Jamie McVicar
jamiemcvicar@shaw.ca
(403) 688-0988
It was great to get a Starbucks again, but I accidentally dumped my Grande Latte as I tried to plug my iPhone into a vacant electric socket. Now I am giggling as I watch tall Dutch ladies slip and slide their way to their departure gates. Ok, the Dutch guys are slipping too but they look ready to kill me so I don't giggle at them :-)
A 7 hour layover has begun, following which, Hamish is off to Calgary and Scott and I leave for Toronto. Once we are there we have some stick-handling to to to get our checked luggage out of the airport before they send it to Montreal. We hope to find a WestJet flight back from Hog-Town to O-Town late tonight.
P.S. I see that my lovely Elephant Video did not post correctly. I was afraid of this. I will repost it once I get home, ok?
Terry
Here is a short video clip (I hope this works!) of a gorgeous Mamma Elephant and her little baby Dumbo at Ngorongoro Crater, NW Tanzania. The video was taken yesterday. After this we had some great encounters with Hippos, Rinos, lots of Zebras and Wildebeests, Gazels, Antelope, Lions, Hyenas and Pumbas. The only one we saw little of was the Giraffe, which was probably 500m away and quite shy.
This Safari was a wild experience. We witnessed a Rino stumble upon a den of Hyenas which he then had to defend himself against. Also, we saw two baby Wildebeest being born into this world, and then take their first awkward steps with their Mother's help. Later we saw Wildebeest and Zebras huddle together to protect their newborns from preying Hyenas. Meanwhile the King Of The Beasts (Simba) and his harem of Lionesses stretched lazily in the shade of an Ebony Tree. All three of us were having religious moments watching these beautiful animals in their natural environments. We strongly recommend planning a safari as it is such a spectacular experience.
After our two-day Safari, we hopped back in the Land Cruiser for the 6 hour ride back to Moshi. We were exhausted by the time we finally unkinked our bodies out of the 4x4. Only beer and pizza could revive us!
Today we have managed to spend the last of our Tanzanian Shillings (which cannot be exchanged outside of this country) at the curio shops in Moshi. We were ooking for small but nice items that we can use to say Asante to our family and friends who have supported us along this journey.
Tonight we fly to Dar es Saalam, Tanzania, then on to Amsterdam tomorrow, and Toronto tomorrow afternoon. We'll need to snatch up our luggage quickly in T.O. to avoid a scheduled 8 hr layover there before flying to Montreal, even though we live in Ottawa (Scott & Terry). We'll do our best to collect our luggage in Toronto and make other arrangements to get back to Ottawa. Hamish should be back in Canmore around the same time.
As I write these last postings it is 37C and sweltering hot. Soon we'll be back in Canada in mid-February weather, wondering if this was all just some crazy dream.
Thanks again to everyone who supported us and our great cause, Cancer Research. It has been very rewarding to Do Something Big with all of you. Already we are talking about a similar trip next year so let us know if this wild idea might be in your future Bucket List Plans as well.
Asante Sana!!
Terry, Jamie & Scott
Ngorongoro Crater hosts the highest concentration of Wild African animals on the continent, including Africa's largest Lions. This place is truly too big to imagine and when we saw it, we all collectively said "Holy Cow"!!! Most of these animals don't leave the Crater, so it really is like a Land Before Time.
From our vantage pout at the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge, a 5-Star Luxury Hotel, perched high up on the Crater Rim, we are sipping Tanzanian Coffee and eating Spanish Omelettes, while listening to hundreds of bird species chirp away happily as the sun wakes them for another day. Soon we will be back in our Land Cruiser, which will pop it's roof and we will drive downwards for nearly 2 km to reach the Crater's floor.
Hopefully we will be able to post some live shots of crazy African animals. Stay tuned....
Maasai people are one of the most fascinating groups of people that I have ever heard about. They live in traditional ways that date back hundreds of years, mostly because they refuse to accept the restrictions that Germany and England tried to put on them when each of those countries controlled Tanzania many years ago. Instead of taking trains or cars, Maasai people walk everywhere - sometimes for hundreds of kilometers. They are "Semi-Nomadic Herders" which means that they build villages of round, mud and dung huts with grass roofs. They only live there when there is enough food for their goats and cows. Once the dry season comes they move to another location and build move huts to live in. They live long lives thanks to their reliance on the plants around them for medicinal purposes. We met one Maasai lady who was 94 but didn't look like she was over 60!
The other cool thing about the Maasai is that they dress in bright red sheets, rather than jeans and tee shirts like us. They also have very beautiful jewelry that they make and they are experts on the natural world around them.
Scott, Jamie and I were able to go out into the African Plains with several Maasai and they showed us what plants that they use to create their famous Maasai Medicines and we followed some elephant tracks for a while, although we didn't see it (we did see Zebras though).
Overall this was a fantastic opportunity to see one of the world's most unspoiled and unique cultures. I won't forget this opportunity ever.
The conditions at the time were -20C and 60-70kph winds, providing a Wind Chill Factor of -51C. It was so cold and windy that we were not able to get photos for many people that we has promised, including a planned 360 degree Video of the summit - which would have been a first of it's kind. Although we took all of this camera gear with us to the top, we were actually able to get only a few blurry photos using a standard point & shoot which I have Jerry-Rigged an image of above (it's an iPhone photo of the LCD screen on my Canon camera).
As we indicated in our last blog posting, we left High Camp by 11:30pm the night before and climbed by headlamp and by the light of the full-moon. The night started out beautiful at 0C and calm. Unfortunately, the higher we climbed, the more warm clothing we had to put on. By the time we stepped onto the Crater Rim we were literally wearing all of our clothes and we were still frozen. We reached the summit plateau by 6:30am, and descended almost immediately due to the cold. The Team encountered no issues with AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), although there were some worries about Frost Bite that were kept in check by keeping everyone moving steadily.
Our arrival on the summit coincided perfectly with the sunrise this morning so we all have a few truly beautiful photos of the sunrise and of the clouds covering Tanzania and Kenya below us. We are considering a Digital Slide-Show within the coming weeks so if you are interested, just let us know.
After descending, we broke up our high camp and moved it to Mwenka Camp at 3,00m, which is almost 3,000m below where we stood this morning. This camp is in the Cloud Forest on Kili and it is such a contrast to were our tents were yesterday: Lifeless Alpine vs Lush, Alive and Humid. This will be our last camp on Mt. Kilimanjaro and we have a little festivity planned with our Guides and Porters. I heard a rumor that they will do a special traditional Swahili song/dance dealio so this should be good. We have some gifts planned for them as well.
Before flying back to Canada we have a few opportunities planned to sample the local culture and scenery. On one day we will visit a Maasai Tribe and participate in their daily routines of livestock herding and food production, and then we are off for a 2-Day Safari in Lake Manyara and the famous Ngorongoro Crater, which has the greatest concentration of African Mammals on the entire continent. I will post a little more about this on a later date.
We are grabbing a late lunch now, then we will rest and have dinner around 4:30pm. After that we try to sleep for 4 hours. We get up at 10pm and get ready to leave. After a small snack we will start upward by headlamp at 11:00pm and climb through the night be headlamp. This is done so that the ground is frozen, otherwise it becomes too loose and it is very, very steep. We should make it to the crater rim by sunrise. Fortunately it is a full moon so we should have good visibility tonight.
That is all I will write for now as the batteries are getting very low. More news to follow....
The scenery lived up to that on previous days, but the big highlight was that massive Barranco Wall. We sat there at camp late yesterday, meeting climbers from all over the world, and you could tell everyone was nervous with all the steep vertical staring over us. It nearly felt like we reached the summit of Kili when we got to the top of it.
Once again, we are all doing very well: happy and healthy. Jamie had a mediocre sleep last night but I am thanking him for giving me a sleeping pill which equated to 7hrs of blissful sleep for me - much needed. Scott continues to sleep 12hrs per night, dropping to sleep right after dinner.
None of us are experiencing headaches or any signs of altitude sickness so far but we are watching closely for this. I made the mistake of using old sunscreen yesterday so my hands and nose are quite sunburned. Good thing my First Aid Kit has Polysporin.
It just started raining shortly after we arrived at Karanga Camp and I am hearing loud thunder as I write these words. Our camp is on a strongly sloped hill as you can see in the photo so we will soon have rivers of water streaming past us.
We have a short acclimatization day tomorrow and then we get ready for our summit day. So far things look great. Thanks for all the well wishes everyone. It is really encouraging. Battery power and a data connection are in short supply but we will do our best to keep the updates coming.
This was an acclimatization day where we climb high and sleep low, so after lunch at the spectacular Lava Tower, we then descended through +5C temperatures and light snow to the Barranco Valley at 3976m.
The Barranco Valley is so amazing it defies description. We descended from stark alpine where nothing can live, crossed frozen streams and gradually made it back down to the Moorland Zone where we first saw alpine flowers and then stunted plants. Finally my mind was blown when we hiked past 30-40' Giant Lobelias and Giant Serecious Trees pictured above.
In addition to showing these huge plants, you can also just make out our camp for tonight, the Barranco Camp, and you can see the start of our route for tomorrow, the Dreaded and Ominous Barranco Wall, a steep, often straight-up pseudo rock climb that rises 1,000 feet from our camp to the top of the wall. This will be a tough day for Scott, Jamie and me (Terry) due to the steep elevation gain but also, and more importantly, due to the altitude. We are all now climbing higher than we ever have.
So far we are all doing very well, other than some simple sleep deprivation for Jamie and I (2 nights with less than an hour's sleep). Scott and Jamie are absolutely hilarious, as I expected, and my stomach is hurting from laughing so hard. We are all climbing together, and we have adopted a very slow, deliberate pace that is difficult to stick to, but very important to maintain to acclimatize. As several Guides have told us, "The Speed Bunnies are the first to bonk".
Our Guide Orest and our Porters are a really great team and they have taught us so much already. I learned today that Keys Tours is one of the oldest Guiding Services on Kili today.
As our daylight fades in Barranco Camp we are all wiped out but happy and healthy. The weather is socked in but so far each morning seems to dawn clear so we are hoping for that. With three days to go until the Summit Day, we would appreciate all the positive vibes people can send us.
