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Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

The Coffee Shop, Moshi, Tanzania:  nice outdoor courtyard and sitting area, seems to be the standard place to take tourists.  Not sure why – food was a bit strange (tasteless grilled bacon and cheese sandwich and salad of wedged tomatoes, potatoes and cucumbers with no seasoning or dressing).  Our guide book says they have good baked goods, but maybe things have changed since that trip.

Kindoroko Hotel, Moshi, Tanzania: this was our great lunch spot on day 2.  Roof top seating with views over Moshi (and of Kibo if the clouds permit), nice breeze and large, varied menu.  We had lamb cous cous and a very fresh Greek salad – both recommendable!  We peeked around the hotel and found it charming: nice touches with tinga paintings and decor, some rooms very small but also very cute.

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Springlands Hotel, Moshi, Tanzania (meals provided for guests only): buffet style breakfast-lunch-dinner. Okay.  Some local food which is good but not remarkable, offered with some other random things they think will appeal to tourists (pizza which doesn’t resemble real pizza, for example). Excellent service, very friendly staff. Our post-climb snack (fresh fruit salad and french fries – random, but it hit the spot!) and bottle of wine (white South African) were great, complete with laughing waitress when she heard us using Swahili. 

Hotel rooms were okay; very basic, but en-suite bathroom with partially hot showers.  Fans in each room to try to move the hot air around at least, mosquito nets hanging over each beds, lots of shelves which came in handy when organizing our gear.  Pillows were not comfortable – I think sleeping on my fleece sweatshirt in the tent was more effective.  Swimming pool is nice and there are lovely gardens. Overall, okay place to spend a couple of nights before and after the climb.

Zara toursKilimanjaro ascent, Rongai route: Rongai route was great – not nearly as many people as other routes, usually only 2- 4 groups at each campsite.  Nice trails, we were mostly alone along the way.  We took 7 days for the trip, so had relatively short hiking days (2-3 hours/day) supplemented by additional acclimatization hikes in the afternoon.

We had 3 tents set up each day for us: our sleeping (main) tent, dining tent and a toilet tent.  The food was plentiful and good (pasta and rice with meat and vegetable curry sauce), especially the first 3 – 4 days.  In the middle we had some appetite loss and were less appreciative, and towards the end it seemed a bit like more of the same and we were ready for fresh salads and variety. 

The team was great, our porters, cook, waiter and assistant guide were very quick and efficient; we rarely had to wait for anything.  Our guide left something to be desired; his English was not very good, making communication difficult and he did not seem very excited to be there.  This might be explained in that he only received 1 day notification of the job (according to him, Zara forgot our booking).

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Tipping: this is an area to consider in advance and not let yourself get confused by the different recommendations you might get (we read some things in books, heard a different approach from Zara, and yet another proposal from our guide).  In the end, we’ve come to the conclusion that the only acceptable and reasonable approach is to give each individual member of the team their tip personally.  One idea we’ve since heard is to put them all in individual envelopes with the person’s name, so there is no confusion and also less visible what money is exchanging hands.  This is not as easy, however, as it sounds.  It means you need to make an effort to learn each persons’ name and face, to ensure you are tipping the right person, which is not always straightforward as you don’t see much of the porters.  We were deterred by our guide, who wanted to collect all tips and then distribute them; he actively sent porters away from us at the end of the hike so that we did not have an opportunity to give the money directly to them; we can only assume he planned to take a cut.  We hunted down all the team members we could find and gave them the tip directly, and they were thrilled.  Even in this process, our guide tried to convince us that one particular porter was not on our team – since we had handed out chocolate daily and seen who was setting up our tents and knew his name, this was clearly not true.  We tipped him and eventually the guide did admit he worked for us.  The fact that this was so complicated and not well managed is our biggest criticism of Zara and our Kili trip; it put a negative end on what was otherwise a great experience.

The best approach we have heard comes from Bushmen Expeditions, with whom we booked our safari trip.  They bring the entire team back to their office in Moshi, set up a round of lawn chairs in the yard and pass out Kili beer to celebrate a successful climb.  They also recommend the individual envelope approach; the celebration is an opportunity to make a small ceremony of sorts, thanking each person and handing them their envelope.

Bushmen Expeditions: After already booking our Kili trip (through 7 summits, who subcontracts to Zara), we found Bushmen on the web.  They offer a variety of tours and services, including Kili climbs and safari.  We booked a 3 day package safari trip including Manyara National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and Tarangire National Park.  The manager we worked with (Seth) was very friendly, helpful, and took the extra time to drive us around Moshi for a couple hours on our first day there.  Overall we are impressed and happy with our safari – they seem to have connections to accommodation options that are off the beaten track and beautiful, we feel like we have gotten our money’s worth and more (see next two entries).  The first day could have been improved with less time in the car and more free time (which we had specifically stated we would like to have); we had a few stops in Arusha to pick up lunches and such – this should all be pre-arranged instead and would save valuable time.  It would also be an improvement to clearly set expectations on driving times / distances between parks and hotel locations as we were negatively surprised at spending over 9 hours a day in the car.  Our guide, Richard, is knowledgeable and clearly enthusiastic; he also speaks English well.  Some of the background detail is a little overkill for our taste, but might be appreciated by others.

7summits.com:  this is the company we booked our kili climb through.  They were great!  Harry has a wealth of knowledge, and was very responsive with advice, answering questions, etc.  Even during the climb, when I was unsure about the advice our local guide was providing, I sent a text message to Harry and received a response within 24 hours.  He put together our personal climb, and we had a better setup up than other climbers who either booked directly with Zara or through another agency.  I would definitely go back to 7summits.com; in fact, I’m now considering going through them to do an Elbrus climb so that I get at least 2 of the 7!

Lake Manyara Hotel: we loved it, despite it feeling a little bit ghostly (see the travel review for more).  Our room was  beautiful, with wood floors, mosquito nets, balcony with leather cushy chairs, lovely linens and bathrobes.  The best part of the hotel are the grounds, with a fantastic (albeit small) pool area overlooking Lake Manyara.  There is a bar down by the pool, and a couple of different terraces with lounge chairs or table/chairs.  We wish we had spent more time here! 

The restaurant was good, with a very friendly and attentive staff who were somewhat lacking in true upscale experience (our waitress needing coaching from the manager on opening a bottle of champagne), but they made up for it with enthusiastic and pleasant service.  Buffet dinner with salad, soup, and a selection of entrees/sides; food was creative (pork chops with banana ginger sauce for example) and good though certainly not standout.  Buffet breakfast including freshly cooked eggs to order/omlette, fruit, bread and cereal. 

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Maramboi Tent Lodge: again, this is a place where we wish we had had more time.  The assitant manager and general “host”  was James, and from the first moment he made us feel very welcome and taken care of.  The Lodge comprises 20 individual “tents”  with en-suite bathroom, winding sand and wooden walkways (partially bridges/boardwalks above swamp area) between the different buildings, a main building with restaurant, bar, and seating area, and a pool down a boardwalk from the main building.  The pool overlooks plains filled with animals with Lake Manyara behind them.   Things run on solar power, so you have to charge batteries at the bar (not in your room) and lights went off shortly before 23:00, but we needed sleep anyway.  The food was great here.  Dinner was 4 courses (pumpkin soup, fresh salad, then very tender meat in curry-like sauce (swahili style), rice and vegetables, and concluding with chocolate mousse that was more a cross between mousse and pudding – very very rich and wonderful chocolate!

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