Qatari style bar hopping

This short story happened in three hours on Thursday evening here in Doha, city which stabs you to the back whenever it can.

After 6 weeks I’m here I still haven’t found anybody who would be even close to what I like to do or how I want to spend time. Everybody just comes from work, starts watching TV, orders delivery dinner and sits at home. “Tough day man!! I need to rest” they say. Something which I just can’t understand!! I was into this alone. But better alone than never!!

So with a good mood I called for a private taxi at 9pm on Thursday and went for a beer outside. Next on my list of places was Sheraton Hotel with Irish Harp pub. When I got into the hotel I was welcomed by nice lobby and pyramid-like interior with around 15 floors of rooms. Bar was in the lower floor so I took elevator and confidently walked to the entrance smelling beer already.

“Ladies or couples only tonight” dryly said a bored security guard. I tried to ask him some questions willing to understand the situation, but the guard didn’t even bother to answer and only put his face into “You are not welcome here dude!! And it’s full anyway” expression. Still shocked a bit I went back to the elevator and went to mezzanine floor to Waterhole bar.

I’ve read some bad things about this place, but I just wanted to have a pint so I gave it a chance. “Membership card or Qatar ID Sir?” asked me the security. “What? Membership I don’t have. I have only Emirates ID. It’s not enough?” “No. You need Qatar ID or original passport with visa page to get in” “But I’ll do one exception when you are here for the first time” he smiled and let me pay the entrance fee and get in.

But after I got in I quickly realized why he did it, because the place was just horrible. OK, the interiors were fine. It was the people who were inside. I took a beer and was amused watching potbellied white guys around 40 shyly attacking Asian prostitutes of the same age and beauty under incredibly loud oldies sounds from a Filipino band. There was practically nobody else so I really felt like Alice in Wonderland. So I quickly finished second pint and went to Irish Harp again to see if the situation haven’t changed.

“Ooo two single girls coming in” I felt my chance. “Hi, do you think…” they even didn’t let me finished my sentence. “You wanna get in? Ok come with us” the English girls answered themselves and I was standing in front of the same security guard again. “Where is your membership card?” asked me with the same bored arrogant tone the guard. “Get the membership and we let you in” he told me and the girls disappeared inside. So I went to the desk where they were giving memberships. “We cannot give a membership to a single guy. You need to have the girl standing next to you” said another security with the same cold annoying tone. In that point I was really losing my temper under the pressure of all those unbelievable things.

“I have a friend over there. She can help you get the membership” said a girl doing hers just next to me. I felt the last chance, but just to be sure I’ve asked “Is this UAE ID card enough to get it?” “You need to have original passport with visa. This is the rule” replied that security and I exploded.

“Screw all this and you too” I almost shouted when I strode out with blood boiling and ire in the eyes. Outside the hotel, blinded with wrath, I pushed aside one poor businessman and stole his taxi. “Ramada Plaza” I ordered.

After five minutes of a calming drive I asked the driver “Do you know if I can get to QUBE without passport?” “I don’t think so Sir” he replied pretty confidently. And he was true. To get in you need a membership and for a membership you need, according to the big board next to entrance, a Residence permit. In that point I was not even sure if you can get in with passport, which I didn’t have anyway, so I just looked at a long queue for memberships and conceded to having one more cold pint today.

At midnight I was at home again. I paid three times more for taxis and fees that for the beer itself. But at the end I had to laugh. Country which has that few bars that they can refuse customers in big is just sad.

But as it is always, when there is no other chance, you just accept it. You have to. Especially here in Qatar. So next time I will bring the passport and I will give it another chance…Why? Because I want to survive here until I could go back. Because if I had a feeling that I don’t belong to UAE, here it is not a feeling anymore…it’s a fact!!

Qatar forever - First steps

First week was fast. I arrived Sunday midday form where my colleague Kutty took me to my new place, but had to take me immediately out to one of the three shopping malls in the country! To his astonishment I refused to stay for the rest of the day in the villa and do nothing, what would every Indian do, because they would need to rest, especially after travelling (my flight was 45 minutesJ)

So after I returned there was nothing more than couple of beers with the head of Qatar Envac office Alan in his villa just few building next to mine at the evening. There I’ve learned one thing. Instead of building luxurious villa districts and 40 floor apartment towers, here in Qatar they build villa compounds.

These “villages” are square areas full of squeezed identical two floor buildings, with no common facilities except for tiny children pool and tiny tennis court, where you cannot play tennis anyway because you have fence on your back line and it is full of screaming kids. That’s fine, but the worst is that there is no central AC so you have to choose if you want to boil or become deaf from roaring AC ventilators next to your ear!! And that the compound lies 15 kilometers south of Doha and getting a taxi out of there is impossible is just another black point on already black image.

Fortunately I got my personal Lancer the second day, so I could start exploring and try to put some white dots. I found two climbing walls, but one was not for public and another was too small. No white points. I found very nice kiting beach just 5 minutes from my house. First white point. I found out that you can go to Dubai from Doha for quite cheap money. 10 white points J So instead of trying my luck here, I took off to Dubai the first weekend for sure fun of two day Magic gaming J

The second week went equally fast, basically because two days I fell asleep for 12 hours directly after I came from work, one day was disappointment with “Release the Kraken” and on Thursday my friend Kaupo came from Dubai and we went to see some night life J

After tough search in the list of 15 bars and clubs in Doha I found on the internet, I picked up Intercontinental Hotel with one of the three most famous and most real “clubs” in Qatar, La Paloma.

We started easily around 8 outside the hotel in a beach/pool bar. “Don’t worry!! At the weekend it is packed with people here. Wait until around 10pm” said in a good mood the barman. We took another beer and around 11, when still sitting there almost alone, we left for Paloma inside.

How do you imagine one of the most visited discos in Qatar? Definitely not as a rather small hall with kitchen in one corner, tables all around the round bar in the middle and tiny dance floor with even tinier podium in the other corner. And on the top of that a chaotic DJ changing genders like if playing roulette. All full of guys and if there is a lady shyly standing next to a table and obviously willing to dance, there always is a lounged black Mr. Muscle drinking beer behind, who instantly jumps up when you try something and with a superior and angry grin “She is mine!!!” sends you packing crying. Not a place where you want to return to J

And when you are full of all that, you cannot even get a taxi home, because nobody wants to drive that far up to Al Wakrah. No escape from here!! But OK…we got home at the end, when literally bribing one the driver J

Saturday was supposed to be easy hangover day, but the best cure for handover is to go to the desert in 35°C and ride quads for two hours. In Qatar there is only one area where there is a proper desert with sand dunes.

It is in the south close to Saudi border and it is just next the sea line that water gets between the dunes and creates lakes and lagoons. Have you been ever riding quad in the sea? J

I took it for two hours and tried how it is when you drive one hour one direction and the other back. It was how I imagine Rally Dakar. Driving 50km/h on a desert track winding between yellow sand dunes, through black salt plains and between green bushes. With every kilometer I was getting further from noisy Hummers cruising around and deeper into the loneliness of the desert I was enjoying it more and more. Only me, quiet dunes, rustling sand under the wheels and 700cc under the hood J I was enjoying it that much that I almost forgot to turn back!! Then I discovered the dark side of Rally Dakar, when my hands were barely holding the handlebars at the end!!

Evening program consisted of why Kaupo actually came to Doha, athletic competition Diamond League. Qatar wants to be a sport capital of Middle East so they are hosting all kinds of sport events. Asian games, Handball championship or they are voting for Soccer World Cup in 2022 and Olimpic games. So Diamond League with many famous names attending was not a surprise.

We came to Villagio mall where was a booth with tickets. That was the only information Kaupo had about the event. Ticket booth location. “Tickets are sold out” told us a Filipino girl inside. “What?!!” we almost shouted. When we started to think again we asked “OK…so where is the stadium where the competition is held?”, “I don’t know” she replied as nothing would be happening. “What?!!” we stared in surprise again. After couple of more questions we got that the place was called Doha Sports Club, but where was it, we had still no idea. “Sir can you show us on the map where is Doha Sports club?” we asked and random Lebanese guy. “Sure” he replied and I pulled out my GPS mobile phone. “Damn…display is broken!! I have no idea how this happened” I was staring at a rainbow across he display. So no map, no tickets and the competition has already started!!

The guy explained us more or less where it is and we started driving. Fortunately four huge light posts shining to the night are pretty good guide so we found it easily. “Why there are so many busses blocking the parking lot” I wondered when we came there…

Ticket office at the stadium was closed…there was nobody checking tickets when we walked through open gate up to the tribune. And than we saw it…stadium was almost full. Except of VIP seats and that all spectators were Indian. Guess why? Organizer brought 100 busses of laborers and left tickets for free to fill up the tribunes J

Kaupo, former decathlonist, pulled out Estonian flag and we started watching. There was also few Czech athletes…javelin thrower Spotakova who came second and one pole jumper. Sometimes we cheered for somebody passing by, but basically anybody out of the Ethiopian / Kenyan sector had no chance to be heard!! There were enjoying the event so much, with flags, drums and songs. And because almost in every discipline they had somebody, they were heard all the time. Awesome…

Unfortunately Kaupo’s only Estonian athlete, a discus thrower who was supposed to attend, didn’t come and anyway…because we were late we missed the discus at the beginning J

Saturday we drove to the north to check some limestone rock formations, with possible climbing potential, but it was way too eroded for trying anything. I would need a 4x4 to get deeper into the area to maybe discover some more solid place. Next time…

On the way back we did a detour just to see that Qatar landscape is really just a flat dry wasteland full of loose stones. So after three hours of driving through this monotonous scenery we better went to the beach for some kiting…nice point after active weekend. When I told my Filipino colleagues what I had been doing, they could only say “Hmmmm…”. We’ve done in one weekend more than them in one year!!

Next two weeks went even faster. Three days kiting after office, some food shopping and basically playing Magic everyday to prepare for UAE Magic National championship. I even went for another weekend to visit Rune in Dubai and do some play testing.

And then my last week in Qatar came and I was looking forward to return home. “Jiri can you call me” I found email from Jacqueline, Envac business and manpower controller, on Tuesday. “Jiri, you know that there is still no work in UAE and Babu told me that he could use you in Pearl of Qatar. Would you be able to stay?”

And again…I was somehow anticipating this to happen and I was somehow prepared for it. I had even ready some conditions. “OK…that is no problem. But I want to keep UAE residence visa and as soon as there is work in UAE I’m the first guy coming back!” I calmly relied. “Of course Jiri. That’s how we want this to be. We want you to be ready for coming back” she ensured me.

When flying back to Qatar after another short weekend at home, with a tear in the eye and new return ticket for 29 of July in hand, I imagined my Tiguan sadly standing in the garage of my unoccupied apartment and thought “This probably will not end just there L”

Btw: I didn’t defend the title of “Magic the Gathering UAE champion”

Qatar forever - Choose your destiny!!

Everything started one and half year ago……

I was told that I had been hired for Al Raha Beach project. This huge development in Abu Dhabi was “just about to be signed” for at least half a year before I came and all the time after I came, until Envac’s chances died completely with leaving old Al Raha management only few months after I arrived.

But that didn’t look like a problem. We had still Yas Island and many other “promising” project were around. Until the world financial crisis came only few months after I arrived.

UAE’s happy spending finished and everything stalled. The biggest Dubai developer Nakheel bankrupt and with him disappeared many “happy times promising” projects like Waterfront (city twice the size of Hong Kong), one mile high Harbor tower or canal network going 50km deep inland. Rents dropped to half because people were losing jobs and going home in hundreds (180 Al Raha engineers got sacked on hour one sunny morning). Car loans and car prices dropped, because all cars have been left at the airport by leaving people, abandoning everything…even their loans.

Needless to say that I had everything already secured for the peak price and that Envac haven’t got any bigger project for our “cutting edge” waste collection system by now.

UAE was not hit by the crisis that hard as USA or EU, but it was. Who apparently was not hit were Saudi Arabia and Qatar and our salesmen, were more and more often starting to travel to those countries trying to secure our asses.

So one day, I think it was around March 2010, happened the inevitable. “As you probably see, there is not or soon won’t be any work for us here in Yas” begun my project manager our face to face conversation. “But there is a boat going to Qatar. Are you on the boat? Or you stay here on this sinking Island?” was his question he should have asked some people to report to our boss Mike.

I was suspecting that something is happening long time before this day. Longer we stayed on Yas, with more of our work being finished and more time without hearing any news about some future projects, more I was playing with thought, what I would say when this question comes? “I’m on board” I replied immediately.

I was not happy to say that. I had everything in Dubai. A lot of good friends, my apartment, car, my routines and activities I liked, I worked position I felt finally comfortable with…I had there my happy living. I didn’t want to leave all this, especially when traveling to a country where everything was supposed to be way worse than in UAE. But on the other hand it is better to lose it temporarily and have possibility to come to get it back when situation change, than sink with the Island and lose it all forever.

So on sunny Sunday morning 2.5.2010, I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Doha. It was not my first flight to Doha, but this one was different in that it was the first, last and only one that day. No transfer, no continuation, no other destination, no way back…

Actually there was the way back in form of return ticket one month later, which was giving me something to look forward to, because I hadn’t heard a single positive thing about Qatar!!

Qatar is a flat, dry wasteland on peninsula of the size of Cyprus with one real city and capital Doha. There are no mountains, no proper sandy desert, just plains full of loose rocks and stones going across whole country. And where are no villages, there are oil and gas rafineries. In Qatar lives out of 1.5 million people in total only 1/3 of expats, which majority is from Asia and other Arab countries, so there are relatively few westerners. Also ratio of 3.5 men on 1 most probably veiled woman is not very pleasant environment.

Doha as a capital is more decent, traditional and Arabic with lower average road lane count, with much lower average building altitude, insignificant bar number and only one liquor store in whole country. Don’t need to mention that there is no climbing wall or Magic community. So what is there?

This was what I knew about Qatar so don't be surprised that I was worried. But I was comforting myself that it is only for one month and that I’ll survive and then go back, because we were supposed to get small Yas Island project extension. So I took it as easy as possible and tried to get my own picture about the country, because in the corner of my mind I thought that it couldn’t be that bad J

Stairway to Heaven: The thirsty ballad

It has been already two months since we’ve returned from Kenya. But for some strange reason there was not much action. Probably because we were tired, lazy or had many other things to catch up. From my side it was clear. Project was ending so I had to work six days a week and the only free day I spent with kitesurfing, because UAE windy season was coming.

And suddenly the long time expected turn of events came and I was going to Qatar for one month. So I wanted to use my last weekend for one of the long time planned trips in UAE we had, because when I would come back in June it would be too late for any outdoor stuff for summer heat.

We had basically two things we wanted to do. Climb 300m high Ainee wall in Wadi Bih or do UAE’s most famous hike Stairway to Heaven. Ainee wall is for two days because of its distance and because Milan wanted at least one day for learning with his new kite, 10 hour Stairway trek was a perfect choice.

“We leave today after office to Ras al Khaimah, camp there, Friday Stairway with camping afterwards and Saturday directly to the beach kiting. Who’s in?” I sent short email on Thursday morning. “I can’t leave UAE without doing this trip. I’m in!” responded Jaro, Milan got caught on Saturday kiting so we were three.

Stairway to heaven is a quite short but very steep hike to the top of deep wadi, where you in the uppermost portion use stairs made of stones on very exposed walls and ledges. It’s around 7km long, 1000m up and the book says 8-11 hours for going up and back the same way.

After a decent sleep at the beginning of the trek at 10am we made our first step into the wadi. Temperature was quite nice around 30 degrees so we full of strength were progressing fast following an obvious path through boulder fields and traversing around steep walls. After one hour we were at the confluence and started to walk straight up towards the start of the Stairway. We were not alone there, because we met an older English man trying his luck also. We quickly overtook him and went for the first Stairway around 300 altitude meters below the top.

We had a detailed route description, but somehow the system of ledges and stairways was so obvious, that we didn’t need it. True, it was steep, high, exposed and the Stairways made loose stones just put together seem to fall apart under every step, but somebody doing climbing wouldn’t even notice that it is something unusual. Contrary to many holiday hikers being tempted by the fame of this hike J

After 3 hours we were at the top!! Looking a bit disappointed from expecting something more challenging we decided, after small lunch, to do the whole roundtrip and return to the confluence from the opposite side of the wadi, rather than retracing our steps back using the Stairway. The guide was saying that, even when it doesn’t look like, it is much tougher choice distance wise and also route finding wise. But we didn’t care. “Look, we have 6 hours of sunlight and from the map it is something around 8 kilometers back to the confluence. I have all the waypoints in the GPS” I said, “And we have headlamps” added Milan and we marched. Only one who didn’t say much was Jaro suffering diarrhea from very morning. But we marched!

Route finding up to the village on other side of the valley was simple. We had some delays and we lost half an hour when taking wrong ridge, but we arrived at 4:30pm, so just enough time to be at the confluence before dark. But shortly after we started descending through huge steep boulder field those last 900m elevation meters, it got screwed up!!!

It was not especially hot that day but we finished already all our water. Descending on loose and sliding stones went slower than we expected, especially for Jaro. He doesn’t see well in the dark normally, but today he took as his only dioptric glasses sunglasses, so he was practically blind when it got a bit darker. And also he was starting to be really exhausted and dehydrated from diarrhea and having not enough water. And with a couple of dry waterfalls which we had to bypass around, we reached spot above the last waterfall when was completely dark.

“Follow the riverbed until you reach the 6 meter high waterfall. Then turn back and find the way how to bypass it to the left” I read from the guide. Easy to say, but harder to do, when you when you are in unknown area, in the middle of dry canyon with 10m high walls above you and staring down from the waterfall. We didn’t even have three headlamps, because I lost mine in Kenya and haven’t bought new one yet and Jaro had to shine directly under his feet to be able to make a single move. With increasing time we spent there, we were getting thirstier and it was slowly getting a bit scary J

We luckily found the only way around the waterfall, but it cost us time. “Uff…finally we are at the confluence. Now it is easy. We have already been here” relieved Milan and we started walking back on the same path we came. We had around 3 kilometers and 250 meter down to the car. The trail was visible, but we needed to walk slowly and even then we lost it couple of times. And with every step Jaro was getting into worse and worse shape. Completely dehydrated, he was stomach sick and dizzy. In one moment we had to stop because he started vomiting. Vomiting nothing!! Me and Milan we were very thirsty but still focused. The way back seemed endless. Much longer than we remembered it when walking up.

“Hey Milan!! Are you sure that this is a correct way” I shouted. “The trail is not very clear, but it looks like this might be it” he responded with no confidence. So we got lost again. Even when we got back to the last point where we were sure that we were standing on the trail, we couldn’t figure out where does it lead next. Milan tried to traverse further, but it was not the way. The way down seemed way to steep, leading nowhere and above us was just a vertical wall. And it was dark. And we haven’t had a drop of water for 5 hours. And it was still around 35 degrees. And it started to look quite scary. We all played with a thought of being stuck here for the rest of the night!!

Fortunately after more than an hour of going around in one place, Milan found a way down. “Guys…that’s it!! I found the trail” he shouted from below. And from then it was finally easy and we got safely and alive to the car at 11pm!!!

And that was it. HAPPY END J We drunk everything liquid…hot water from bottles, cold water from melted ice, Pepsi, lime juice, beer. Everybody drunk around 3 liters, fell down and slept.

Lesson learned? Maybe only that the mountains, no matter how easy they are, they look completely different in the night under only torch light and that 4 liters of water per person for whole day UAE trek in not enough. Next time we’ll be smarter.

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger J

Kenyan dreamin' - Epilogue

Sad cloudy Saturday morning in Narobi. Speechless group of travelers is slowly packing big backpacks into a taxi in front of a hotel. You don’t need to ask where they are going. Minds still lost in repeating what happened yesterday, week ago, on Kili…they don’t want to go anywhere. One story ends…second continues…others are on the way. That’s life J

I’ve done many trips around the world and I have to say that only from few of them I don’t remember much. But there are also only few of those where I remember almost everything, which I will always be going back to in my thoughts and storytelling and from which I will always try to draw inspiration and experience for the future ones. Our Kenyan dream expedition will always be one of them!!

EVERYBODY HAS A DREAM

EVERYBODY HAS A GOAL

BUT NOT EVERYBODY FOLLOWS THEIR DREAMS

NOT EVERYBODY GOES FOR THEIR GOALS

WE DID!!!

Kenyan dreamin' - Stage 6: Finish line

WE DID

The initial plan was to have a spare third week for safari, going to the beach or anything we would like, but at the end when we were going back from Kili’s last camp we had 2 days left, because that same day we had to get back to Nairobi and that is for the whole day due to mentioned governmental negligence to roadwork situation!!

So what to do with those two days? It was too little time for a proper safari in one of the bigger reserves with camping and elephants, so we decided to spend it in Nairobi again. Jaro had some personal business in Uganda, so we were only three.

And what to do during a lazy morning after 8 hours of bus riding? Be even more lazy J That’s why Jana with Marcin insisted on spending the day relaxing in some better hotel with the pool, soft beds and room service. And why actually not to go directly to the best hotel in town, to Hilton. Imagine a comical situation when three dirty backpackers in shorts go to Hilton and want to see the room and hotel facilities. As a receptionist I would definitely think that they are wasting my time and therefore I would be really surprised when one of them would say “OK, we take the three bed room” and would pull out a Swiss bank VISA J

At the end they didn’t need to insist too much, because I had to agree that the idea of drinking blue daikiri in cool roof pool under hot African sun was too tempting. “What the hell…I’m on holiday right?” J

After first pool session we went for lunch for nearby fried chicken and ice cream, stopped by in travel agency to book one day safari for the next day, bought cheese, bread and vine for evening room chillout and went back to Hilton for more pool and sauna J. For one day it was excellent, but spending there more would be just waste of money!!

Originally we wanted to do small half day safari in Nairobi national park, followed by dinner in the famous Carnivore restaurant for some crocodile meat, but those smart trip sellers in the agency recommended us a full day trip to more distant, bigger but also more expensive Lake Nakuru national park. And somehow they presented it that we were leaving with the feeling that we did a good deal J Win-win situation!!

So at 6:30am Teddy our new driver guide picked us up from Hilton and we drove two hours down to flat and large Rift valley where a couple of small salty lakes like Nakuru lie. In Nakuru there are no elephants or hippos, but we were ensured to see rhinos and the rest of typical Africal fauna. “And if you are lucky you’ll see lion or leopard” Teddy baited us, started the engine and drove past the park gate.

Already from behind the gate I could see hers of zebras and various antelopes. The park was packed with life!! Just after the gate we saw black rhino in the distance, but we didn’t stop and went to the lake edge to watch buffaloes, zebras, impalas and gazelles.

We usually stayed in the van just looking through the open roof, because you can’t know from where a lion could jump on you J But shortly after we passed three hyenas resting in cold mud we left the van and went chasing some zebras in open space.

And in this easy mood continued the whole day. We were slowly driving through the forest and plains stopping every time we saw some animals. And we saw a lot of them. We saw white and black rhinos, giraffes, baboons, flamingos, ostriches, secretary birds or warthogs. And all of them from very close distance, because they were probably so used to people starring at them that they stayed in place! As the day was passing, we more and more eagerly were searching for the king of animals of his smaller cousin, but were not lucky that time. Probably because in the whole park live only 6 leopards and 17 lions J

But at the end of the day I felt that this was not a proper safari. I wanted to be inside the park, in the tent, be part of it, be walking though, feeling the nature. But for all this, although I don’t think it is doable in full, you need to go to Serengeti or Masai Mara, which are big enough to preserve its original wilderness. Not like this oversized ZOO J

At the end of the day, when I was slowly walking on the lake shore next to thousands of flamingos, watching a storm coming, I was knew that this trip was going to the end and that those three awesome weeks were over.

Kenyan dreamin' - Stage 5: To the top of Africa

BUT NOT EVERYBODY GOES FOR THEIR GOALS

And really…at 8am there was a 7 seat station wagon already full of our escort. We hardly squeezed inside with our now “ridiculously” light back packs (we left all climbing gear in Nairobi) and we joined the second car, same packed, on the way to Moshi and Machame gate, where was our route beginning. We had some difficulties to find cooking gas tank and other supplies on the way, but at 11 we were already there distributing our stuff to our porters J

All inclusive trip from Joseph means almost all inclusive trip. We had 7 porters, 2 guides and one cook for four of us J And that was a small group because we didn’t pay for camping chairs and tables, toilet tent and other VIP stuff. But our basic package was maybe too much for us “tough mountaineers” J

It was weird standing there and having only a small pack with prepared lunch box and few extra clothes. “Where is today’s camp, that we know where to stop?” we asked our main guide Anderson. “Don’t worry. The porters are fast. They will be already there with tents built when you arrive” smiled Anderson.

So we started walking. We hesitated a bit to overtake the porters after 10 minutes, but they were just too slow. It was the first day, in 1500m and we felt so fit, that we run past them and long lines of another porters carrying deformed sacks full of metal dishes, heavy kitchen gas tanks, fresh fruit and basically nothing economical what you usually take to the mountain. We had to wait 45 minutes in Machame camp (2865m) before our tents and some warmer clothes arrived. But in was more than compensated by delicious dinner of vegetable soup, fried fish with potatoes and fresh pineapple as a desert. Of course accompanied by hot tea and coffee J After such dinner you have different dreams J

Machame route is the second most frequented and it’s usually done in 6 days. From the park entry book we read, that around 20 tourists is starting the route every day, to which you need to add 2.5 times more staff. So the route is quite crowded and you continuously have to be overtaking slow porters. But the distance is not very long and it’s built to provide enough acclimatization to people coming directly from the airport. That means that the second day we did 3 hour walk to 3800m and the third just going around the mountain to 3900 for 4 hours. The fourth day to the summit camp was a bit tougher and to 4600m we got in 6 hours.

But it didn’t matter to me. I have time to look around, observe, make photos and enjoy the hike in nice high altitude environment with towering Kili always above. Hmm…almost always, because the second and third day it was cloudy and raining whole afternoon, so we spent it in the tent playing pokerJ

And there were of course all those delicious breakfasts and dinners, which really made me enjoy this trip as pure holidays.

But the fifth day at 2am those pure holidays ended when we woke up to attempt the summit of the highest mountain of Africa. Two other groups were already on the way, but Anderson judged that with our shape we can some extra sleep and leave later J And it proved correct half way up when we overtook the second one. We didn’t go fast. We had respect to the mountain and altitude, so we progressed slowly to not be caching breath, but steadily. It was slow, long, but once you get into that monotonous step by step mode, hours flow very quickly.

I have never felt any signs of altitude sickness, not in Rocky Mountains, on Mount Kenya not even in Kili. “Maybe I’m one of those few who are not suffering that and are born for high altitudes” I thought just before we reached the lip of Kilimanjaro crater at 5700m. Jaro, who had his experience already, told me, that the altitude sickness comes very quickly. And exactly when we reached the lip and saw the top just a kilometer away I felt it coming. A bit dizziness, deeper breathing and overall weakening, warned me that if the end would have been even a bit further than now, I would have to slow down rapidly and watch every step and breath!! So probably I’m not any climbing superman J But with the summit so close and sun already rising, I pushed harder knowing that when you go down it will go away!!

How did I feel on the roof of Africa in 5895m? I don’t know. First of all I felt terribly cold, but otherwise it was something between relief, that I didn’t have to return back early like many others…between accomplishment, that I can check out another peak…and between ethereal happiness from all those stunning views of rising sun from clouds below. I definitely didn’t feel pride, like tens of German retirees sumitting when we were already going down.

We reached the base camp around 11, got fresh pineapple juice and hot soup, went to sleep for two hours and at 1pm we were following the porters down to Mweka camp at 3500m. Because of all those people all ascent routes are one way only and for descent are different ones, like Mweka route J And that was it. Last dinner. Last camping. Last look on Kilimanjaro.

If you put yourself over that fact that it was not basically any physical or any challenge, like we were used to from Kenya, it was a beautifully spend week and got some relax physical and mental which we needed. We won’t probably do it again, but we never forget it either. And that’s how it should be J