3 Peaks

Long time since the last update… I don’t know what defense to use, so you can pick one you like:
- I am having the time of my life and it’s hard to put my experience into words; especially after delaying an update for my blog for so long.
- Computer was broke for awhile until I got a part shipped from the U.K. and making time at the internet café isn’t in the schedule.
- I got pneumonia.
- Think I have become a cynic and don’t want to expel my frustrations to the world.
- My life here seems commonplace to me now and things have been coming routine to me.
In June my school had their big mid-term break and my last chance to vacation during my service here in Tanzania so I tried my best to make the most of it; I think we succeeded.

I have been fortunate to make good friends with a couple; Nathan and Andria from Salida Colorado living in the town closest to me Morogoro. Not only is it great having people from home that have similar interest and similar backgrounds as I do but they have a really nice house and a car! As a Peace Corps volunteer you get very accustomed to riding your bike every where and putting your life in the hands of the public transportation system; so a friend with a private car is a luxury welcomed after a year and a half in Tanzania. As my holiday approached Nathan and I (Andria had to work) decided and planned an adventure across Tanzania to see parts of the country we hadn’t seen before while trying to avoiding the exploited cost of the Tanzanian Park system.

After weeks of planning and maps marked out Nathan and I were off on our three peak adventure. Our plans where conceived after weeks of reading travel books, talking with Tanzanians and other volunteer, inventorying resources, and compelled for an adventure. Plan: four hikes; 2000 year old rock paintings, Mount Hanang (peak one), an active volcano Oldoinyo Lengai (peak two), and Tanzanian’s second highest peak Mount Meru (peak three).

The first leg of the journey was an 8 hour drive from Morogoro to Kolo rock paintings via Dadoma. The first leg of the drive was a nice scenic drive to Tanzanian’s capital, Dadoma all on paved roads… the last we would see for some time. In Dadoma we picked up a Peace Corps Volunteer who was looking for a ride north to Kondoa which by his luck was on the way to Kolo. After dropping off a grateful Peace Corps volunteer who got to by-pass his four hour bus trip by a two hour drive in an air-conditioned Land Cruiser we arrived in Kolo where the rock-painting parks office was located. We weren’t able to locate the camp sites our guide books talked about but we were able to find the village officer who let us park in his compound and pitch out tent for the evening. The next morning we packed up camp and met our guide and paid our park fees at the Kolo office.

We visited five sites of primitive rock paintings some said to date back over 3000 years ago. The sites where scattered around the rift valley escarpment and about 30 minute drive from each other and another hour hike from each parking area. The paintings were lackluster because of the age and deterioration of the sites and the amount of recent graffiti at some of them. Despite their lackluster it was appealing for its historical context and hiking around the hills. Most the paintings were a deep red shade said to be made from the juice of a fig and animal fat most of the paintings were depicted animals like giraffes, zebras, leopards, rhino and humans hunting, snaring, and drying their hides. We spent most the day visiting rock paintings sites and we then made our way to visit and crash at a environmental volunteer’s site who was living near Katesh/ Mount Hanang the fourth highest peak in Tanzania.

Like most mountains in Tanzania Mount Hanang is volcanic in origin and has long since blown its caldera. On our way to Katesh we wanted to shave off some of the driving time so we decided to try and take a shortcut and veer off the major roads, and like most short cuts I have taken in my life we got lost. Luckily Mount Hanang is visible from hundreds of kilometers away on a clear day and we knew if we kept it in front of us we would get there eventually. The thing about back/dirt roads of Tanzania is that they crisscross cattle tracks. Most of Tanzania is open to pastoral people so there is countless number of roads/tracks that go this way and that and one has a hard time discerning between a cattle road a ‘real’ road. This was when we started to mastering our techniques of finding our way on back roads and figuring out how lost we were. One technique was following the tire tracks, we thought this was the sure fire way to make sure we were on the right track but as fool proof as it sounds is much harder in practice, as cars might only pass once a week. The other way was asking locals, this was easy because there was always people walking around and it wasn’t ever very long until we came upon people we could ask, but the problem with this was we were dealing with yokels and the site of a car and white people often rendered them speechless or incomprehensible. The other problem with this technique is that Tanzanians like to agree and say what they think you want to hear. So asking a question like “Is this the way to Dongabesh?” you would insistently get ‘Ya’ regardless of the way you are heading. We had to be wise of the people we stopped to ask and how we asked our questions, it became a fun game that would last our entire trip. In our own defense we had good sense of direction and navigation (I had my GPS) skills but somehow we never knew exactly where we were on the map but did know where we were and were we needed to go.

We arrived at Tara’s home a fellow volunteer near Mount Hanang just as the sun was setting and grateful we had found our way. Her house is a typical home in a small village for Peace Corps volunteers in Tanzania, no running water no electricity. We paid her neighbor to watch the car over night and filled the night drinking warm beers and playing a Tibetan dice game that Nathan had brought along. The next morning we went to the village of Katesh where we were to start our hike. We were given instructions from fellow volunteers on how to hike the mountain and where to begin our hike. We parked our car at a guest house where we made reservations for that night and started on our hike. We were instructed that the hike would take about 12 hours and we had a late start and had about 10 hours of day light to work with. The first half of the hike was primary through farms and homesteads of locals who live on the slopes for better rains; the second part was in the forest and the start of the crater rim that slopped around to the summit. The hike was a good warm up to our up coming hikes, and the first of our three peak tour. We twice had the privilege of seeing a male bush buck scamper through the forest on the mountain, which was rare as no other Peace Corps volunteers had seen any wildlife on the mountain on their hikes. The hike provided beautiful views of the surrounding country and the countless number of volcano craters scattered around the Rift Valley escarpment and the few salt lakes in the area. On our descent we approached a man carrying a machete as we draw near to the farms and homesteads. Both Nathan and I were hoping that this guy was going to the forest to cute down timber; but as we soon learned we weren’t that fortunate….

We were apparently in an unmarked forest reserve and needed a forest permit to enter their forest. They were asking for 30$ U.S. for permission to enter the forest we were just leaving. As I explained to him that we didn’t have the money and that he wasn’t getting any money from us, we resorted to plan B: Take us to your Leader. We were escorted to our guest house by four yokels with sticks and machetes. At our guest house we were introduced to the newly appointed Hanang Forest Officer, we will call him James. Since James was the newly appointed officer there who by chance was coming from his previous post the Uluguru Forest Office (my back yard forest) I thought it appropriate to inform him the flaws in the system. How could his office justify trying to charge two residents of Tanzania 30$ U.S. a day to visit, after the fact we had already left the unmarked/unpublicized forest reserve. This ‘guard’ of his only came after us after being informed by a belligerent guide who we did not hire that morning on advice of fellow volunteers, the guide then informed the guard we were on the mountain without a permit. I think what got us off the hook was to point out the irony if the half dozen women we saw that day cutting down timber illegally for their cooking stoves continued unhindered in their forest reserve that both the guard and the officer would be out of a job without a forest (the area has suffered far too long without forest management). And we might be more inclined to pay if it was advertised to us before going into and before we had already left the forest. James saw our side of the story and was sympathetic, we bought James a beer and shared dinner together for his time; looks like we beat the heat on this one.

James that night over dinner told us a story of a man earlier that week that was killed by villagers of a different tribe after he killed a baby of a mother who witnessed him killing an elephant. The mother apparently made a commotion when she found the man with his slaughtered elephant and threatened prosecution. So the man killed her baby in reaction to her outrage, and he was then killed by her village.

The next morning our goal was Katesh to Karatu via the main…cattle track? I would say 75% of the day was either being lost or wondering if we were lost. We ended picking up a sweet old lady looking for a ride to a town at the junction of the main road we were looking for; I think that was the first car she actually had been in other than the daladala buses here. In Karatu we were given a cell phone number of a return Peace Corps volunteer from Libya who loved hosting guest. She proved to be a gracious host and an affirmation that you can meet the most interesting people living and working abroad.

Our next peak to climb was Oldoinyo Lengai the only active volcano in Tanzania and the only active carbonate volcano in the world. Oldoinyo Lengai comes from the Maasai language Maa meaning Mountain of God. They believe their god who granted them the ownership of all cattle in the world has resided in the active volcano. Maasai believe that sacrifices of cattle and goats done near the mountain will bring rains or help cure ailing relatives. The Maasai are pastoralist and known to be fierce warriors whom would not succumb to slavery or western ideals and culture, still to this day many still wear traditional robes draped over their shoulders and only feed almost exclusively off their cattle. The volcano lies just outside the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area and south of Lake Natron which is the largest breeding ground in the world for the pink flamingo. This area is part of a much larger Maasai Steppe, a region that is among the most extensive of any Tanzanian tribe. The drive out to our camp ground near Lake Natron was through the most desolate, dry, dusty, barren land I have ever witnessed. In 100 degree temperatures we drove in dust pools which took control of our Land Cruiser like two feet snow drifts, and kicking up a tail feather of dust that went on for hundreds of yards past the car. With no sign of water and land that was well over grazed it was remarkable we past any inhabitants. Before arriving to our campsite we passed three gates constructed by Maasai to enforce a toll for passing. It was absurd to have to pay a toll at these homemade gates on a road that isn’t maintained but when a six and half foot African with a spear and sword asks you to pay a toll, you pay the man.

We stayed a few days at Lake Natron, spent time haggling with the locals, watching jackals chase flamingoes and hike to waterfalls. Our most important task was to climb Oldoinyo Lengai it took a long time to find our guide Li who was willing to climb the volcano with us, he seamed to have the traits we were looking for; young and full of vigor. We would start our hike at 1:00 a.m. in the morning to make our summit by sunrise, and to beat the heat of the day. The volcano proved to be the hardest five hour hike I have ever done due to the loose volcanic ash footing, the severe slop, and lack of a trail to the top. The Volcano last erupted in 1998 and the landscape of hardened lava flows was a transparent reminder we were hiking on a very active volcano. After testing our tenacity we arrived at the calderas rim, and there was no mistaking the lapse in judgment I had made in wanting to climb Oldoinyo Lengai. The ominous steady noise of the boiling rock, smoke, and the orange glow of lava made me feel vulnerable beyond my comfort level. After taking in the great spectacle of an active volcano from its caldera and a few pictures I was exited to begin my journey as far away as possible. It was much like a colonoscopy; glad to have it out of the way and done with but never wanting to go back.

After arriving back to camp and a safe distance from the volcano we packed up the car with our Maasai trinkets and were hurried to get somewhere where the dust didn’t infiltrate every space of our belongings and our body. The next stop was a camp site Mto wa Mbu to clean-up, swim, and mingle with cute American tourist, I love American women. While at dinner in Mto wa Mbu Nathan and I were enjoying a beer while we waited for our 1.5 kg of grilled goat when a mob of Tanzanians started walking down the street. Nathan and I both gave each other the look of, ‘are you ready to run!’ I started asking people what was going and why were all these people gathered. The story we got was that a man walked onto someone’s farm and stole a bunch of bananas from its vine ($5 value) and was caught and his leg was chopped off! The mob was carrying him to try and get him to the hospital in Arusha; I would be surprised if he survived the night. Another reminder that the mob rules in Africa; no one has faith in the systems of government here.

Mount Meru the second highest peak in Tanzania was our next objective. After stocking up in Arusha for backpacking supplies we made our way to the Arusha National park gate, where we were able to find a camp site just out side the park. Colobus Camp Site which by our luck on the evening of our arrival was surrounded by a family of feeding giraffes.

We arrived early the next morning at Arusha National Park headquarters to pay are only national park fees of our trip. We drove around the fabled park where John Wayne’s Hatari was shot before we headed to the trailhead and parking lot for Mount Meru where we would acquire our armed ranger for our trek to the summit of Meru. We had our trek scheduled for a three day trip with the last day being our summit attempt and descent back to the trailhead; we were highly discouraged by the park employees for restricting our hike to three days and not hiring porters for our bags but as Coloradoans and experienced hikers we felt up to the task. The first day was a four hour hike through woodlands where we saw duikers, bush bucks, and water buffalo which is really a unique experience at Meru because most safaris you are restricted to your cars so having the intimate experience of seeing African wildlife by foot was fantastic. On our hike to the first hut we had passed a 4x4 on the trail that was bringing down an exhausted hiker who tried to do the hike in three days. The driver was joking with our guide after he found out we were trying to summit in three days, that he would be back to pick us up for rescue in two days; now the pressure was on. At each of the camps we stayed at they had well maintained huts for us to stay in which was virtually vacant other than one other couple from Holland. The second day to Saddle Hut was a hike that was to be along a ridge of the crater and much steeper than the previous day. We kept passing lots of signs of elephants in the forest but didn’t ever get a chance to see one from the trail. The best animal sighting of our trip occurred this day as we walked up a side of a ravine and just on the other side a hundred yards off stood a very large male bush buck. It was a great sighting because of the size of the male and how he appeared in the only opening of brush on the opposite side of the ravine and we stood there together trading glance for unforgettable moments of time. Saddle Hut provided our first views of Kilimanjaro and our staging point for our summit attempt.

We planned our departure on the fact that we wanted to be on top of Meru in time to see the sunrise and careful not to arrive too soon such that we would have to wait at the summit in the freezing temperatures at 14,980 feet. We left at about 2:30 a.m. for our hike. It proved to be a beautiful night with plenty of stars in the sky we hiked with the aid of our head lamps. This being the third peak of our trip Nathan and I had our pace in sync and we were covering a lot of ground passing the only another group who had left an hour and a half before us. The summit proved to be very cold, even after climbing Kilimanjaro the previous year and experienced with the high altitude climate in Tanzania I was still under dressed for the frigid temperatures. We arrived at the summit, Socialist Peak just in time for the great show that Mother Nature had in store for us. It was a beautiful site to be above the clouds and to see the sun rise up from behind Kilimanjaro and the extensive pallet of colors that she used in the sky that morning was out of this world.

We enjoyed our time on the summit as long as we could before we had to start moving to get our blood flowing. We hiked back to Saddle Hut to grab our packs and make the rest of the descent to the trail head. The descent was uneventful other than passing a few buffalo, wart hogs and another group on the way up and by chance one of the porters in the group happened to be our assistant guide on Kilimanjaro Sam.

After our hike we loaded up into the car and made our way to Moshi to stay with a friend of Nathan’s. That night we cheered to a fantastic trip and I relearned the healing powers of beer on aching bones and muscles, works every time.