Zambarau

Having waited through the customary pandemic delays, I'm finally off to work on Kilimanjaro. I'm a medical officer covering 3 groups of students climbing Kili for various charities. With so long to prepare, obviously I'm about as unprepared as I could be....
Fortunately Helen was there to kick me out of bed at 03.15 and I was through Schipol by 10. Unfortunately my bags weren't....
Further excitement was provided by a " medical emergency " somewhere down the front of the plane. Unfortunately I'd made the mistake of advising my evangelical middle American seat neighbours my medical role on Kili so when the inevitable " is there a doctor on board?" Query came over the tannoy I ( they) felt I should respond. Fortunately by the time I arrived on scene there was a queue of American docs in front of me shouting instructions "order a cbc and a chem 7!" Etc so I left them to it.
I never got to know the cause of concern but it was serious enough for us to do a u- turn over northern Sudan and head to Tel Aviv to drop her off. Hopefully she got her chem 7 and is making a speedy recovery.
So inevitably we accrued significant delays and arrived at Kilimanjaro international airport around 11pm when most staff were somewhat sleepy - although I imagine this would have been no different in the middle of the day.
Here I discovered my bag was no longer with me, as for about 40 other travellers, so after the long queues for passports I joined the queue for missing baggage registration ( surprisingly organised) before a hour long transfer across dusty empty streets to my hotel.
It felt like id hardly been in my bed before I was up for my breakfast and then introduced to 101 staff of the hotel the Tanzanian trekking agency. No chance of remembering faces let alone names so it's "Jambo Jambo" to everyone from now on! One exception is Rajab who will shadow me for the next few days and by my personal guide on the mountain. Although not built like a mountain guide, his infectious smile and " kuna matata" and " piece of cake" is very endearing.
The only significant job I had to do was restock the medical bag. A morning sifting through out of date dressings and medical paraphernalia wondering whether it's appropriate to have the same expectations of respecting ( outrageously short) use by dates in a country where many don't have running water.
Decisions on out of date medications were easier to make as virtually all the medication( in fact all but penthrox) was suspiciously missing!
So a trip into Moshi was required to watch the pharmacists jaw drop with the long list of medications required...great to get out though, if only to suddenly jolt me into awareness that I am now very much in Africa- with all its colours, noises and smells.
There's also an unnaturally large mountain at the end of the road: Kilimanjaro.Read more