Feb 14, 2013 - Day 5 - Summit!!

Total Distance: 30km Time on feet: 14hrs Starting Altitude: 4550m (14,924ft) Summit Altitude: 5895m (19,335ft) Finishing Altitude:3100m (10,168ft) Happy Valentines Day!! Scotty and I decide we'll save the cards for later as it's midnight and time to start our attempt at reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro. We've managed a couple of hours sleep, but it's a strange time to be getting up and I feel weird and shivery as we drink tea and eat biscuits before setting off. I'm wearing thermal leggings, ski trousers, three pairs of socks, three...

Feb 13, 2013 - Day 4 - Barranco Wall to Barafu Camp

Total Distance: 13km Time on feet: 8hrs Starting Altitude: 3950m (12,956ft) Finishing Altitude: 4550m (14,924ft) Wake up in the middle of the night asking Scott if we are going to the swimming pool. The lack of oxygen is definitely going to my head. Then wake up properly at 5:30 feeling alot better. I'm so happy the headache is gone! I've been looking forward to today as we are scaling the 'Barranco Wall', a huge rock face which towers over our camp and requires a good hour of near vertical ascent. It's not strictly 'climbing' but it's...

Feb 12, 2013 - Day 3 - A long way to Barranco Camp via the Lava Tower

Total Distance: 15km Time on feet: 8hrs Starting Altitude: 3840m (12,595ft) Finishing Altitude: 3950m (12,956m) via 4630m (15,186ft) Wake up at 5:30 feeling pretty good, manage to have a wash and put some mascara on thinking 'what did Cheryl Cole do??'. It's a long old climb ahead today, we have to ascend a huge distance to the dizzy heights of the Lava Tower to acclimatize, before heading back down to Barranco Camp. We make our way slowly accross the barren terrain, stripping off our layers of clothing as the morning sun gets hotter....

Feb 11, 2013 - Day 2 - Onwards and upwards to Shira Camp

Total Distance: 9km Time on feet: 7hrs Starting Altitude: 2980m (9774ft) Finishing Altitude: 3840m (12,595ft) At 1am Scott needs a wee, and wakes me up with all the fumbling about with the tent zips. I think he's scared cos he's convinced something growled at him whilst he was doing his wee. I choose to hold mine in. At 3am I nearly crap myself at some animal screeching outside the tent, and I'm sure it's a honey badger. In the cool light of the morning I'm not so sure it wasn't one of the guides messing us about! Everything feels damp...

Feb 10, 2013 - Day 1 - Through the rainforest to Machame Camp

Total Distance: 18km Time on feet: 6hrs Starting altitude: 1490m (4887ft) Finishing altitude: 2980m (9774ft) Good morning Tanzania!! It's 5am and I'm not sure whether it's the excitement, or the heat, or the frenzied chanting from the mosque that's woken me up but I'm certainly not going back to sleep. That means Scott gets woken up too, mwahahaha. Last night I had a feeling I should put my hiking boots upside down in case a scorpion got in them, but decided I was being stupid. Instead, there's a cockroach in my boot. Scott doesn't want to...

Jan 22, 2013 - Awesome balloon ride!!

From start to finish this this was a great experience and worth every penny. Once we arrived at the launch site Captain Dan gave a briefing, telling us exactly what to expect, how to get in, safety precautions etc. It was amazing to float over the Serengeti as the sun came up. As we skimmed the tree tops we saw a herd of Cape buffalo with one newly born calf, a pride of about 12 lions including a few cubs, hippos, elephants and more. We even brushed the shrubs at times. It was wonderful to get the perspective from the air, allowing us to...

Jan 22, 2013 - The Serengeti

There are an estimated 1.5 million wildebeest, 400,000 zebra and hundreds of fierce predators on the wide, open plains of the Serengeti right now. They move here from the Masai Mara since grazing is better and they breed and bear their young here. They head back north in July / August where there will be lots of food by then. The carnivores have keen sense of sight& smell whereas the herbivores have better sense of hearing. The main part of the migrating herd is further south right now so we do not see the really massive herds but there are...

Jan 20, 2013 - And finally.....Tanzania

Off we set on our final Intrepid trip from Nairobi to Zanzibar. We had 17 trip members on this trip, a mix of Australian, Swiss, Canadian, Dutch, NZ. We were mostly camping, but on this trip we had a cook, as well as the driver and tour facilitator. On the first day, we drove straight to the border and crossed into Tanzania. Here the currency is shillings 1500 to the US $ (so things sounded expensive!) The official language is Swahili, the same as Kenya. There seemed to be fewer people, better roads, more open spaces and larger farms. This...

Jan 18, 2013 - On to Tanzania

We have 3 new Aussies with us now but we Canucks are still in the majority. We reached Arusha in time for lunch at the Impala Hotel. It seems much busier here than in Kenya but not as friendly and very little English on signs. It is also hotter here. We now have jeeps with pop up tops and that is much better than the big bus-like Intrepid vehicle. We toured a small village and farm where they grow coffee, many types of bananas & lemongrass for tea all on a small scale. They showed us the whole process from picking the coffee "berries",...

Dec 22, 2012 - Snake Park

Heute morgen sind wir zuerst in den Ngorogoro Krater gefahren. Das ist ein riesiger Krater eines ehemaligen Vulkanes, der über die Jahrtausende immer weiter abgesunken ist. Heute leben dort viele Tiere und man kann wunderbar Safaritouren machen. Als erstes haben wir wieder Löwen gesehen und natürlich jede Menge Zebras und Gnus. Heute kamen aber zusätzlich noch Büffel dazu und zwei Nashörner. Die Nashörner waren aber leider sehr weit weg. Nach dem wir aus den Krater zurück waren sind wir zurück nach Arusha zu unserem "Basiscamp" gefahren....

Dec 21, 2012 - Serengeti Teil 2

Heute habe ich meinen ersten Heißluftballonflug gemacht. Das war richtig cool. Schon das Einsteigen war ein Erlebnis. Wir waren zu sechzeht in einem Korb. Der Korb war in vier Teile unterteilt und in jedem Teil waren vier Leute. Das Lustige am Einsteigen war, dass der Korb noch auf der Seite auf dem Boden lag, als wir eingestiegen sind. Wir mussten uns auf den Rücken an die Wand des Korbes legen, sodass wir, sobald der Korb hoch kam, auf den Füßen standen. Leider haben wir den Sonnenaufgang gerade im Liegen verbracht und konnten durch den...

Dec 20, 2012 - Serengeti

Heute waren alle total früh wach - einerseit weil die ersten Trucks um 4.00 Uhr morgens angefangen haben zu packen, andererseits weil wir uns fast alle an das frühe Aufstehen gewöhnt haben. Wir waren aus diesem Grund nicht wie geplant um kurz vor acht mit dem Frühstück fertig sondern schon um viertel nach sieben. Bis es um 8.00 in Safarifahrzeugen los ging, haben wir dann halt den Truck sauber gemacht. Wir sind in zwei Wagen a sieben Personen gefahren. Die ersten Stunden der Fahrt waren eher langweilig. Die Straße war eine der huggeligsten...