Jana and Marcin left ahead and we followed only 45 minutes later! We agreed that we chase them when they have breakfast, but because some dark clouds started coming, this encounter never happened. Instead, after we passed through beautiful bushy mountain meadows in higher altitudes and got into the forest, it started raining. And it was a real two hour rainstorm spiced for Jaro’s swearing when he broke his last bamboo walking stick, when he got totally wet in 15 minutes because of lack of any rainproof clothes and when he got completely dirty after slipping several times on unmaintained wet muddy path. “We go to Africa guys!! There won’t be raining” said Jaro, the Wise J
We caught up with the others in Met station, half way down. We warmed up bit when eating disgusting porridge we bought from local guides and continued down already under sunny sky again.
When we reached the park gate, we were greeted by a group of baboons and also a Park guide driver in Land Cruiser, which was quite lucky, because we didn’t arrange any transport and to the village itself it was still quite a bit. So we paid the rest of the park fees, hopped on the trunk and were speeding down on a narrow dirt track to the very end of our Mt. Kenya expedition.
The end of the expedition does not necessarily mean all the bad. In Jasser’s camp we got things what we were wishing for almost from the beginning, cold beer, normal food, normal portions, soft bed and shower. Pure paradise J
Next morning after normal human breakfast we boarded Jasser’s minivan again and went back to Nairobi. We wanted to as quickly as possible arrange Kilimanjaro trip, because we didn’t have much time left and we still wanted to do some safari, without which you cannot leave Kenya!! We didn’t know any agency in town, but when you know any tourist involved person like Jasser, you can be sure that he knows somebody “really good’ to recommend. And exactly that happened. Jasser knew another Joseph, which I accidentally met during our first Nairobi stay and because we didn’t have time to search for some better deal we put our trust and money in him, paid some extra for a private transport the same afternoon and an all inclusive Kilimajaro six day hike was arranged in two hours. Three hours after we arrived to Nairobi, we were already rushing in Jasser’s minivan towards Tanzanian border. At the border Joseph handed over us to another agent and around 9pm we were driving last 100 km to Arusha, tomorrow’s starting point.
We arrived at midnight. You are asking why that late? Did something happen to the car? No. Something happened to the roads. Better…something happened to the government, which is not capable of building paved road on one of the main routes between Kenya and Tanzania. From Nairobi to Arusha is about 200 km and around 120 is unpaved. We just saw neverending kilometers of road under construction next to our “tank rack” without any construction machinery on it!! “How long is this road under construction?” I asked the second agent. “More than two years now” he calmly replied. “We are going to Africa guys!!” I’ve hears Jaro’s wisdom in my head and kept suffering.
Our guide showed us a cheap guest house in Arusha and with words “Tomorrow at 8am your Kilimanjaro guide will come to pick you up here” wished us good night and disappeared. We bought some fried egg omelet on the street, couple of beers in nearby bar and hoped that tomorrow somebody really comes!!
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