The electricity is back so here is part 2 of our adventure in northern Tanzania

May 26th

Long day ahead....started at 7 am slowly slowly (pole pole) ascending first to 4400 m ASL to the Lava junction. Easier then we anticipated and therefore we could continue on to 4600 m ASL to the foot of the Lava Tower for some lunch and relaxation. Jessika had a bit of a headache but not even close to what was to come. Lava Tower is a beautiful creation from a vulcanic eruption a couple of trillion years ago and its peak was not reachable without climbing gear. After feeding the mountain mice we started descending to our camp for the night, Barranco campsite at 3940 m ASL. Almost immediately after arriving both of us got serious headaches and we were forced to drink as much as possible and eat even more in order to get energy enough. We were seriously worried that the rest of our hike was going to be spent in serious pain as we had heard and read numerous times during our preperation.

May 27th

However, after a good meal and a good nights sleep we were releived to wake up without pain and ready to start climbing "the breakfast wall" or "Barranco wall". The wall appeared to be more or less vertical and very high from a distance but apart from a few places that was really steep we managed just fine. Our guides, Paul and Aron, wanted us to go directly up to Barafu Camp at 4600 m ASL instead of Karanga Valley camp at 4100 m ASL but since we figured we would need all the energy we could muster we heavily insisted on proceeding as originally planned. The Karanga Valley campsite was a very misty place where we had our tent in a 30 degree slope, making it a true challange to get back from a toilet visit. A walk of approx 50 m was truly breathtaking at this altitude. At this point we were

starting to feel the effects of high altidude, however, nothing as bad as what we thought we would feel. Another problem was the food, at this point we started to see a pattern...every morning started with porridge that got more and more runny every day, to that we were served some white toasts that got more and more dry every day together with an omelette which got more and more seasoned every day in order to disguise the freshness of the eggs. We also got a sausage which tasted fine the first days, but how did they manage to keep the meat fresh without a refrigerator or cool box? Some questions you just shouldn't ask, and we didn't but we ate it and pretended it was a fresh german Bratwurst mit Ketchup made from real tomatoes. We also hade some questions about the dinners, since most of them included meat aswell.

The afternoon and evening was really misty and cold since the sun couldn't break through...it is amazing the difference the sun makes. At night it is frosty and -2 but as soon as the sun manageges to break through it is 15 degrees and really pleasent!

May 28th

Short breakfast as usual before ascending up to Barafu Camp at 4600 m ASL. Pole pole was a signmark as we hiked through the dessert of flaked vulcanic rocks. Appearantly Mt Kilimanjaro has three peaks, shira Peak 3962 m ASL, Mawenzi Peak 5149 m ASL and Uhuru Peak 5895 m ASL and during our hike to Barafu Camp you could see both Shira and Mawenzi simultaniously. We reached camp around noon and the rest of the day consisted of resting and recharging batteries for the ascend to the summit. If we were nervous the first day, that was nothing in comparison with what we were now...Emil had a really bad stomach and couldn't sleep at all that evening...Jessika managed to sleep allthough she was (as usual) totally consumed by her books. When she finally put the book down she started to snore like crasy, a true sign of high altidude. Mixed with the nerves, we felt quite proud of ourselves. We managed to get this far without any serious side effects and we were both pretty positive that we would reach our goal later that night.

May 29th

The alarm went off at 23.00 (on the 28th of May) and we had some tea and biscuits. Our guides had told us to be ready for departure at 23.45 and dressed in all the clothes we had. In complete darkness, with only the stars and our head torches to guide us, we started the ascend right on time. We were wearing long johns, wind trousers and top layer and still it was cold as hell for the legs. On the upper body we had even more layers, and we can now tell you that the myth is true...Merino wool keep you pretty warm and relatively odor free even in wet conditions. Apart from the Merino wool we had 3 layers and at least Jessika would have needed even more.

The first part was really tricky with steep ascending on rocks that appeared to be really slippery in the cold. We were instructed not to rest more than 5 minutes every hour due to the cold weather but waited until 1,5 hour for our first stop. We had brought 18 energy bars from Lidl for this night only but soon realized that this was way to much to force yourself to eat on high altitude. Our guides were happy enough to help us consume them however.The first stop was not too bad but when we started to walk pole pole again Jessika suffered from nausea and was from now on demonstrating a mind control historically to be compared only with Mahatma Gandhi's food strike and the Swedish fruit drink MER's refusal to carbonate.It started to get heavier and heavier by the minute and we were not happy to realize that we only gained 400 m in altitude the first 3 hours of the hike.During this time it was really a good thing that we were walking in darkness, hence we couldn't see how steep and far it really was to go. The first goal for the hike is Stella Point at approx 5750 m ASL, to where you have to hike a really STEEP wall of gravel. It takes for ever and you must focus on the feet of the person in front of you in order to find something meditative to focus on. Emil had the song "the Kill" by 30 seconds to Mars on his mind and still felt relatively fresh. Right, left, right, left, right, left for another hour and all of a sudden we got a messaged that we were both longing for…only 45 minutes left to Stella point. Jessika still felt bad and every time we stopped over she demonstrated her mind control skills. Energy bars anyone? I don't think so!Pole pole, right, left, right, left, right, left and finally there in the darkness we saw the rim…..could there really be an end of the wall?? To our delight, the weather was getting better by the minute…there was now a snowstorm and approx -10 degrees….everything turned into ice, all clothes, our backpacks were covered. Emils watch couldn't handle it and stopped at 4.35…covered with frost. After 10 minutes break at Stella Point we continued towards Uhuru Peak. We had heard rumors of people giving up at Stella Point but this was actually going to be the easiest part of the night. Not to steep and not to far, a good combination. The only thing was the weather conditions which were not optimal as we couldn't get the view that is available under good conditions….ice cold, snowy and 1,2 meters clear view is our memory of the summit. At 5.45 we finally reached our goal and we were celebrating this with our guides . Some mandatory photos of the Uhuru Peak sign and some "Kilimanjaro - hakuna matata" song that we sort of learned the day before.

It is funny how demotivating it is to reach your goal and realize that you still have to get down using your own body. When we started our hike back to Stella Point the sun was on its way up and we had some amazing views of the glaciers captured on photo. By the time we reached Stella the surrounding valleys seemed to be on fire and we started to realize exactly how steep the wall had actually been.The descending part of this morning was not a happy one since it hurts your feet and knees really bad. After 3 hours we were back to Barafu Camp for some breakfast/lunch before it was time to descend even further down to Mweka Camp at 3000 m ASL. There we spend the last night and were also introduced to the new fares of tipping for the first time. Our guide Paul came to our dinner tent and asked us about what we planned to tip. We told him that we intended to tip in accordance with the guidelines in our guidebook but according to him that was way too low! Our 5 USD per person per day rapidly turned to a lot more! L

May 30th

Really early breakfast as we were really eager to get back to the city for a shower and a well deserved Kilimanjaro Lager Beer. We reached the Mweka gate after 3 hours descending through the rain forest, accompanied by the sound of monkeys (a first introduction to what was to come). After a short wait for the car to be loaded we went for our hostel with a short stop at the ATM to get some tipping money.

May 31st

First day of our safari. 3 national parks in 4 days with a lot of "djur som man far klappa." The first day we went to Lake Manyara, really beautiful place where we spotted some baboons, elephants, wildbeasts, hippos, impalas and some americans. We also spotted 11347 of the really rare "that could have been a leopard but turned out to be another branch"....

June 1st

After breakfast at the Twiga Lodge we had a 5 hours drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area all the way to Serengethi. On the way we visited a traditional masai village for some foxy dancing and jumping. Anyway, after spending a fortune on traditional crafts, we continued to Serengethi and had a really nice game drive with hyenas, wildbeasts, hippos and some sleeping lions in a tree!!

June 2nd

Early game drive in Serengethi. The first hour we were following a dutch bird watching couples that were really annoying but we finally managed to pass them. Who would go to Africa to take photos of sparrows? Soon thereafter we found a golden field full of lions. Among these, 3 baby lions playing with each other and some branches. After lunch we went back to Ngorongoro Crater and spotted a male lion sleeping 10 meters from the road.

June 3rd

Last day and we started with an early game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater. Such a beautiful place! Almost immediately we had a female cheetah next to our car and before the day was over we had spotted some jackals, eating lions, drinking elephants, fighting wildbeasts, pumbas enjoying themselves in a threesome and finally a most boring black rhino. No Leopards which means that we spotted 4 of the big 5 but we will do our best to turn one of the branches into a Leopard. (Photoshop)

Up until this point, it's been a quite intense trip why we decided to take the first bus the following morning to Dar and then straight over to Zanzibar with the last ferry. This day we travelled from 5.30 to 21.00 and we were exhausted when we finally met up with our new Swedish friends Lilly, Tessan and Kattis.

Since then we've been hanging in Nungwi doing nothing but going to the beach, reading and other lazy things. After a couple of days Camilla, Daniel and Johanna arrived and we will soon update you with more details from full moon parties, crazy Danes, a Nazi from Israel and much more.