the bus station for 5:30 am the next morning. In bed, around midnight I suddenly felt unwell and started shaking uncontrollably. I immediately took a couple of Nurofen and after about 30 minutes began to feel a lot better, even managing to get a reasonable nights sleep.

Monday 21st March 2016 – We woke at 5am. I was feeling well enough to make the journey so we packed, took the taxi and by 6am were on a bus from Mbeya to Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. This was one of our most comfortable journeys on public transport and watching the green scenery go by would have been very pleasant if I’d felt better. We arrived at Dodoma around 3pm and hopped into a tuk-tuk to look for a hotel. Our first destination was Furaha hostel, one of the seediest looking dives we had seen yet. Not even bothering to take a look we drove on to the New Dodoma hotel which was nice but much too expensive. Our third attempt found us at Kitoma Hotel which was perfect: cheap, clean and comfortable. Feeling pretty rough by now I climbed into bed and rested. By 6pm and not feeling any better we decided it would be sensible to go to the hospital and get tested for malaria. At the Aga Khan hospital there was a walk in clinic. You pay a small fee (about 60 pence) and half an hour later a doctor takes a blood sample. 45 minutes later you get the results – simple. While we waited for the test results we went to eat at the New Dodoma Hotel. The results came back negative for parasites which put our main concern to rest. By now it was about 10pm and our tuk tuk driver got us a little worried when he took a very long, dark route back to our hotel.

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 – After a good nights rest we took a bus to a small village called Katesh where we planned to acclimatise for Mount Kilimanjiro with an ascent of Mount Hanang. We arrived in Katesh around dusk. The village was centred around the bus station. Some grubby resthouses were dotted around the perimeter, their patrons already looking the worse for wear. Ruling these out we followed signs for Pacific Lodge, Alysa pausing to tearfully feed a couple of near skeletal dogs along the way. Pacific Lodge was clean and most importantly secure; we dropped our bags in our room and went to find some food. After a bit of searching the unlit streets we found a bar that appeared to also sell food. We ordered rice with veggies. Nodding sagely the bartender returned a few minutes later with a couple of chip omelettes. Back at the hotel we watched a bit of TV before turning in. Tomorrow we would try to organise our trip to Mount Hanang.

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 – Over breakfast we realised we had very little idea about how to proceed. Our task was complicated by reports of unscrupulous “guides” offering to take people up the mountain only for them to be robbed part way up. Somehow we needed to get a proper guide and not end up with a dodgy one. We decided to try to find the park office where we might ask for advice. Reasoning the office would probably be on a path up to the mountain we started to walk in that direction. As we walked we were approached by a man in his forties wearing a brown shirt and black trousers. He greeted us in English and asked us if we were Christians. It is difficult to know how to respond to this sort of question , especially in Tanzania where, judging from minibus decoration people’s affiliation is split fairly evenly between Jesus, Allah and rap. We answered that we were indeed Christians. This seemed to satisfy the man who informed us he was the pastor for the village. We explained we were looking for the park office as we wanted to climb Mount Hanang. Taking us under his wing the pastor took us down a maze of mud roads until we arrived at a government office. There he introduced us to an official named Joseph. Within the space of an hour and a half everything was organised; park fees, village development fee (a small contribution to a tiny, very poor settlement at the foot of the volcano) and guide – pretty good for Africa! After stocking up on food and drink for our trip the rest of the day was our own which meant indulging in a movie fest courtesy of HBO India back in our room.