"Oh, Mike left 2 months ago, his visa expired for the third time and now he is working in Saudi Arabia." Well that was that, then told Jay we would see him soon and hung up. Had to escape the press of humanity before it got dark so we booked into the YWCA which was apparently the cheapest place around- it was also next to the biggest, noisiest taxi rank. Took much needed showers and then headed downstairs and out into the dark street to look for somewhere to eat.
On the corner we met a man who said he knew of a good cheap place and so we followed him up the street. In the dim, smoky restaurant he made a phone call on his cell and soon 5 of his big Swahili friends arrived, being all friendly but hemming us in and asking all the usual question. After the meal they tried to get us into their car with offers of a free lift back to our hotel. An ugly scene was unfolding. We declined the offer and said we would rather walk, at least 5 times, before eventually just turning and walking away. They tried one last time by pulling up next to us and claiming to be the police . "You think I am some stupid fresh faced European, fuck off!" They eventually drove away, too afraid to rob us on a busy street. Well, welcome to Dares Salaam.
The next day we tried to find the girls we had met in Malawi. Ellie had given me the address of the school she was teaching at and it was in a suburb called ‘Changombe’. We walked and sweated all day through multitudes of people, filth, noise, human drawn donkey carts, pavement drivers, soldiers, hawkers, cyclists, sick people, demented people, roadside food and beer shacks – their cooking fire all joining the black car fumes and hanging in a dirty cloud over everything. Eventually we found Yemeni Primary School but everyone had gone home, so we got hold of the last remaining teacher and after phoning someone he led us to her house. There was no one at home so we sat outside and waited, sweating in the evening heat. Eventually Consolate, their maid, came and thinking we were more gap students, let us in. We put our bags down and I headed to the outside toilet only to discover it didn’t flush and the water didn’t work. Great, haven’t even asked if we can stay and I’ve left a smelly present in the toilet.
Soon Craig, Brendan, Ellie and Mel arrived back from the beach and we all shook hands and got invited for supper. Later more students from different parts of Dar arrived and joints and bottles of Conyagi (really foul, cheap local rum, the picture of flames on the label) were soon doing the rounds. In the midst of this social gathering we asked if we could stay for a while and the answer was yes, have another drink. I sneaked out the back and set up my broken tent but soon gave up the idea of sleep and joined in the madness, which didn’t stop until 3 or 4 in the morning. It was usually crowded, chaotic and loud most nights but I got used to it and soon the place became home. We stayed for a long time. Down the road was the local pub, the TTC, where we watched many a football match on a big screen but with no sound. We were living on the edge of a slum area so the school had provided a night watchman, not that he was really needed. This old man, who constantly wore socks on his hands, sat at the gate all night in full uniform smiling and nodding at any attempt at conversation. No one even knew his name. There were plenty of roadside eating shacks up and down the road and we became addicted to chicken and chips and kilimanjaro beer, which was all really cheap, but the toilet worked overtime. Water was taken from a big storage tank underground in the back yard by bucket and poured over your head to shower, and into the toilet to flush. To escape the oppressive humidity, we would sometimes all climb into the water tower in the next-door yard, smoke spliffs and listen to the drums beating around us while gazing up at the stars. This was my favourite spot, especially during a power failure when everything blacked out for miles. Hoochie-Coochie was the drinking game and Dustin and I always lost, not being able to slap our knees, clap our hands and count simultaneously like the British. Frequently there would be people lying everywhere in the morning and I was glad that I had my tent, even though I stuck to the outside of my sleeping bag for lack of ceiling fans. We all went down to the dirty beach on the other side of town once in a while to swim and get stung by blue bottles in the piss warm sea. Sometimes we all missioned down to Q-Bar to dance and drink. It was an ex-pat place and you had to fight through the pretty hookers to get to the bar, black hands feeling you all over.
Somehow through all the madness Dusty and I managed to get stuff done. We managed to apply for our Sudanese visas after fighting through the bureaucratic bullshit that is the Sudanese embassy. "It will take 3 months, if you get it, we’ll post it to Addis Ababa."
Finally we left, heading south towards Jay, 300 km down the coast to a place called Kilwa Ruins. Late afternoon found us still hitching on the outskirts of the city. The ordinary thumb sign doesn’t work here, people return the gesture, thinking your wishing them well. I hunted around in the numerous piles of rubbish that line every road and eventually, finding a suitable piece of cardboard, wrote KILWA in big black letters with the marker pen we had for just that purpose. I held the sign and Dustin waved his arm up and down. Occasionally a car would stop and ask us where we were going. "Kilwa," we said.
"Cuba?" Was often the dumb question and after explaining for ages discovered they were turning off 2 km down the road. Eventually a friendly 4x4 stopped and we met Mike whose father was a Polish gunrunner and mother a Tanzanian. He was down for the weekend from boarding school and his English was good. He said we should go to his house, drink beer and then pay for a lift on a truck early in the morning. This sounded cool so we agreed and hopped aboard. Drove down numerous, dirty, narrow ally ways and eventually came to a huge metal gate set in a massive stonewall with glass and spikes on the top. A Masai warrior, complete with red blanket, sandals, spears and big knife swung open the large gate and we entered into a huge courtyard that looked something from a mafia movie. Careful to take off our shoes, we met mom and gran, got fed and then drank beer from a cooler box outside in the courtyard, 5 big dogs eyeing us suspiciously. Mike wanted to go and see his girlfriend on the other side of the city and insisted that we came along with him, the promise of pork ribs afterwards. For 2 hours we inched along in Dar traffic, which is like nowhere else in the world and got to his girlfriends house in the dark. He decided to take a shortcut down gravel roads on the way back. Now it had been raining for quite a few days and soon we came to a big puddle lined with expectant people. It was about 40m to the other side and Mike decided to go for it. Almost at the other side we hit a hole and the jeep sunk up to its windows. Stuck. 50 people attacked the car all with different opinions and shouting in Swahili about how to get it out. 4x4 proved useless and just got us deeper in the hole. Dustin and I got out and pulled and strained with everyone else in the waist deep river – a huge snake slithered past the car causing a moment of panic. It became a war – we strained, we swore, the car bubbled and smoked and the boot filled up with muddy brown water. A pickup appeared on the other side and Mike took off his jeans, climbed out the window and in his underpants wades across to make a deal. Dustin and I guarded the car against the increasing riotous mob. A towrope was attached and after snapping a few times finally pulled us out with every ones combined effort. A great cheer went up, someone got paid, heads were broken and a riot began. Hastily we all jumped into the car and sped around the corner and back towards the tar road; sopping wet to a take away pizza joint then back to Mikes and bed in the spare room.
The next day we surveyed the damage, cleaned the car and then Mike took us to a truck stop only to find there was but one left. We made an offer, they refused, we left and Mike took us far out of town and dropped us off.
Well we met a Mike in Dar, not the right one, but we did the same things: drank beer and went 4x4ing.
We hitched all day and after boiling in the sun and 2 really short lifts, found ourselves in a town with no name in the rain. Booked into a cheap guesthouse and then went to find supper. In the morning we found ourselves at the edge of a gravel road and waited with every one else for hours in the rain for any sort of vehicle to come by. We were all entertained by a man who liked fighting with goats and all roared with laughter as he was butted down the street.
Eventually a big open truck loaded with crates of ice rumbled up and was instantly mobbed, a price was set and we bumped along the worst road ever all day getting rained on occasionally and then drying out in the hot sun. Finally late at night in a torrential downpour we jumped off at our stop, said goodbye to our many companions of misery and ran for cover. We phoned Jay from a hotel and he gave us directions to his place. Jay’s tall, monstrous form loomed out of the shadows when we were half way there. It was good to see him again after so many months and we went back to where he was staying, laughed a lot, smoked a few joints, drank a few beers and ate some food; then slept like dead men. Jay was staying at Kilwa Beach Lodge, the big game fishing spot on the Tanzanian coast. He had helped build most of the place but now had overstayed his welcome, run a huge bar tab and caused loads of shit, as Jay tends to do. He had to leave soon; the manager was on his case. Jay shared a house with Brett; nephew of the biggest big game hunter in Southern Africa and Jay was doing his professional hunters apprenticeship through him. Brett was an ex rally car driver and bionic man – he had more metal plates and broken bones in his body than robo cop.
Over the next few days we did what we always used to do: went sea kayaking, riding some nice waves and capsizing many times, got lost in the bush for a day and took a Dhow across the channel to visit the Kilwa ruins – an old Arab fort. Had loads of fun and then had to leave, sneaking out early one morning before the sun rose on the back of a hunting vehicle. The 3 of us sat on the hunting seat at the back while Brett drove like a rally car driver. Got back to Dar in record time and Dustin and I jumped out at Shoprite with a promise to meet Jay later at Q-Bar for the final between Chelsea and Liverpool. Back home to Changombe. Me and Ellies relationship took off and I moved into the house, bed, mosquito net and ceiling fan. Match night came and we met Jay and Brett down at Q-bar. The large open-air pub was packed with anticipation – even the hookers were silent and knew it was no use plying their trade at a time like this. Kick off on the big screen: Jay and I backed Chelsea and Dustin and Brett backed Liverpool, beers backed everyone. After a long hard game Chelsea lost and we switched to tequilas, doing them suicidally – lemon in the eye, salt up the nose and tequila down the gullet. Caught a taxi home later at some ungodly hour of the morning.
A few days later Dusty and I booked a ferry ride on the cheapest pile of junk we could find to Zanzibar. When voyage day came we made our way bleary eyed to the harbour in the morning mist, climbed on board and fell asleep, our bags tied firmly to our ankles. The previous nights send off party had only just ended. Woke in Zanzibar at night, had our passports stamped at immigration and made our way to the first food place we could find. After chicken and chips we followed a raggedy seaman type through the narrow alleys of Stone Town to Jumbo Guest house where we showered and then sat down in front of the T.V. In walked a Swedish girl called Hedwig. She was doing small business research in Zanzibar and staying at Jumbo. We all chattered for a while and then I went to bed shattered.
Woke at 5 the next morning to the machines at the bakery going mental and a mosque calling everyone to pray. Left in the rain to find quieter accommodation and ended up at Annex of Abdul where we found Steff upstairs in a tiny room stitching her jeans: "Hey Steff, long time no see". We were staying in Stone Town, the oldest suburb of Zanzibar. A labyrinth of tiny, twisting alleyways, crumbling buildings, strange doors, mosques and scooters whizzing around blind corners. An awesome place – especially at night when the scabby cats come out to hunt, an old peg leg taps away somewhere on the cobblestones, shadows twist and turn and you can hear the ghosts of pirates whispering in the alleys. You feel you definitely need an eye patch, 3-point hat and a sword – especially when you get lost, which happened every night.
Annex was where I began my Kili training and every morning I would run up and down the 3 flights of stairs until I felt sick. We hooked up with Hedwig – who we called H – and went missioning around with her a lot. We went to the seaside food market, which happens every night and where you can buy shark, tuna, octopus, lobster and all manner of things. We took a matatu up north to go and see the slave caves. When the slave trade was abolished the Arabs began hiding their cargoes of slaves in caves along the coast to await the ships. We stayed all day, swimming in the sea and losing track of time – we missed the last matatu and had to walk 15km back to the tar road, it was getting late. Passed grass rooted villages, grinning idiots and coconut groves. We walked until a man came passed on a bicycle, towing another one. We stopped him and H jumped on the back carrier on the back and Dustin and I took the other one. It became a race and Dusty rang the bell as we swerved passed goats and chickens, peddling furiously through mud and sand as I clung on desperately, my arse feeling every bump. We stopped eventually and I got off thankfully, feeling like I’d just served ten years in Pollsmoor prison. The man waved goodbye and turned down a jungly track to his hut – on we walked. Presently a man on a scooter stopped and one by one – gave us a lift through the dark jungle to the tar road. From there a matatu back to Stone Town.
H had to go away on business for a while so Dustin and I headed up to the north coast of the island for a few days. Really beautiful but expensive. White beaches, crystal see, palm trees and hundreds of bloody resorts. We tried free camping but once again it was impossible, this is Africa, people are everywhere. Mzungu, give me money!! Walked most of the 80kms back to Stone Town, then got a lift. When H got back we went down to the south coast, hired a boat and crew for really cheap and went snorkelling with the dolphins. For hours we played with them in the warm water, swimming amongst them and listening to their song – it was an unforgettable experience.
Back in Stone Town we ran into Paul the Austrian whom we had last seen in Mozambique, he now had big. fat, crusty dreadlocks. Dustin went off to Pemba (the island next door) with H for a honeymoon, I moved into Paul’s hotel down by the harbour. After a few days of guitar, philosophy and joints I took a night ferry back to Dar, was sea sick all night, landed in the dawn, took a taxi back to Changombe, woke Ellie through the window and climbed into bed, finished. For the weekend Ellie and I crossed the channel by ferry and went to a beach resort called Kipepaeo where we lived in luxury, swam in the sea and looked for shells. Back at the house Paul phoned in a state of panic. He had been negotiating for ages for a freight ship to Madagascar from Zanzibar in broken English and had succeeded in getting a small boat, which had now got as far as Dar to stock up on cargo. He was stuck on the boat in the harbour and after fighting the pirates for his own bed now had to contend with the rats. We all met at the TTC for the final between Arsenal and Barcelona – the Changombe house, Dustin and H who were now back in town at the YWCA and Paul, the mad Austrian. I managed to secure him a place on the couch for the night and he was most grateful. ‘Rats the size of cats, man’. He left for his boat the next day, head hanging and questioning his sanity. (I have since heard that he actually made it to Madagascar, the place of slow monkeys with human hands and then just in time for his flight home from Joberg).
After another lengthy stay in Changombe, Dustin and I finally left for Arusha and Jay, who was busy building a bush camp somewhere up there. After catching a strange bus we ended up miles off the tar road in a little village for the night. Hoping that the bus was leaving in the morning to resume the journey north we camped right next to it and cooked supper on the petrol stove in front of the whole village. Sick of the constant stares and laughter, which we were obviously the butt ends of, we lit a candle and bored them with a long game of chess. At 4 in the morning the engine started and we hastily broke camp, helped load up many beams of timbre and then hit the long windy gravel road at the end of which, the bus turned south. Off we jumped and went to find breakfast. Walked for a long time and then stopped to hitch. 5 minutes later we were in a fast car going north . Outside one village, we hit a goat at about 120 and, sitting on the back of the pickup we, watched it cart wheeling after us for a bit. Out here if you kill some ones livestock, you don’t stop and so on we sped, white knuckles on the rails. Got to Moshi and thankfully got off. 10 minutes later we were in a land rover, drinking beer with 2 American NGO’s and then we saw it, Kilimanjaro, a massive, snowy, hump-backed beast rising impossibly high off the plains. We were lucky they said, today’s a clear day – You have to be lucky when you are a hitchhiker.
They dropped us off at Masai Camp in Arushu and we set up our tents on the shady lawn where we met Neil, another crazy cyclist crossing the continent. Two days later we moved around the corner into a shed at the back of a locals home – much cheaper. Up the nearby mountain every day with Gina the one Masai Camp dog to get fit for Kili. Soon Jay rocked up – Mr Utility we called him, as he now had to wear a massive belt full of gadgets – part of being a professional hunter. He came with us up the mountain, we played soccer and we had a massive braai with Brett, who was also down. Then Jay had to head South past Dar, to start another bush camp. I made an offer: we work for you, you feed us. ‘OK sounds good, I’m sure it will be cool with the boss’ he said. Early the next morning the three of us were on a bus heading to Dar. Brett had dropped us off at the terminal but had left before we could say goodbye with the soccer ball and my umbrella. He had been mobbed by Africans all shouting ‘Mr Norris, Mr Norris!’ as he looks a bit like Chuck Norris and being a bit racist he had torn out of the car park scattering everyone.
By evening, after a torturous bus journey, we were back in Dar and after hopping in a taxi, got dropped off at a Catholic Hotel called, wait for it, Passionate Fathers. Jays boss had organised it for him and we sat under an umbrella outside drinking beer and making jokes about how he might survive the night. We left Jay and headed for the Changombe house. We met Jay at the spur 2 nights later for some good food followed by many drinks at the pub next door. Next day we got the phone call on Ellies phone:’Sorry guys, the deals off, no one else allowed on the game farm.’ Well that was that then.
Back north we went and after spending the night camped behind a restaurant ‘somewhere on the road’, we ended up in Moshi; a small town at the base of Kilimanjaro. We booked in at Hotel da Costa – the budget accommodation for people wishing to climb Kili. While at the bar drinking a beer and checking out our adversary looming above the clouds in the distance, we met Steve. Hey guys, do you think I have malaria? I feel a bit funny. Hey, are you from South Africa?’ I was wearing my Poffadder T- shirt. Steve was a bit of a worrier and from the Transvaal (no wonder); he was also a young game ranger, out on his own to broaden his horizons. The next day we walked out to the orphanage to give them some of Stevies clothes and other excess. Then we climbed a steep hill all day, never reaching the top and finding out later it was the base of Kili and we should have permits. We spent the next few days trying to find the cheapest company with whom to climb the mountain. Unfortunately the only way to climb the mountain is with guides and porters at a ridiculous cost. It’s the law and the only way in which new Africa makes money. After meeting the operators sparkling with jewellery and gold teeth we eventually met Angus from Crown eagle. It would cost us 770 dollars each, including tips, carrying our own gear and going the popular route – the best price by far. Now we had to get the money: no banks in Moshi, so it was off to Arusha 80 kms away to hit the banks for three days until we had enough cash – damn bank withdrawal limit. Stayed in the usual Masai camp, climbed the mountain everyday with Gina our trusty dog, the messed it all up in the pub every night. The Changombe crew arrived on our last night . Hitched back to Moshi on Sunday afternoon after the last bank robbery, just in time to sort out our gear before an early departure on Monday morning. Borrowed jackets, boots, balaclava and gloves from the crown eagle, had a last debriefing, met our guide Peter and then headed back to Da Costa for an early night. H had arrived and tried unsuccessfully to set me up with her friend.
Dustin stood red eyed and yawning in the morning – a victim of circumstance and his organs – while we loaded up the minibus with food and bags; the bulk of our stuff being stored at Da Costa. In the morning gloom we headed out to the base of the beast where we encountered the Kilimanjaro Circus hanging about at the entrance gate. Filled out forms, hummed and ahhed and all (guides, porters, cooks, Americans, Russians, Germans, little people and big people) milled about at the start – it was like some damb fun run or something. And they’re off – ten minutes down the path we let everyone pass and sat down with Peter, our guide, to smoke a joint. Trekked up hill (obviously – any down would have sparked immediate concern) all day along a well-trodden path through thick, dark, jungle, passed pretty waterfalls and numerous raving colubus and blue monkeys. By the evening we had passed everyone and were at the first base camp, 2700 metres above sea level. As usual I damaged myself on the first day, pulling my Achilles tendon – Kili would have to be climbed mainly with my left leg. It was cold and we all ate in a big A-frame bungalow, while the wind whistled through the cracks and different languages congregated under the ceiling. Before supper we had taken an extra walk further up the mountain to the rim of a small crater and so retired early to bed in our little 3 man A-frame. As I lay snug and warm in my sleeping bag I could feel the altitude, my heart beating a little faster and breathing through my mouth as the orifices in my nose proved inadequate for adequate oxygen intake.Next morning we cracked on our boots and headed to the mess hall for breakfast before hitting the super highway onwards. Soon the scenery changed, turning to skeletal, moss covered trees as we passed through the clouds and then settling to stunted bush, not unlike fynbos on Cape Town Mountains. This day we took it ‘pole –pole’ (poorly –poorly) which means ‘slowly-slowly’, it is best this way to acclimatise – not as if we could have actually gone any faster, it was getting harder to breathe. By evening we were puffing like run away steam trains as we stumbled into Horombo Camp at 3720 m. It was wreathed in hissing mist and felt like some World War One, bomb blasted, trench warfare site – it didn’t look much different either. People had quietened down quite a bit by this stage and were now firmly set into the grim business of climbing a mountain. Being South African, we were soon bored and so headed higher up for a view of the snow capped peak and a spliff. Things burn for twice as long at high altitude and joints really make you feel quite mad. Late evening we floated down through the howling mist to find our poor exasperated guide desperately searching for us to give us our food. We liked Peter, he was really a good guide, but we were sick of being mothered up a mountain and so we all had a good chat and he relaxed a bit and left us to our own devices – we became the ‘cheezy mzungos’ which means ‘crazy white men.' A huge full moon rose that night above the cloud layer that covered the surface dwellers down below like a blanket. It was truly beautiful and we 3 sat on a rock overlooking this spectacle of silent awe and knowing that this was exactly where we were all meant to be. Sleeping was a little harder that night.
The next day we slogged through the high altitude desert, the only living thing being crows at the lunch spot where we crouched behind boulders sheltering from the howling, cold wind. At 4500m altitude struck and pounding headaches set in. We stumbled into Kibo camp, exhausted and immediately lay down on our bunk beds, dead men. We managed to stumble to a frugal supper of soup and bread and then back to bed. Kibo is where all the different paths converge and everyone sleeps in one big hut with many rooms. It is like a funeral parlour, no one talks, no one leaves except to the toilet: it is freezing cold, the wind whistles through the bleak compound and people groan miserably like pitiful dying animals. There were 9 in our room; would have been 10 but he or she was carried past us on a stretcher on our approach, wrapped completely in a body bag. Dead or alive? Climbing this mountain had become a grim business. A Jap on the bed beneath me groaned all night; he was not going to make it; the Americans ate their oxygen pills, checked their heart rate monitors and worried; the Russian slept in his neon mummy bag. We were to wake at 12.30pm and leave at 1 – the last to leave; guides had been monitoring their people over the last days, checking speed and endurance and matching starting times for the summit accordingly. I slept with my boots on and all my clothes next to me, stuffed in my sleeping bag. Sleep was hard and fitful and by 11 impossible – everyone was kitting up and heading out, checking pulses and swallowing little pink pills. Sleep impossible, I went outside for a cigarette and a shit and watched the twinkling torches climb the mountain. At 1 we were off after biscuits and tea, one slow step at a time, following the feet in front like some dumb animal, breathing like a maniac and heart pumping like a machine gun. As usual we passed many groups, some people coming back down, beaten things, heads hung, focusing on the steep, slippery slope. For hours we carried on this numb mindless stepping, worming our way slowly up, Peter in front, setting the pace, an automated machine. Finally at 5700m we reached Gilmans Point, still in the dark but the sky lighting in the East gradually. We flung ourselves down and had a cigarette then left for the summit on a narrow, twisty path that bordered on a huge drop into a crater. Soon the headaches and nausea started; strange altitudinous thoughts crept into our brains on fluttering legs. The sun rose, a thin red line on the cloud horizon; it was beautiful, but beauty has no place in a numb mind with only one thought: top. We were in the snow field now, sharp jagged ice crystals underfoot, death drop to the side. I balanced carefully on my dizzy stick and fought my ragged mind. The dazzling way forward, lit by the sun, grinned its flashing white teeth at our torture. The ugly pimple of a summit appeared around a bend and we grinned right back. With the summit in sight it was easy and we reached the signboard with out realising how we had got there. I flung down my bag and stick, fell among the rocks and puked my guts out. Dustin, as usual, found it most amusing and took some pictures of me and breakfast. Then we posed and prostituted ourselves in front of the cameras for a short while, admired the spectacular view through glazed and bloodshot eyes, then headed down – you can’t stay long at 5896m at –16 degrees C for long. I vomited some more on the way down and really had to fight hard to get back to Kibo hut. We had to get out of the altitude as soon as possible, so after a forced bite to eat headed back to Horombo at 3700m. Got there like the dead gets to a funeral and then slept. Woke later feeling a little better, then headed to the eating hall for the war stories. We found out we were the only ones from our room to summit; one guy being picked up wondering the mountain and not knowing his own name.
The next day we walked back down through the jungle, laughing at those going up. By this stage my ankle was appropriately buggered and I was wearing Peters mouldy leather sandals. Got back to the gate, picked up our certificates, said our heartfelt thanks to Peter and the boys for excellent service, gave back the sandals and barefoot headed back to the hotel for Kilimanjaro beers all round. We made it up the mountain, but found it difficult returning downstairs to our rooms; knees locked in rigamortis.We recovered in Da Costa for many days. H had arrived again so I moved into a room with cheesy Steve, where we had much fun smoking pot with two French tandem cyclists who kept on getting bust by the funny manageress for smoking in their downstairs room. Eventually the 4 of us took over the hotel and had the staff in stitches with our crazy Swahili and even crazier antics. The 2 Frenchies had cycled down South America, crossed to Cape Town and were now ending prematurely at Nairobi due to the inevitable ending of money. They had a massive sun bleached set of horns mounted on the front of their bicycle as well as horns of the hooting variety mounted all over the place, and a trailer. They were clowns and crazy people and stopped to entertain schools and orphanages all along the way for free. It was the soccer world cup so we all watched many matches upstairs in the pub. Soon the Frenchies left, taking their crazy 2-man circus with them, the mobile freak show with horns. Then Steve left after trying unsuccessfully for ages. Soon Dusty and I left too, heading west, back to Arusha and Masai camp. After another bank robbery we headed north, the green giving way to brown as we hit the Kenyan border. A black market money deal, lunch with our lift and then over the border into a new country and new adventures. We had spent 3 months in Tanzania, staying to the very limit of our visa and having an unforgettable time learning a lot of Swahili and making some lasting friends.
The show must go on.
Timo
