The filthy busride from Nairobi to Arusha - 6/13/2009

6/13/2009
We left the Fairview hotel in Nairobi today at 7:30am for our trip to Arusha, where we would stay the night before starting our climb. The Fairview hotel was a wonderful hotel – Kim and I even got room service when we got there late in the night. The bus was pretty nice – nicer than we expected. Then again, we thought we had the whole bus to ourselves, and we were wrong. We drove into town where we picked up about 10 other Americans and they moved all the luggage to the roof. The drive was long – there was road construction on about 30% of the roads we drove on, so we couldn’t get going very quickly. It wasn’t air conditioned, so we kept the windows open, but then when we went through the construction parts, the dirt was blinding.
Once we hit Tanzania, we had to get out to get our passports stamped for leaving Kenya, then we had to purchase a Tanzanian Visa. You walk about 200 meters from one post to another. In that time, we were harassed a bit and one guy managed to almost steal my Ipod. Alannah caught him, I had absolutely no clue.
When we got to the Visa area, it was completely jammed with people. It must be the time of day when all the tour buses from Nairobi that leave at 8am hit there, it was clearly the once-a-day rush. We waited in line for about an hour, then paid $100 for our Visa, showed them our Yellow Fever card, and then they took our passports. We waited about 15 minutes as they disappeared with our passports. When they returned they just yelled ‘Americans?’ we rushed over, took our passports and headed out. The hour + process resulted in the most ghetto Visa I have ever seen – a stamp, with ‘$100 paid USD Visa Multiple entry’ written next to it. Like, just writing was the Visa.


The rest of the ride was pretty uncomfortable. The roads were under construction and dirty – when we finally got to Arusha (around 3pm), we could wipe the filth off every part of our bodies.
Once in Arusha, we proceeded to our hotel, the Jacaramba, got our rooms, and then met our guide and assistant guide for a debrief. He went over the daily itinerary, what we still needed in terms of equipment and gear, and what to expect. They were very by the book. I had read that I could just hike in my running shoes up until it got really cold (like the 4th day), but they insisted I had to hike in my hiking shoes. I resisted a little and everyone knew I would do what I wanted anyway. Then, Stacy, the owner of Duma, the venture company, came and talked to us. She was a white woman, probably mid to late 30s, who started Duma Explorer 9 years ago with her husband, who’s Tanzanian. She’s originally from Texas, but clearly fell in love with a man and decided to make a life here. I asked her the same question about my running shoes and she said I could totally wear my shoes up until the summit day (which is what she does). Yes!
After the debrief, the assistant guide came and checked my gear. I was all good. He was concerned about my hiking boots, though, since they weren’t really boots. But they should be fine. I wanted to wear my running shoes for the first few days, but the guides said that was a no-go. When Stacy arrived, she said that was totally fine. I pretty much want to wear running shoes and shorts for as much of the hike as possible. I realized that I may or may not have sent Stacy my information card (unclear). She only seemed moderately aware that I was a vegetarian, and I clearly was not listed for any rentals (definitely need the sleeping bag and poles). We scheduled to meet in the morning at 9am. Bea was still waiting for her bag to arrive. Through “networking” she managed to get two girls who did the leadership venture to leave her a bag of their hiking stuff so she didn’t have to bring anything (I think she was already traveling when she decided to join us). Amazing.
We had dinner at the hotel in different shifts . As I was eating my salad, I was reminded that the vegetables are washed with the water and that I would probably get sick. Awesome!
I’m excited to get this started. Tomorrow, we hike 18 KM and increase our elevation from 1,250M to 3,000M.