Travels through Africa: Camping in Tanzania

Ian and I joined the Kilimanjaro Mountain Climbing Club, and have been camping with them for the last 3 month. Now, now, before you start thinking that we are climbing Mt Kili every weekend, let me clarify.

Kili is great to look at, and Ian hopes and prays that I may slip up and say lets climb it, but I'm not setting 1 foot on that mountain... it's HIGH and takes 7 days to climb!!!

Mt Kilimanjaro

Kibo peak of the mountain

Instead we have been camping around the mountain, which is more my style, at least once a month with an eclectic group of people. Basically you never know who will show up for the trip, all kids or all old people, but we usually have fun anyway.

For the first trip we camped overnight at a flower farm.
Not far from where we camped there was a swamp of papyrus rushes and we were told there's an anaconda that lives there so not to head in that direction.. so where did we take our first hike to?? You guessed it... the swamp, looking for the HUGE snake!! Needless to say we didn't find it which was a bit of a disappointment to us but we did have some really cool views of the mountain, and saw really pretty flowers grown in Africa for export to Europe because of the longer growing season, and even chocho, a tasteless vine veggie that grows in Jamaica and mom puts in our soup all the time.

flowers grown in Africa for export to Europe

flowers grown in Africa for export to Europe.

tasteless chocho

in the papyrus swamp searching for the anaconda

For our next camping trip we headed to a lodge on the side of Kili were we were able to pitch our tent on their grounds.
As we drove with friends up the winding road to get to our campsite the splendor of Mt Kili's Kibo peak, the one you think of when you picture Kilimanjaro, and the Mwenzi peak were starkly laid out in front of us. Ian remarked how much Mwenzi looked like an evil villain's lair from the comic books. You could see all the crags and jutting of the peak.Later on we were told that you had to have a special permit to climb the Mwenzi peak as many accidents take place there.
We went on a 5 kilometer hike up to the first gate of the National Park and and it was great to watch Kibo seemingly getting closer as it loomed over us. To our delight we also saw Collabus monkeys in the trees overhead. Ian described them as tree skunks as they have the same broad body shape and the black fur with white stripe running up the back as skunks do.
As we were on the grounds of a lodge we ate at the restaurant, which was great for me, as I didn't have to worry about not having a camping cooker. We are avid campers, camping several times in the summer when we lived in the US so we were well equipped but here we are so unprepared.
That night Ian and I both had weird dreams of running out of time and we attributed it to the evil villains lair looming over us as we slept, Mwenzi!

Mwenzi peak of Kilimanjaro in the background

Ian trudging up to the gate of the Kilimanjaro National Park

Kibo Peak of Mt Kilimanjaro in the background

For our most recent camping trip we headed away from Kilmanjaro and headed closer to the Serengeti. to met with Ben the volcanologist and climb Essimongor Volcano near Mkauyuni, the oldest volcano in Tanzania to get a peek in the hole.
WAY COOL!!!
On the way to the camp site we encountered zebra's and could hear the bellowing of buffalo's.
We camped on the rocky side of the dormant volcano grilling half a side of goat to share with our camp mates and had a fearless Massai warrior standing guard in case we got invaded by buffalo's or other wild animals!!
This trip had a lot more of the younger crowd so it was party till pretty late before hitting the tent so we could be up and climbing our mountain early the next morning .
As its rainy season, I had a rude awakening in the middle of the night when it started raining and the tent started to flood. This lead to a flurry of activity with Shabani and I in the rain trying to secure the tent, and do something as it was leaking everywhere. In the end we were soaked, laughing and huddling in the middle of the tent to wait out the rain. Ian's tent on the other hand had no problems and he slept like a baby through it all.
The next morning, we had a really cool lecture about the mountain range in Tanzania and were told that all the hills we see going in a line were vents to Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru, the 2 volcano's in the region. It was all very informative. At the top of the climb there were giraffes and buffalo's could be seen off in the distance. The Massai pointed out a lion but I couldn't see it hiding in the grass.. needless to say, we stuck pretty close to him after that.
All in all some really good over nights in the bush!