The next morning, we ran into our Aussie friends from Zanzibar, Dave and Kerri. They had just returned the night before from trekking up Mt. Kiliminjaro. They told us a crazy story about their 6-day hike up and down the mountain. Kerri’s knees started hurting her on the way down, and she started to show signs of altitude sickness. She had to be carried on the shoulders of some porters and then trucked down to a lower altitude (while Dave carried the bags the porters were carrying). Because of the altitude, her lips and eyes had swollen up. She looked like she’d been in a fight.

We had never been planning to actually trek all the way up Mt. Kiliminjaro, but that sealed the deal. We wanted to see the mountain, but seeing it from a distance would be good enough.

Pablo and Richard (from Nature African Safari) had recommended a guy named Olais. We’d have to take a minibus to Moshi, an hour away. He’d pick us up from the bus station and we could arrange a day trip to see Mt Kili with him.

He picked us up, told us we could call him Nelson, and brought us to the Moshi Backpacker’s Hostel. We headed to the roof bar and restaurant to hear about our options and negotiate a price. Shortly into our conversation, we discovered that he knew Mukada (Marjona’s boy). “Yes, I know him,” he said. “He really likes American… (we waited in anticipation for him to say “girls”) …clothes.” Marjona breathed a sigh of relief. “Big belt buckes, tight shirts…”

We decided that we would do a hike just outside of the park, up to a waterfall and to a small village at the base of the mountain. We negotiated a price, and he said he’d pick us up the next morning.

When he arrived the next day he was dressed to impress, in tight, little, khaki safari shorts and a safari hat. It was really endearing, since he had been in big baggy jeans and a large t-shirt the previous day. But this guy was clearly a serious mountain man.

We piled into his small car and set out for the trailhead. We passed Mount Kilimanjaro, and saw the snow capped peaks (though alarmingly less snow capped than we had seen in pictures).

We parked the car and began our hike with a local boy around the age of 13 following us, along with a few other curious villagers. We hiked down a red path, past coffee plants, corn, bananas, and various other crops. The scenery was beautiful. We walked beside a rushing river in a deeply cut valley between sloping green mountain hills.

The 13-year-old villager spotted a chameleon, and picked it up for us. He asked if we wanted to hold it, and I jumped at the opportunity. I immediately fell in love with chameleons. It is really amazing how quickly they can change colors. This one walked slowly along my hand, gripping my fingers with each careful step. On our way back, he would find more, and Beth and Marjona would take turns letting the chameleons walk on them as well (much to Marjona’s dismay). Our new friend spotted more marvels of nature for us to see (like enormous slugs), and we finally learned his name: Sam.

Climbing up hills, over logs and across rickety bridges, we made it to the waterfall. It was spectacular. There had just been big rainstorm, and that combined with the rapidly melting snowcaps of Mt. Kilimanjaro produced a huge, powerful flow that blew wind and water all over us from several yards away. We took a few pictures and moved back a bit to an open wood structure where we could watch the waterfall and eat our lunch.We ate a delicious boxed lunch while Nelson rolled an enormous spliff. We had suspected that our new friend was quite fond of the green sticky icky icky, even thinking that perhaps he had taken part in a little wake and bake before he had picked us up. But now our suspicions were confirmed. We sat relishing our lunch as he lounged with a glazed expression, trying to convince us to do the Mt. Kili climb with him.

“Two out of every 25 people get sick,” he said. “Sometimes they die. So all the guides, we stay up all night, taking turns tending to the people. We stay up smoking ganja, drinking gin, and sipping coca tea. ‘You take this one’, ‘You go this time’, we all take turns taking care of the hikers who get sick. We don’t sleep much.”

(I thought this was so hilarious, I actually took notes on things he said.)

He told us we’d be fine though. Because he was a great guide, and didn’t rush. We could all take our time (pole pole, as they say in Swahili), and he’d give us coca tea and ganja to help us on our way.

Then we learned that if we didn’t want to do Mt. Kili, we could do another climb up an active volcano…

“It’s fun because you don’t know when it will erupt,” he explained. “Scientists say they just don’t know when, it could be anytime. You take little steps here, and there… when you are stepping you hope you don’t fall into the lava. There are little lava pools everywhere.”

On our hike back, we passed by the small village where women were just getting back from carrying huge bunches of bananas on their heads into town to sell for the morning. We went through one man’s yard, and Sam paid him some money so that we could look inside one of the old traditional structures where animals and people bunked in for the night. After that, we began our “pub crawl”.

We arrived at a small house with a huge wok-shaped cauldron filled boiling a foamy liquid over an open flame. Drunken men were sipping this appetizing brew out of enormous green plastic cups. Sam handed over a few shillings and the woman tending the pot ladled a few spoonfuls into a cup for us. All a bit nervous for our poor, long suffering traveler’s stomachs, we took tiny sips. It was warm, very bitter, grainy, and bore (sp?) a vague semblance to beer. We found out that this was “dadi”, or maize beer and millet.

Sam and Nelson finished off the huge green cup after our few timid sips, and we set off for the next stop. We arrived at a two-story, rickety wood structure with “Bar and Pub” written comically on the side. We walked past more drunken men and climbed the steep staircase to the second floor. Nelson brought us a large coconut shell with a long stick that served as a handle jetting out of the side of it, filled to the brim with another foamy, gritty liquid. Again, we took small sips, until we learned that this was called “Mbege”, a mixture of fermented banana juice, millet, and water.

WATER?!?! Beth, Marjona and I looked at each other terrified, imagining the bathroom horrors that might await us.

“Just pretend to drink it,” I whispered.

Next, Sam crawled up the stairs (now visibly struggling) with another large green cup. This was Grady Green, my personal favorite and the strongest of all, fermented banana juice and millet. At this point, Nelson decided he wanted to talk politics.

“So what do you think about Mama Clinton?” he asked us.

After our pub-crawl, we returned to the car and began speeding back to town, music blaring old 90’s techno tunes (that old SNL spoof song, “what is love? baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more” being among our favorites). We wanted to see Mt. Kili so that we could do one of our “walk throughs” for the big video project in front of the towering giant (those who have been traveling with us know what this is, those who haven’t will have to wait for the end of the trip to see…). Unfortunately, the clouds had rolled in, and we couldn’t get a good view.

“No problem,” Nelson said. “She is being shy. But tomorrow, if she is up, I will come get you at 6:30, and we will go out to see her.”

The next morning, I woke up at 6, dead set on getting this shot. I ran to the roof of our hostel, saw Mt. Kili shining brightly in all “her” glory, no clouds in sight, and raced down to wake up Beth. We texted Nelson, called Nelson, but couldn’t reach him. The three of us set off for a hotel down the road that had a good view, thinking maybe we could get the shot there. But when we got there, we saw that it wouldn’t work, there wasn’t room enough for the “walk through.” Just when I was having a small, early morning pout fest, the cell phone rang, and it was Olais.

“I am here,” he said.

It was 7am, and there he was, all geared up to take us to see Kili, just as promised. We drove out to an open field outside the city, where we had an absolutely incredible view of the mountain. We did our walk through, snapped a few pictures, and sped back to the hostel to pick up our bags. Nelson dropped us off at the bus and waited till we were in our seats before waving goodbye and heading off.

The next few days we received several text messages from Nelson, saying, “I miss you Queens!,” that friendship will endure through time, and other such hallmark quotables. He was quite the character, and we felt lucky to have met him. Anyone heading to Moshi should contact him for a tour (n_benne -at- yahoo.com). Though we’ll leave a climb up Kili or a traipse around a live volcano to your discretion…