Monday, June 11, 2007
Hanang Part 2
Our driver Adam, still in two-wheel drive, eased the Cruiser down the steep track to the stream. The ruts on the left of the track were wide and rather deep; we all knew it was imperative that he stay away from them. However, as we got nearer to the stream the track also sloped to the left and the rear wheels slide that way and dropped hard into the trench. Anne was very concerned about our safety but Adam repeated, “Hamna Shida,” over and over to calm us all down. Then it was the turn of the Land Rover, a heavy beast of a truck with poor tires and an inexperienced driver. His approach was, ‘speed will get us through anything.’ He gunned the engine, spinning all four wheels and the beast jumped forward down the hill hitting the rut and bouncing wildly. They hit the stream slightly sideways and we all had to shout, “Hamna Shida,” so Anne would calm down. They made it through and after some tight turns and mild inclines we came to a large mud house with a large mud front yard. We pulled up as Mama and her son came out of the house.
This was the “parking lot” for the trailhead and this family made extra money by watching the vehicles for those who took to the trail. We found that their was also a local guide waiting for us – how he knew we were climbing today, we did not know – and expecting to take us up the mountain. Adam was our guide but there was no nice way to tell this man that we did not require him. We had parked right on top of a few ant holes, not the nice ants but the nasty biting soldier ants. Frances and I quickly grabbed our packs from the back of the truck and made for clear ground. We watching from a distance as the rest of the crew stood over the ant holes chatting. We warned them once and then Frances kept telling them just how nasty these ants could be. No one heeded the warnings until the ants had climbed up into the clothes, hair and…nether regions of a few of our friends. This caused a mass exodus from the area and helped us get moving in the direction of the top.
With the ants picked off, shoes tightened and spirits high, despite the rain, we set off up the path. The trail was wet but easy to navigate as we walked the first hundred meters or so past a nice green field and through some attractive trees and bushes sporting new flowers. Everything was damp from the night’s rains and the lushness of the area became even more evident as the trail turned up hill into a streambed. The going became more difficult as the streambed was a thick layer of mud and our boots had a tough time sticking it so we were almost all slipping and sliding around. The only ones who weren’t were Frances and our local guide who had the best footwear of us all. Well that is only half true; but you be the judge. Frances had on a wonderful pair of Vasque boots with Vibram soles and the guide was wearing a pair of sandals made entirely of recycled truck tires. It’s possible that most of us simply don’t know how to walk…
We continued to slip around while stooping under low hanging branches as we made our way up the stream. The walls at the sides were up to 5 feet high and freshly eroded; the trail would slit wherever the stream had felt like taking an easier path down the mountain. Many times it was easier to walk with our legs wide apart and shuffling with straight knees. I wish I had taken a picture of this hiking method but I’m glad no one had taken that shot of me. I can imagine how silly I looked with my feet almost level with my hips and ducking under a low tree and my arms swinging wildly as I shuffle up the steep slope. We finally broke out in to the open and got onto a more grassy area.
The trail here was not much better as it was about a foot deep trench with long grass lying across it. With the amount of rain that had fallen the night before this all made for unsure footing in a greasy pit. The view was intermittent as the clouds blew by quickly, and just as quickly we came out into the wind. The wind blew us around as we moved between the sporadic wooded areas. The wind at this point was fairly strong but we weren’t out in the open for long as the guide was putting the pedal to the metal and I was becoming fairly gutted. When the view was nice I would stop and shoot a couple of pictures, more to catch my breath than anything else but I also noticed the plants we were walking though. I didn’t taste any of the plants but the mountain was like an herb garden. There was rosemary, pineapple sage, thyme, dill, lavender and some other very aromatic plants that did not give me a rash when I rubbed them between my fingers.
The trees on the mountain were very green and were quite a contrast to what we see in Haydom these days. How do you like that, I‘ve only been here for 2 plus months and already I am saying, “in Hyadom these days”. Anyway, the one plant that shocked me was the Juniper. They were just like what one would find in mountains in BC; wind blown, weather-beaten and bent to the shape of typical Bonzai. The entire area was green and lush and has obviously received some heavy rains at a time of year that would usually see dry, cool days. The distraction of the surroundings did not help me get up the mountain any faster or with less heavy breathing.
After we had been walking, well scrambling really, for about 3 hours we came to a much steeper section with the wind blasting over the ridge at us. I felt as if I had been drinking as I could only keep every second step on the path, or rather in the path. I thought I must be getting to tired to walk and we came to bit of a rise the group came to a halt. The wind was hitting us hard and it was damn cold; Adam, who is not used to the cold, was looking bad and the rest of the group was not really prepared for this kind of weather. Frances and I herded them over the ridge out of the wind and we all broke into our lunches.
My lunch was the previous day’s pizza and four cinnamon buns, all of which I shared with Adam. Mirjam and Anne had brought hot water and we made two cups by cutting a small water bottle in half and most of us warmed up with a cup of tea. Some of us had chocolate bars and we shared them around the group. Adam was assessing the weather the entire time and we finally decided that we should turn back as he had never seen the weather this bad. Since it was his 34th assent and the first time he would not reach the top we heeded his advice and packed up and headed down.
I love descending mountains and always have. As a younger man Bob and I would climb fisher peak near Cranbrook and basically run up and down. While I couldn’t do that now I did have more steam as I began to go down Mount Hanang. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had better slow down a bit; I hit the trail with my left foot while in a half trot and before I knew it my butt was on my foot and I was sliding down the trench of a trail. I got a couple of oo’s and aa’s from the group and took it a bit easier as I continued down. After my fourth fall I was walking with the local guide and watching his feet. He was actually sliding a bit but his feet were moving very quickly in very small steps and if one foot would slip he would basically rock onto his toes and hop to the other foot shifting his weight forward. This worked for me as well and I didn’t fall the rest of the way down the hill. When we entered the stream-bed we found that it had taken some rain while we were up the hill and it was more slippery and the mud was thicker. The best method of forward mobility here was a snowboard style; one foot in front of the other with the weight more on the back foot. I could at times slide about 6-8 feet at a time doing this and it was fun. The most fun, when there was no on in front of me was to simply shuffle my feet as fast as I could and run down the sludge slope. The key to this method was planning. I would have to be able to see a dry spot or a small upslope or a protruding root upon which I could hit the brakes and slow or stop my forward motion. If the spot I picked was not dry or not stable I would slip around and continue to run, entirely out of control until I could plant my walking stick or grab at the branches.
After a while I began to notice more and more photo opportunities and I would hang at the back of the group snapping pics and chatting to Frances about the flowers or the view. If we would stop for two minutes to take a picture the group would be waiting at the next turn for us. I felt like an old timer who couldn’t keep up but I didn’t really care because there was so much to look at and it was all new to me. We hit the bottom well ahead of schedule and found the forestry officer waiting for us. We had planned to stop at the office on the way down and pay for the hike. But the man had walked the 7-8Km up the road to meet us and accepted our 2500 shillings each.
We hung out in the field at the bottom for a bit and drank water, chatted about not making it to the top and most of us avoided the ants. Mirjam wanted a picture of them and got a bit to close. She came running and screaming back to the group and Frances helped her remove a really vicious little bugger from her lower thigh. This ant was huge and did not want to let go; its mandibles were stuck in her leg and its body was sticking straight out. When they finally got the thing off there was a small trickle of blood where it had chomped down. Its lucky she caught it when she did because these little devils like to climb to the warmer areas and bite down hard.
We finally packed up the trucks and took off back to Katesh with the guide and the forestry officer in the Cruiser for a free ride. We got back to the stream and slowly got across it in 2-wheel drive. Adam slowly tried to get up the long steep hill we had descend on the way to the mountain and slide back down. We did the same exercise about 6 times before he decided that 4-wheel drive was the best bet. He also knew we wouldn’t be able to stay out to the deep trench on the right side but powered through and made it to the top. We turned to watch the Land Rover and I worried about what Anne was thinking now that she was in the Rover. Pim, who was driving now simply popped it into 4-wheel drive and hit the throttle full on. They bumped up and down and bounced sideways to the left and then the right, the rear tires dropped into the rut but quickly hopped out and they came charging up the hill. We screamed down into Katesh and dropped off our new friends. We were all really tired and listened to some Red Hot Chili Peppers as we hurtled down the road.
We all wanted Adam to show us the Haydom farm and we made a hairpin turn onto the trail to the farm. It would not add much time to the trip and as we had left Katesh early we were happy to see it. We passed a couple of small groups of people walking had some very nice views back to Mount Hanang. It wasn’t long before we noticed that the Land Rover was not right behind us. We found this odd, but shortly saw them in the distance moving toward us. We continued down the track and then came to a spot that gave a perfect view of Hanang and stopped to snap some more photos. We stopped for a while and saw no sign of the Rover. We thought it best to wait for them and after 10 minutes Douwe pulled out his cell phone to call them; no sooner had he gotten it in his hand than it rang. The Rover was hurtin’. Mirjam had just asked to drive, gotten behind the wheel and was about trying to shift into third gear and it just wouldn’t go. The boys decided stop and figure it out and found that there was no neutral. The transmission would engage in neutral and would not go into any gear other than first.
Adam is a mechanic and was eager to get to them and try to figure things out. We back tracked to the Rover and Adam tested it out. He knew what the problem was fairly quickly and as he works at the farm part-time, towing the Rover there was the best bet. The boys had a tow cable with them we hooked it up and moved along. Frances pulled out a bag of mini Mars bars and we teased the Rover crew as we savored the chocolate treat. We had to share sooner than we thought as the combination of the heavier Rover and poorly made tow cable soon caused the cable’s hook to snap. We tied it on the Cruiser and carried on. It wasn’t long before we had to stop again as the cable snapped close to the knot. This happened a few more times and then we lost the other hook after a series of small bumps in the road. With one Km to go we had a tow cable with no hooks but we gingerly rounded the corner of a stand of tall Eucalyptus trees and approached the gate with the horn beeping like mad. The guard was leery to open the gate and then finally recognized Adam and swung the gate wide open just in time and we continued our momentum through the large yard to and around to the front of a large Quonset hut and came to a stop. This was the farm garage but the door was locked. We unhooked the Rover and Adam took off in the Cruiser to look for the Fundi.
We looked around at a line of about a dozen tractors, a couple of Combines and an ancient Isuzu truck on this formerly Canadian wheat farm. I snapped a picture of the emblem on the side of the Isuzu (see picture). I like old farm machinery, due to my time on the farm when I was a kid and recognized the Massey Fergusson tractors from my youth. We hung out for a while and when Adam came back we found that the Fundi was away at church and would not return till Monday. We packed the essentials out of the Rover and into the Cruiser and packed everyone into the one vehicle and headed for home.
After descending the mountain by about 1:30 we figured to be home at around 4:00 at the latest but with the struggles it turned into 7:00. But it is this type of experience that brought us to Tanzania so I couldn’t be much happier with the trip and the experience. I suppose seeing a Giraffe or a herd of Zebras grazing in the Canadian wheat farm would have added something to the whole affair.
This was the “parking lot” for the trailhead and this family made extra money by watching the vehicles for those who took to the trail. We found that their was also a local guide waiting for us – how he knew we were climbing today, we did not know – and expecting to take us up the mountain. Adam was our guide but there was no nice way to tell this man that we did not require him. We had parked right on top of a few ant holes, not the nice ants but the nasty biting soldier ants. Frances and I quickly grabbed our packs from the back of the truck and made for clear ground. We watching from a distance as the rest of the crew stood over the ant holes chatting. We warned them once and then Frances kept telling them just how nasty these ants could be. No one heeded the warnings until the ants had climbed up into the clothes, hair and…nether regions of a few of our friends. This caused a mass exodus from the area and helped us get moving in the direction of the top.
With the ants picked off, shoes tightened and spirits high, despite the rain, we set off up the path. The trail was wet but easy to navigate as we walked the first hundred meters or so past a nice green field and through some attractive trees and bushes sporting new flowers. Everything was damp from the night’s rains and the lushness of the area became even more evident as the trail turned up hill into a streambed. The going became more difficult as the streambed was a thick layer of mud and our boots had a tough time sticking it so we were almost all slipping and sliding around. The only ones who weren’t were Frances and our local guide who had the best footwear of us all. Well that is only half true; but you be the judge. Frances had on a wonderful pair of Vasque boots with Vibram soles and the guide was wearing a pair of sandals made entirely of recycled truck tires. It’s possible that most of us simply don’t know how to walk…
We continued to slip around while stooping under low hanging branches as we made our way up the stream. The walls at the sides were up to 5 feet high and freshly eroded; the trail would slit wherever the stream had felt like taking an easier path down the mountain. Many times it was easier to walk with our legs wide apart and shuffling with straight knees. I wish I had taken a picture of this hiking method but I’m glad no one had taken that shot of me. I can imagine how silly I looked with my feet almost level with my hips and ducking under a low tree and my arms swinging wildly as I shuffle up the steep slope. We finally broke out in to the open and got onto a more grassy area.
The trail here was not much better as it was about a foot deep trench with long grass lying across it. With the amount of rain that had fallen the night before this all made for unsure footing in a greasy pit. The view was intermittent as the clouds blew by quickly, and just as quickly we came out into the wind. The wind blew us around as we moved between the sporadic wooded areas. The wind at this point was fairly strong but we weren’t out in the open for long as the guide was putting the pedal to the metal and I was becoming fairly gutted. When the view was nice I would stop and shoot a couple of pictures, more to catch my breath than anything else but I also noticed the plants we were walking though. I didn’t taste any of the plants but the mountain was like an herb garden. There was rosemary, pineapple sage, thyme, dill, lavender and some other very aromatic plants that did not give me a rash when I rubbed them between my fingers.
The trees on the mountain were very green and were quite a contrast to what we see in Haydom these days. How do you like that, I‘ve only been here for 2 plus months and already I am saying, “in Hyadom these days”. Anyway, the one plant that shocked me was the Juniper. They were just like what one would find in mountains in BC; wind blown, weather-beaten and bent to the shape of typical Bonzai. The entire area was green and lush and has obviously received some heavy rains at a time of year that would usually see dry, cool days. The distraction of the surroundings did not help me get up the mountain any faster or with less heavy breathing.
After we had been walking, well scrambling really, for about 3 hours we came to a much steeper section with the wind blasting over the ridge at us. I felt as if I had been drinking as I could only keep every second step on the path, or rather in the path. I thought I must be getting to tired to walk and we came to bit of a rise the group came to a halt. The wind was hitting us hard and it was damn cold; Adam, who is not used to the cold, was looking bad and the rest of the group was not really prepared for this kind of weather. Frances and I herded them over the ridge out of the wind and we all broke into our lunches.
My lunch was the previous day’s pizza and four cinnamon buns, all of which I shared with Adam. Mirjam and Anne had brought hot water and we made two cups by cutting a small water bottle in half and most of us warmed up with a cup of tea. Some of us had chocolate bars and we shared them around the group. Adam was assessing the weather the entire time and we finally decided that we should turn back as he had never seen the weather this bad. Since it was his 34th assent and the first time he would not reach the top we heeded his advice and packed up and headed down.
I love descending mountains and always have. As a younger man Bob and I would climb fisher peak near Cranbrook and basically run up and down. While I couldn’t do that now I did have more steam as I began to go down Mount Hanang. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had better slow down a bit; I hit the trail with my left foot while in a half trot and before I knew it my butt was on my foot and I was sliding down the trench of a trail. I got a couple of oo’s and aa’s from the group and took it a bit easier as I continued down. After my fourth fall I was walking with the local guide and watching his feet. He was actually sliding a bit but his feet were moving very quickly in very small steps and if one foot would slip he would basically rock onto his toes and hop to the other foot shifting his weight forward. This worked for me as well and I didn’t fall the rest of the way down the hill. When we entered the stream-bed we found that it had taken some rain while we were up the hill and it was more slippery and the mud was thicker. The best method of forward mobility here was a snowboard style; one foot in front of the other with the weight more on the back foot. I could at times slide about 6-8 feet at a time doing this and it was fun. The most fun, when there was no on in front of me was to simply shuffle my feet as fast as I could and run down the sludge slope. The key to this method was planning. I would have to be able to see a dry spot or a small upslope or a protruding root upon which I could hit the brakes and slow or stop my forward motion. If the spot I picked was not dry or not stable I would slip around and continue to run, entirely out of control until I could plant my walking stick or grab at the branches.
After a while I began to notice more and more photo opportunities and I would hang at the back of the group snapping pics and chatting to Frances about the flowers or the view. If we would stop for two minutes to take a picture the group would be waiting at the next turn for us. I felt like an old timer who couldn’t keep up but I didn’t really care because there was so much to look at and it was all new to me. We hit the bottom well ahead of schedule and found the forestry officer waiting for us. We had planned to stop at the office on the way down and pay for the hike. But the man had walked the 7-8Km up the road to meet us and accepted our 2500 shillings each.
We hung out in the field at the bottom for a bit and drank water, chatted about not making it to the top and most of us avoided the ants. Mirjam wanted a picture of them and got a bit to close. She came running and screaming back to the group and Frances helped her remove a really vicious little bugger from her lower thigh. This ant was huge and did not want to let go; its mandibles were stuck in her leg and its body was sticking straight out. When they finally got the thing off there was a small trickle of blood where it had chomped down. Its lucky she caught it when she did because these little devils like to climb to the warmer areas and bite down hard.
We finally packed up the trucks and took off back to Katesh with the guide and the forestry officer in the Cruiser for a free ride. We got back to the stream and slowly got across it in 2-wheel drive. Adam slowly tried to get up the long steep hill we had descend on the way to the mountain and slide back down. We did the same exercise about 6 times before he decided that 4-wheel drive was the best bet. He also knew we wouldn’t be able to stay out to the deep trench on the right side but powered through and made it to the top. We turned to watch the Land Rover and I worried about what Anne was thinking now that she was in the Rover. Pim, who was driving now simply popped it into 4-wheel drive and hit the throttle full on. They bumped up and down and bounced sideways to the left and then the right, the rear tires dropped into the rut but quickly hopped out and they came charging up the hill. We screamed down into Katesh and dropped off our new friends. We were all really tired and listened to some Red Hot Chili Peppers as we hurtled down the road.
We all wanted Adam to show us the Haydom farm and we made a hairpin turn onto the trail to the farm. It would not add much time to the trip and as we had left Katesh early we were happy to see it. We passed a couple of small groups of people walking had some very nice views back to Mount Hanang. It wasn’t long before we noticed that the Land Rover was not right behind us. We found this odd, but shortly saw them in the distance moving toward us. We continued down the track and then came to a spot that gave a perfect view of Hanang and stopped to snap some more photos. We stopped for a while and saw no sign of the Rover. We thought it best to wait for them and after 10 minutes Douwe pulled out his cell phone to call them; no sooner had he gotten it in his hand than it rang. The Rover was hurtin’. Mirjam had just asked to drive, gotten behind the wheel and was about trying to shift into third gear and it just wouldn’t go. The boys decided stop and figure it out and found that there was no neutral. The transmission would engage in neutral and would not go into any gear other than first.
Adam is a mechanic and was eager to get to them and try to figure things out. We back tracked to the Rover and Adam tested it out. He knew what the problem was fairly quickly and as he works at the farm part-time, towing the Rover there was the best bet. The boys had a tow cable with them we hooked it up and moved along. Frances pulled out a bag of mini Mars bars and we teased the Rover crew as we savored the chocolate treat. We had to share sooner than we thought as the combination of the heavier Rover and poorly made tow cable soon caused the cable’s hook to snap. We tied it on the Cruiser and carried on. It wasn’t long before we had to stop again as the cable snapped close to the knot. This happened a few more times and then we lost the other hook after a series of small bumps in the road. With one Km to go we had a tow cable with no hooks but we gingerly rounded the corner of a stand of tall Eucalyptus trees and approached the gate with the horn beeping like mad. The guard was leery to open the gate and then finally recognized Adam and swung the gate wide open just in time and we continued our momentum through the large yard to and around to the front of a large Quonset hut and came to a stop. This was the farm garage but the door was locked. We unhooked the Rover and Adam took off in the Cruiser to look for the Fundi.
We looked around at a line of about a dozen tractors, a couple of Combines and an ancient Isuzu truck on this formerly Canadian wheat farm. I snapped a picture of the emblem on the side of the Isuzu (see picture). I like old farm machinery, due to my time on the farm when I was a kid and recognized the Massey Fergusson tractors from my youth. We hung out for a while and when Adam came back we found that the Fundi was away at church and would not return till Monday. We packed the essentials out of the Rover and into the Cruiser and packed everyone into the one vehicle and headed for home.
After descending the mountain by about 1:30 we figured to be home at around 4:00 at the latest but with the struggles it turned into 7:00. But it is this type of experience that brought us to Tanzania so I couldn’t be much happier with the trip and the experience. I suppose seeing a Giraffe or a herd of Zebras grazing in the Canadian wheat farm would have added something to the whole affair.
