Machame Mashariki

Another day in Moshi gave me time to realise that all the drugs ordered were not necessary as there was a box full of kit in the possession of a mysterious guy called Lodrick. We managed to track Lodrick's mate down to a town 2 hours away via various frantic messages with the previous expedition doctor in his bed somewhere in Australia. One half of me remains frustrated with the African lugubrious inefficiency but amazed by the ability to fix the problem any time of day or night. Cue frantic last minute meds stock taking , packing, repacking etc.
My group of 30+ students from Ireland arrived late that evening, startled and bedraggled, after an epic journey from Dublin via a 9 hour bus trip from Dar es Salaam. And that's their journey just beginning ..

The following morning another bus journey ( albeit brief) took us to the road end at Machame gate and the prolonged process of allocating porters to our group and to their loads. They have a strict 15kg/ porter load rule that seemed to be widely ignored once on the hill. Each client will have , on average 3-4 porters/ guides each carrying water, food, tents, mess tents, chairs tables, personal kit and if you pay extra (or are a doctor...) you're own private portaloo. Whilst this was ongoing we were entertained by some cheeky monkeys ( blue) and then queued through the registers that had to be signed and bags that needed to be checked. A group of 30+ takes quite a long time to process.... let's say it wasn't a huge surprise that we arrived at our first camp in the dark...
The first days walk was a relatively straightforward 1000m climb through the rain forest in overcast and cool conditions. The greenery loooked remarkably unexotic, barring lots of lianas, and was bizzarly silent ( apart from the excited craic of 30 Irish students!) I guess those to facts might be connected🤔Read more