Kilimanjaro Part 1

August 19 and 20, 2009 (Day 1 and 2)

Got on a plane at JFK, clean, and wearing relatively normal clothes. The three women, Anita, the interior architect (part-time New Yorker, part-time Phoenix-ite?), Lisa, wine-rep and blender extraordinaire (Phoenix), and myself, actor (New York). RJ, thank god, has transferred some lovely Cabernet into unbreakable plastic bottles and stowed them in Lisa’s already bulging duffel. We will be singing his praises on the mountain for this.

Fly to Amsterdam, bloody marys and omelets, and then back on the plane for a direct flight to Kilimanjaro airport, just outside of Arusha, Tanzania. Along the way a lovely KLM flight attendant, Marishka, adds to our wine stash by giving us a few extra airline bottles for a toast at the summit, bless her too (the wine is not as good as RJ’s but at 15,000 feet we’re not picky—it’s cold up there).

We land at Kilimanjaro at about 8 pm, their time, it’s 77 degrees and lovely. Our safari guide, and sort-of overall caretaker, Mike Taylor, picks us up and drives us to our hotel for the night, accompanied by his youngest son, Junior. Mike is a half Scotch, half Chagga gentleman in his late 50s/early 60s with a shock of white hair, easy smile and vast knowledge. Junior is him at age 9, exactly. Along the way we practice the Swahili we’ve been learning in a word-of-the-day challenge from Anita started a couple of months before departure. We already know chupa la mvinyo (bottle of wine) and glasi ya mvinyo, but Mike adds the helpful phrases to our repertoire of ‘I’m a little drunk’, ‘I’m very drunk’ and ‘I don’t understand.’

He gets us settled at the Mountain Village Lodge, by all appearances a beautiful hotel, although we soon discover the internet is sketchy, the toilets rarely flush, and the food is so-so at best. We also learn one of our first African lessons here. Upon stepping out of the Land Rover, all of our bags our taken from us and delivered where they need to go. We will learn that we are not allowed to do anything for ourselves in this country, it may be chivalry, but I suspect that it has far more to do with the expected tip. You cannot try to carry your own luggage anywhere, ever, or wine, or books, or anything really. At any rate, Mike tells us he’ll pick us up in the morning with our Kilimanjaro guide, Nelson, and off we go.

We repack. Everything not needed for Kili will be left behind at the hotel so a poor unsuspecting porter doesn’t have to carry it up a mountain. Anything going with us is shoved, pushed and prodded into one large duffel or our small Camelback daypacks. Our wine is somehow shoved into crevices, along with clothes, gear, Rollo’s, taffy, and a lot of protein bars. Then to bed. Kilimanjaro in the morning.

Photos: Junior, Mike's son. Amy, Lisa, and Anita at JFK.