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Published: January 7th 2009
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The journey really began the night before at a little place called Khan’s BBQ. New Years Eve has become a date to drown out the year before with massive quantities of food, alcohol and merriments and then bring in the new year with howls and good friends- and it is no different in Tanzania. So we chose Khan’s as our first stop to check off our New Years Eve list. Khan’s is an auto sales and repair shop by day and a BBQ place by night. With a large spread of every kind of meat on a stick you would ever want smothered with ‘special’ sauce and roasting on the street- accompanied by bowl after bowl of ‘salad’ (cabbage and carrot soaking in different curry sauces- all pretty much the same consistency but some with a little more kick and color than others). It was all quite delicious and we stuffed ourselves before walking to the bars. The bar/dance club was very lively, playing a mix of Tanzania and Arabic hip/hop alongside old school American classics like ‘YMCA’ and ‘I like to move it move it’. I introduced my new friends to the Irish car bomb and we washed it
down with some not so good Tanzanian beer- a great time. In an open courtyard everyone danced the night away under the stars and brought in the new year while howling at the moon- all of this with little thought of our big plans for the next day, the Mt. Meru Trek.
Needless to say we were a bit slow moving on New Years day, but we rallied and made it onto the bus to the trailhead. We were all holding our stomachs a bit on the hot and bumpy bus ride- it was making me even more nauseas to think about how the ‘E-mergency’ packets I was downing could possibly be mixing with left over Khan’s BBQ and alcohol that was still in my stomach. All I could picture in my head was the science experiment in fifth grade where you mix baking soda and vinegar- enough said.
We made it to the first hut and were more than excited to hit the sack and be re-born again in the morning. The next day we passed through lush forest and amazing vistas, feeling a bit more refreshed we were able to soak up our surroundings a bit
better. Our mission for the evening was to go to bed early- but of course it was a freezing night and some loud French Canadians were in the next room over. After our ‘nap’ we woke up at a quarter past midnight and crawled out of bed, putting on every article of clothing I brought with me with my extra socks on my hands I rubbed my eyes and willed my body to warm up and my stomach to settle (Not sure if Khan’s was still haunting me or if it was the altitude). After some instant oatmeal we sleepily followed our guide leading us into the dark and steep unknown under an amazingly starry sky. The hike was a mix of sandy ash which was two steps forward and one step back pace, and a kind of eerie scramble on rocks with a black vast unknown on one side. When we stopped we couldn’t stop for too long because we would either freeze or fall asleep- so we trudged ahead slowly for five hours and watched the stars begin to disappear and the black and white background show hints of morning blue, we were approaching the summit. At 6
am we summited Mt. Meru at 4,580 m- It was absolutely spectacular. We sat on the jagged rocks and welcomed the sun~ Huddled together we were all in awe at the orange and reds penetrating the cold blues of the sky - with Mt. Kiliminjaro in the background we could not have asked for a more picturesque sunrise.
We started to make our way off of the mountain and began to realize that the sparkly rocks were actually frost covered and that if we had seen the summit on the way up, we may have thought twice about continuing on (probably one of their tactics in the whole one am trek thing). We made it back down to the hut for a much welcomed siesta44 and then packed up once again and headed all the way down to the gate and back to town- A very very long day…. But well worth every cold nose, nauseas stomach and sore muscle.
We even got a certificate at the end☺
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Andy Jones
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Wow!
Happy New Year Ari! Thanks so much for sharing your New Year's celebrations at Khan's (proving that people do and love to party every where on this amazing planet). The trek to Mt. Meru sounds utterly magical, and I can only imagine sitting on the ridge as the sun rose to a new year, with Kiliminjaro quietly, impressively looming just a few miles away. Love to you, and best to all --- Pod