Africa 2010-11

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Still Searching

Coffee in full bloom

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am to visit the spice farm today. I have a weird obsession for knowing how things grow; ok, maybe not just knowing but seeing, smelling, picking and tasting. Glenn has a knee-jerk reaction of telling me not to eat whatever new thing I pick off a tree; like a toddler, things go straight into what I call 'the information hole'. I tell him that it is good for my immune system, but I know he is right.

Zanzibar’s varied history is reflected in its modern day culture: Arabs, Indians and East Africans populate the islands and their food reflects the various elements of each. I wish I could say that is a good thing, but we are still in Africa and your chances of finding really deliciously prepared food are as about as likely as a one-eyed chicken finding a grain of corn, it happens - now and again - but don’t count on it. How can this be? There are beautiful abundant crops in much of Africa. Did the Colonists muck it up? There are plenty of poor countries with delicious cuisine so it can’t be poverty related. Were there too many food cultures competing at once and the outcome compromised? I don’t have an answer but I suspect that there just weren’t enough Indians in the original group of explorers. Indians, in my book, are the food saviors of the world.

We haven’t given up hope on finding good food so the search must go on. It is a struggle at times, but we’re committed. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Big love and kisses,

Corrin

For more photos of Northern Tanzania and Zanzibar go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/Corrincphillips/TanzaniaAndZanzibar#

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

"Eat my Australian Dust" was never murmured...

...otherwise we would have been forced to take him down. Steve's account of what happened on Kili.

http://www.findingemo.org/kilimanjarodiary.html

We love our Aussies.
CP

Climbing Kilimanjaro

I can honestly say that the Aussies made us do it; but then again, I did tote Diamox all the way from Hood River…just in case. Back country skiing aside, Glenn and I have never really climbed a mountain. Why we chose the world’s largest free standing mountain will remain a mystery. But we made it Without incident. Well, it most likely claimed Glenn’s big toenail and gave me a few blisters, but a few battle wounds are par for the course; the descent was way harder than the ascent and where the damage occurred. We chose the Machame route to the top because it is the most scenic, and scenic it was. The views were incredible. The glaciers that once looked so far away were so close. It felt like you were standing at the top of the world.

We started the ascent at midnight on the fifth day so that we could reach the summit by sunrise. Despite leaving an hour after the earliest climbers GP and I powered up and were the first to the top; well, that was until Mark (our Aussie buddy) sprinted the last 50 feet to claim the victory for Australia. Had Glenn and I known he was going for the win, we would have both sprinted after him - sucking in a whopping 100-120 breaths a minute - to claim the rightful win for Team America. But we let him go by as we were engaged holding hands with our porter for the last 1/4 mile, a little too delirious to notice his Stephen Bradbury move. He actually confessed over dinner that they had been plotting the victory for months...and we though he was so sweet.

We loved it and didn't really feel the effects of the altitude until our descent. The top is 19,298 feet (higher than Mt. Everest base camp), so we were definitely sucking air. The headache set in on the descent. I don't know how much of it was the altitude and how much of it was the bottle of Solms-Delta Cape Jazz Syraz bubbly we chugged at 5:40am to celebrate our victory.

We took a day and a half to decent and are now in Moshi, Tanzania. Glenn and I are going to Ngorangoro Crater and another game park with the Australians before we part again for good :( We are heading south to Zanzibar and they are heading north on a pretty tight schedule. We better see you two back in The Hood soon!