Day 7 Kilimanjaro Mweka Camp to Mweka Village

Sunday February 13^th.

3,100 m to 1,800 m

Got up a little earlier today, and right after breakfast Emmanuel and I began the last walk, all downhill over rough muddy steps and some rocks to the exit gate. We walked for three hours through the rainforest, which at times was more like a cloud forest as the fog rolled in. We had a nice chat on the way down and I met a number of his friends who are porters and guides. My legs were still stiff and the uneven steps just made my knees, ankles and thighs more tired as I went. For a long time there was no one else around and we could just enjoy the noises and scents of the forest.

On the way down I for a bit with a 77 year old man I had seen a couple of times on the climb. I asked where he was from and congratulated him for do it. He admitted that he had to give in two days from the top. He knew his strength was waning and he didn't want to slow his group down. Also talked to a man from Australia I had spoken to briefly a couple of times. My biggest regret about this trip is not having the opportunity to meet more people because we were all holed up in our tents. As a matter of fact I talked to lots of people at the exit gate and around the hotel when I got back, because it felt great to have people to talk to. After spending 54 days in a truck with 22 people, it was really hard to sit in a tent for hours on end with no one to talk to. But I get ahead of myself.....

When we finally arrived at the gate we had to sign out, I received a certificate of completion and then we waited for our whole hotel group to arrive. Then we drove the rest of the way into Moshi and our hotel Springland. Checked in, got my room, retrieved my other luggage, returned the rented stuff and then met with Emmanuel about the final evaluation and tipping.

This is a big concern of mine and I intend to tell GAP about it. Instead of paying the guides and porters a decent salary, and in order to keep their prices down to be competitive with Intrepid and others, they pay them little and then ask us to tip heavily to compensate. For example, I had a guide who I'm supposed to tip $20 per day, three porters $10 per day per porter, a cook, $10 per day and a toilet porter (who I shared with another tent) so I only had to pay $5 per day. If you do the math that's $455 of tips for seven days. There is no way I want to devalue their worth because they work their asses off. Then I thought why am I paying the guide twice as much when he doesn't work as hard. Then I found out he went to college for three years to learn to be a guide and to learn English. So I guess they value education as well.

As a comparison, for the 54 day safari, I had only had to tip each guide $2 per. So that's three guides at $2 times 54 days which equals $324. I forget how much it was for Machu Pichu and the Galapagos.

In addition through no fault of mine, I was a group of one, instead of say a group of four. If I was in a group of four I pay for a quarter of the guide and a quarter of the cook, but all of my three porters. So, I don't think it's fair I got penalized for that too.

I told the GAP rep here my concerns and asked if he had similar complaints from others and he said he had and told that there was a new rate scale. He showed it to me and it lowers most categories by $5. I couldn't change to that rate because I had already talked to Emmanuel about the rates. I wasn't going to going to go back on that.

Sorry about the rant, but part of the purpose of this blog is so I remember things when I get home and if I don't write them down, I never will.

So... I explained to Emmanuel I didn't have enough cash to pay him and the other guys. So we had to arrange a shuttle into town to an ATM and get it. Anyway, enough said I paid him.

Then we came back for lunch and a well deserved and needed shower. Emmanuel came back at 4:00 and we took a shuttle again to town to get my head cleaned up, shave top and bottom.

Then it was time to say goodbye to him. I told him that the climb was very hard and not much fun, but the best two things were standing on top and watching the sun reveal the glacier and meeting him.

Back to the hotel to begin typing up the blog, checking e-mails (on a very slow server), having dinner and packing and getting ready to leave tomorrow morning.