So just a quick post really (which will probably be my last before coming home now)...
In case you hadn't heard, I made it to the rooftop of Africa! This week has been exhausting but never once not enjoyable. I have come back a truly changed person! Having now proved that I can do something as ridiculous as walk in extreme altitude I feel invigorated and ready for my next challenge! I was extremely lucky with not getting any major symptoms of AMS and for those who've worked as a medic - the doc had a SATS machine with him and generally speaking from about 3000m - peoples sats were dropping to 77/81. I am pleased to be able to say that mine were 94 on summit day and only 83 at the top. Go blood cells!!
The view from Gilmans Point was just absolutely breathtaking. At that altitude you can see the curvature of the earths atmosphere which again was absolutely breathtaking. The group got on so well and I met some really interesting characters...ultimate bonding of course occurs when a toilet visit becomes necessary and there aren't any bushes to hide behind...
As a group we managed to raise over £140,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care which is just absolutely fantastic as i'm sure you'll agree!
Tomorrow I head to Mombasa for some more adventures before flying home next Friday. So this will most probably be my last entry - which is surreal for me really. My time here has gone by so quickly and I have somehow managed to adjust to african life far too easily. It's now a home from home and I will sorely miss this place when I get back to the UK. However, my experiences here have opened up my eyes certainly and I feel like I am returning to the UK more confident and clued up/cynical than I was before...
Anyway, looking forward to seeing everybody again in just over a week. Let's hope it's not too cold...see how I cleverly missed winter and just jumped from autumn to summer??!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
AAHHHH
AAHHHH ok so here we go, just 24 hours until the big event... This time tomorrow and i'll be on a ridiculously small plane flying into Tanzania to meet the rest of the Marie Curie group from the UK.
Having spent a week being ridiculously nervous about it all I am now ridiculously excited and cannot WAIT to just get going - the anticipation is a bit boring just want to be out there walking/climbing/dying of exhaustion....
Other good news ... Have found out that the Mountain Inn (where the group will be based) has very VERY nice accommodation and comes complete with a swimming pool. SO if all else fails and I don't make it to the top - I can just sit by the pool for a week with several martini's and just pretend that I made it... ONLY JOKING I wouldn't do that now would I?!
Have packed up my rucksack and main bag and BOY have I got a lot of stuff just for a week.
Anyway, I will update in just over a week and I really really hope I am able to say 'hurrah I did it' and hopefully a monkey won't bite me and give me rabies....
Having spent a week being ridiculously nervous about it all I am now ridiculously excited and cannot WAIT to just get going - the anticipation is a bit boring just want to be out there walking/climbing/dying of exhaustion....
Other good news ... Have found out that the Mountain Inn (where the group will be based) has very VERY nice accommodation and comes complete with a swimming pool. SO if all else fails and I don't make it to the top - I can just sit by the pool for a week with several martini's and just pretend that I made it... ONLY JOKING I wouldn't do that now would I?!
Have packed up my rucksack and main bag and BOY have I got a lot of stuff just for a week.
Anyway, I will update in just over a week and I really really hope I am able to say 'hurrah I did it' and hopefully a monkey won't bite me and give me rabies....
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Waaa SO I have just got back from the Masai Mara.
It was a real experience I tell you! Not only did I manage to spot a huge pride of lions and about 4 different pairs/groups of cheetahs, but also managed to experience the interesting weather down there.
I was staying right on the top of what is called the Sira Escarpment. It is a huge range of small mountains/large hills at 1850m and runs north to south parallel with the Mara river. As such, we had spectacular views out across the mara/serengeti and the noise of the river and the rapids was just like being at the ocean. There has been so much rainfull (in what is meant to be the dry season) that the river is really very full. This is not good news for people going to the Mara in the next few months as the heavy monsoon rains come in march and added to therains of this season I worry that what I saw will only get worse.
It was rainy ish on our first day, and we drove through thick mud in the 4x4 landcruisers to get up to the camp from the airstrip which is in the reserve. We were delayed in our first game drive - it is against the 'rules' now to drive in the park whilst it is raining. However we were quickly underway etc and we didn't actually enter through the park gate. The road from the gate we would go through (oloololo gate) was shut due to the mud. We very quiickly found out why they shut this road only 24 hours later... Anyway despite not being physically IN the reserve, we saw lots of cheetahs. I guess bceause tehre is no boundary around the park so the animals can go where ever they want! We saw two males hunting some warthogs but in hyena territory, so the hyenas proceeded to attack the cheetahs (somethign the guides said was unheard of). Then we saw hiding in the grass three 10 month old cubs whose mother had been killed last week. They were doing well and looked full from a recent kill. It was so amazing to see the animals in their natural habitat. Despite often feeling like a zoo with 8 safari trucks cramped round any one animal, it was still refreshing to see them roaming around rather than in a cage somewhere.
I am a huge big cat fan and was desperate to see some lions(having been to other national parks where there are lions and seennone). Kenya is synonymous for its lions and the idea of coming home without seeing any was SO DEPRESSING! So the next day we set off on a long afternoon game drive - where we went through the oloololo gate and into the park. (having watched big cat diary so religiously I knew that the lions would be the other side of the river and that would take a while to get there from our tented camp). We made it through on a glorious sunny day - and most of the mud was soon dried up in the heat of the day. We saw the usual, huge herds of elephants right by the car and all the plains game etc. But NO LIONS. I had literally just given up (having spent 3 hours saying WHATS THAT and then ebing told it was a warthog or antelope and nto a lion) when I did it again thinking it was sand but thougth I had better check. And there they were, two male lions from the Marsh pride one of them being the alpha male. We got so close, and they were so happy asleep lazily on the floor. We turned to leave and again saw a big pride of females - perhaps 4 older females and 5 or 6 teenage cubs with their manes just starting to grow.
So exciting. ANYAWY our seriously amazing driver Ibrahim (these guys can get out of anything I just don't know how they do it!) thought we should head back as we were 2 hours away from camp and the sky had turned so amazingly black. We drove through grass tracks to avoid the roads (which with only 5 minutes of drizzle had turned to slush again) but we quickly realised we had to rejoin the road again where the grass turned into swamp land. It was as we did this manouevre that the vehicle lurched dramatically onto its right and I geniunly thought it would tip over!! We were stuck. In the drizzle in the mara. But hey people get stuck all the time right? Not in the Black cotton soil they don't. It is infamous for its ability to make vehicles stuck. It is really really sticky but also very slippery at the same time. We had to get out of the car whilst Ibrahim revved the engine like MAD (made a video) driving forwards and backwards carving upa trench just trying to release the wheel that was stuck down in the mud. Once you're stuck in certain tracks it is so difficult to get released from them again. Anyway after about 15 minutes of constant reversing and accelerating the car was finally free and steadily made the 150m drive where the black cotton soil ended and the 'normal' mud/earth began. So we then had to walk to the vehicle, it was only then that we saw a lion on the other side of the road (talk about irony - spending so much time searching for them and here was one on the bloody side of the road looking very hungry and licking her lips claerly out hunting)
Anyway we made it, and had to endure the very tough 2 hour journey back to camp. There were many other situations where we could have got stuck again - and with hindsight I see now that if we were in any other smaller vehicle something really dangerous could have happened the road conditions were really that bad. The real worry was coming to cross the river. The 'bridge' was really just a small level of earth placed over the top of the river and had there been a downpour and the bridge had flooded we would have had to camp it out in the car overnight. eek. anyway we were fine and eventually got back to camp, and it was an erm...adventure...but not one i'd necessarily like to repeat!
Made all the worth while obviously by the sightings of lions and cheetahs. I got some really excellent pictures, although I saw a leapord in the early morning but was without camera. Almost more enjoyable to just watch the animals rather than get snap happy. I think I did both in equal quantities lol.
4 weeks yesterday until I get home which is not that long. Everything will rush by I can just tell. It seems only yesterday that I was in Chagaik having the difficulties I had. And now I find myself running out of time to do things! The masai market on a friday for example - My last chance to visit it will be next friday as every other friday I am either up a mountain, down at the coast, or on a lpane home! It'sno t a bad life really!!
It was a real experience I tell you! Not only did I manage to spot a huge pride of lions and about 4 different pairs/groups of cheetahs, but also managed to experience the interesting weather down there.
I was staying right on the top of what is called the Sira Escarpment. It is a huge range of small mountains/large hills at 1850m and runs north to south parallel with the Mara river. As such, we had spectacular views out across the mara/serengeti and the noise of the river and the rapids was just like being at the ocean. There has been so much rainfull (in what is meant to be the dry season) that the river is really very full. This is not good news for people going to the Mara in the next few months as the heavy monsoon rains come in march and added to therains of this season I worry that what I saw will only get worse.
It was rainy ish on our first day, and we drove through thick mud in the 4x4 landcruisers to get up to the camp from the airstrip which is in the reserve. We were delayed in our first game drive - it is against the 'rules' now to drive in the park whilst it is raining. However we were quickly underway etc and we didn't actually enter through the park gate. The road from the gate we would go through (oloololo gate) was shut due to the mud. We very quiickly found out why they shut this road only 24 hours later... Anyway despite not being physically IN the reserve, we saw lots of cheetahs. I guess bceause tehre is no boundary around the park so the animals can go where ever they want! We saw two males hunting some warthogs but in hyena territory, so the hyenas proceeded to attack the cheetahs (somethign the guides said was unheard of). Then we saw hiding in the grass three 10 month old cubs whose mother had been killed last week. They were doing well and looked full from a recent kill. It was so amazing to see the animals in their natural habitat. Despite often feeling like a zoo with 8 safari trucks cramped round any one animal, it was still refreshing to see them roaming around rather than in a cage somewhere.
I am a huge big cat fan and was desperate to see some lions(having been to other national parks where there are lions and seennone). Kenya is synonymous for its lions and the idea of coming home without seeing any was SO DEPRESSING! So the next day we set off on a long afternoon game drive - where we went through the oloololo gate and into the park. (having watched big cat diary so religiously I knew that the lions would be the other side of the river and that would take a while to get there from our tented camp). We made it through on a glorious sunny day - and most of the mud was soon dried up in the heat of the day. We saw the usual, huge herds of elephants right by the car and all the plains game etc. But NO LIONS. I had literally just given up (having spent 3 hours saying WHATS THAT and then ebing told it was a warthog or antelope and nto a lion) when I did it again thinking it was sand but thougth I had better check. And there they were, two male lions from the Marsh pride one of them being the alpha male. We got so close, and they were so happy asleep lazily on the floor. We turned to leave and again saw a big pride of females - perhaps 4 older females and 5 or 6 teenage cubs with their manes just starting to grow.
So exciting. ANYAWY our seriously amazing driver Ibrahim (these guys can get out of anything I just don't know how they do it!) thought we should head back as we were 2 hours away from camp and the sky had turned so amazingly black. We drove through grass tracks to avoid the roads (which with only 5 minutes of drizzle had turned to slush again) but we quickly realised we had to rejoin the road again where the grass turned into swamp land. It was as we did this manouevre that the vehicle lurched dramatically onto its right and I geniunly thought it would tip over!! We were stuck. In the drizzle in the mara. But hey people get stuck all the time right? Not in the Black cotton soil they don't. It is infamous for its ability to make vehicles stuck. It is really really sticky but also very slippery at the same time. We had to get out of the car whilst Ibrahim revved the engine like MAD (made a video) driving forwards and backwards carving upa trench just trying to release the wheel that was stuck down in the mud. Once you're stuck in certain tracks it is so difficult to get released from them again. Anyway after about 15 minutes of constant reversing and accelerating the car was finally free and steadily made the 150m drive where the black cotton soil ended and the 'normal' mud/earth began. So we then had to walk to the vehicle, it was only then that we saw a lion on the other side of the road (talk about irony - spending so much time searching for them and here was one on the bloody side of the road looking very hungry and licking her lips claerly out hunting)
Anyway we made it, and had to endure the very tough 2 hour journey back to camp. There were many other situations where we could have got stuck again - and with hindsight I see now that if we were in any other smaller vehicle something really dangerous could have happened the road conditions were really that bad. The real worry was coming to cross the river. The 'bridge' was really just a small level of earth placed over the top of the river and had there been a downpour and the bridge had flooded we would have had to camp it out in the car overnight. eek. anyway we were fine and eventually got back to camp, and it was an erm...adventure...but not one i'd necessarily like to repeat!
Made all the worth while obviously by the sightings of lions and cheetahs. I got some really excellent pictures, although I saw a leapord in the early morning but was without camera. Almost more enjoyable to just watch the animals rather than get snap happy. I think I did both in equal quantities lol.
4 weeks yesterday until I get home which is not that long. Everything will rush by I can just tell. It seems only yesterday that I was in Chagaik having the difficulties I had. And now I find myself running out of time to do things! The masai market on a friday for example - My last chance to visit it will be next friday as every other friday I am either up a mountain, down at the coast, or on a lpane home! It'sno t a bad life really!!
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