Tanzania has some of the most spectacular wildlife in the world. From the great migration to buffalo grazing at the base of the Ngorongoro crater, no one who has been on safari in Tanzania will ever forget it. Tanzania is also the land of pristine rainforest, spectacular mountains and unspoilt coral reefs. There is more to discover in the heartbeat of Africa than large carnivores.
Like large mountains, for instance, Kilimanjaro rises 5,896m above sea level and is Africa ’s highest peak. In 2 AD Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer wrote of a mysterious lands to the south of Somalia that contained ‘man eating barbarians’ and ‘ a great snow capped mountain’ The man eating barbarians were unaccounted for, but the local Chagga people called the cloud shrouded mountain ‘ Kilema Kyaro’ meaning ‘that which cannot be conquered’ or ‘that which makes a journey impossible’.
Well should you decide to ascend the mountain you will keep having flashbacks of the Lord of the Rings where Frodo and Sam were climbing Mount Doom . You will imagine, look and smell like those struggling hobbits, equally small and with feet as equally large and cumbersome. Adding to a growing sense of surrealism is the rapid change of scenery. Kilimanjaro has five ecosystems from foothill to summit. After farmland you enter into rainforest. The rich damp smell gives way to a drier, earthier fragrance as you pass into heath. Low lying shrub is interspersed with towering plants like the yellow Senecio flower which grows to five meters!
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