I… Had a Meltdown… in Africa

When I first started writing this post, my plan was to unload for a while about the difficulties we had with lodging, service, and general infrastructure after our Kilimanjaro climb in Tanzania, and about how I basically had a minor meltdown as a result. Those of you who know our good friend and travel partner Christi may have already heard a bit from her about my travel weariness (or more specifically, my lack of patience with the developing world), and I still hate thinking that my inability to deal with some of the primitive infrastructure in Tanzania had a negative impact on her experience of seeing Africa for the first time. I was going to write about all that, and how I’ve gained more perspective on the experience now, and all the meaningful things I’ve learned about myself, blah, blah, blah.

But that was before I read the latest blog post from our friends and fellow world travelers Clara and Eric. They left on their year-long odyssey back in December, and they have spent a LOT more time in developing countries (all in Asia) than we have. Today, they are lucky to be alive. They were volunteering in a tiny village in Ladakh, an area of the Indian-held portion of Kashmir, when a major flash flood hit the area and caused serious death and destruction. Entire villages were washed away while their residents slept in mud huts. Hundreds of people were killed in the floods, and entire livelihoods were literally washed away.

Clara and Eric were stranded in Ladakh for a few very stressful days without clean water to drink or any way to communicate with the outside world. They eventually got out and made it safely to Delhi, but reading about their travel nightmare made me feel pretty damn stupid, and frankly, ashamed of my behavior in Tanzania. My complaints about our lack of hot water (or any water at times), broken window blinds, slow restaurant service, bumpy dusty roads, bugs in my boxed lunch, shady “surcharges”, and even my minor electrical shock/burn from some faulty wiring seem incredibly petty now, so I’m going to skip the gory details. Our lives were never in danger (unless you count Christi and Laura wanting to kill me at times), and I’m just glad that Clara and Eric are safe. They may be done with the developing world for a while, but they have a hell of a lot more justification to call it quits than I do, and I respect them deeply for their ability to travel (and volunteer) in such challenging places and not lose their shit like I did.

Getting up close and personal with some big gameSo instead, let me share some of the more pleasant and downright fun things we did in Tanzania after climbing Kili and spending a few days chasing big game in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater National Parks. The end of our organized BikeHike tour included a day of mountain biking in the Rift Valley and two nights in rustic tent cabins. The mountain biking was pretty cool and got us really close to some wildlife without the protection of a big Land Rover (have a look at our Rift Valley photo album for more details). We also spent an afternoon wandering through a couple of traditional Maasai villages, and pretty conspicuously I might add. We were followed pretty much everywhere by children who were fascinated (at least I think it was fascination) with my camera. No one, though, the kids included, wanted their photo taken. We still managed to sneak a few pictures, and they’re in our Maasai photo album.

We spent our two nights in the Rift Valley at the charming and rustic Olmesera Lodge, where, in addition to doing a nice walk across the plains of the Rift Valley, I also got burned and mildly shocked by an electrical short in the wiring in our cabin late on the first night. It’s a long story, so I won’t bore you with it here, but Laura was seriously ready to get the heck out of there, and I wasn’t too pleased coming so close to having our net-covered bed and tent burned to a crisp. Let’s just say our BikeHike tour ended with a bang. Literally.

Moving on… back in February when we were planning our trip to Tanzania with Christi, she figured out that one of her co-workers at California Pacific Medical Center (Amit) is originally from Arusha, one of the main starting points for Kilimanjaro treks in Tanzania. As luck would have it, Amit’s parents still live in Arusha, and his mother Aruna works for a travel agency there. Aruna is a really sweet woman, and she ended up helping us with a TON of our post-BikeHike tour plans, for which we are eternally grateful. She also offered to host all three of us at her family’s coffee farm outside of Arusha. Having no idea what that might be like, we decided to go for it and spend a night there.

Fresh coffee beans drying in the Tanzanian sunThe coffee farm is about a two-hour drive from Arusha, the second half of which is over an *incredibly* rutted, bumpy, dusty, twisty road through numerous hills and valleys. I was glad I wasn’t the one driving! The farm itself is beautiful – so lush and rustic – and the house they have on the property is really cool. No electricity, just generated power in the evenings, hot water heated by fire, and fences enclosing the outdoor walkway between the main house and the bedrooms (to keep out the leopards, of course). After a spot of afternoon tea (inside the fence!), Aruna’s brother Ashni gave us a tour of the coffee processing “plant” they have next to the house (there are some great photos in our Arusha & Coffee Farm album, as well as a video below). It’s all very old school, but partly because of that, they produce some of the highest quality coffee in Tanzania (anywhere, in fact), and they export 100% of their beans to some of the finest coffee makers in the world. Maybe *that’s* why we had nothing but bad instant coffee in Tanzania, even though they grow some of the best beans on the planet. :) We had a delicious dinner with Aruna, Ashni, and a couple of their friends from Arusha, then hit the sack just before the generator shut off.

The next day, we drove back to Arusha to catch our Precision Air flight to Zanzibar for a few days of “vacation from our vacation”. Never has a business been so inaptly named. It was pure chaos at the Arusha Airport (the domestic one, not the international hub that most trekkers fly into and out of), and we had a long argument with the agent about how much we should be charged for the weight of our extra luggage. We’d checked with the Precision Air office in Arusha about the cost per-kilogram over their weight limit, but of course the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing, so it was a big drama at the check-in line. After some fine negotiating by Laura and Christi, we did end up making our flight to Zanzibar, but sadly our bags – and those of at least a dozen other passengers – did not. Strangely, about 20-30 HUGE boxes of cargo checked by a few local passengers did make it. We heard this was all par for the course with Precision Air, and we did eventually see our luggage again, so all’s well that ends well (says the newly enlightened and travel-hardened Dustin).

The white sand beaches of ZanzibarOur days in Zanzibar were pretty great, all things considered (check out the photos in our Zanzibar album). We spent one day and night in the mostly-Muslim Stone Town, a historic little coastal town filled with narrow, winding streets and endless touts trying to sell you t-shirts or statues or boat tours. After that, it was off to the fabulous Neptune beach resort on the east side of the island. This all-inclusive resort was no Four Seasons, but it did have good food, decent (and free!) drinks, a couple of swimming pools complete with swim-up bars, and great views of the beach, so it was the perfect end to our three weeks in Tanzania. Christi had to leave a day earlier than we did, which made our last day there more than a little bittersweet – we’d really enjoyed traveling with her and had grown accustomed to having “Judge Moyle” with us to settle our disputes (more like bar bets), but we tried to soak up every last bit of Zanzibar before we left.

Our last bit of adventure in Tanzania involved a crazy ferry ride from Zanzibar over to Dar es Salaam on the mainland, a somewhat surreal overnight stay at a Holiday Inn there (we’d never been happier to see that familiar green “H”), and a funny ESL conversation with our cab driver on the way to the airport the next morning. You’ll have to find us in person for the details, though. Too many words in this post already! After a long flight back to London, it was time for Lustin to enjoy a few months of developed world travel. I think we earned it, but as always, it’s all relative…

Comments

[plumbing]

Africa is a very nice place :) The people there intertwines with nature and nurtured by it. I wish I could have the same experience.