Here is Stella just near the top. Below her you can see a small portion of the amazing views we could see. Photos just don’t do justice to sights that surrounds you, filling your field of vision and everywhere you look. It was astounding to look down upon such features. In an aeroplane you are too high, and can’t look directly below, but when you can see something it is similar. But the tiny windows detract. From the mountain you can see so much. Sadly the clouds do gather, and the view deteriorates, and we had to return our attention to the steep and precarious descent. This proved to be more challenging than the ascent, exercising different muscles in our still exhausted legs. Once past the rockface we could speed up a little, but the sliding gravels made it dangerous. We saw some young white Kenyans running down, jumping from side to side as if skiing. Mtui and I thought it was worth a go. It was indeed a rapid way forward, but I kept slipping over and nearly dislocating something or falling into ravines. As I ran and jumped further I started to feel the strain in my knees and ankles and knew I would no longer have the strength in my legs to control my path. I slowed down and started walking again, watching Mtui disapear. Bastard – I said to myself. Yuki and Stella caught up with me having tried the same thing and decided it was a bit too tricky. Our legs had all started to seize up. As we descended the place where the vehicle was parked seemed to retreat faster than the summit ever had. My knees started to shake with fatigue, and I slowed to a snails pace, which must have puzzled our guide who stuck with us, unlike some others who had run off ahead of their groups. In the end it took us six hours to get back down – half an hour longer than getting up! I guess we need a bit more exercise so we can run down next time!

This mountain is truly amazing – I can’t wait to give it another go, especially since my legs stopped hurting. I doubt that there are many mountians where the view from the top and the top itself battle for your attention like Ol Doinyo Lengai. I think I would rather visit again than try for the top of Kili, highest mountain in Africa or not. When I get to the top I am going to ask – Where are the volcanoes? Where is the danger? The view alone just may not be enough.

On Wednesday night I sought out our friend David Mtui to see if he would be able to organise a trip there. He has a safari company called Nature’s Gift – at one point I suggested with that name he should offer naturist safaris to those who want to spend a day naked with lions and giraffes – and he has been harping on about why haven’t we sent any clients to him yet, so I thought I’d chuck some custom his way.

The next day he came back to me, and told me how excited he was about the trip, which would include a visit to Lake Natron, East Africa’s only breeding ground for flamingos.

Whenever I tried to ask him the price he changed the subject to how exciting the trip was. Eventually he relented, and told me – $900. Nine hundred! I exclaimed – that is ridiculous, you must be joking… Your average budget safari costs $90 a day per person. He was wanting to charge us $300 each for climbing a mountain outside a national park. Well, I was ready to drop the whole idea right there and then. Eventually he came down to $180 each, and this would involve some cutting corners – yeah right, like he was going to give us anything different for $900. I didn’t have time to research what a reasonable price actually was, so rather than settle for another weeked at home, I opted just to go for it. I am glad I did!

So Saturday came, and I felt pretty stressed out about the trip. Mtui’s attempt to charge our combined monthly salary for the trip hadn’t exactly endeared him to me, and now we were entrusting him with a climb up an active volcano and he was admitting that it would be done on the cheap. I put my fears aside and we boarded the Land Cruiser that turned up. Our driver Isaac quietly sped us to Mto wa Mbu – which he dubbed “Mosquito Creek”. At this stage we discoverd that Mtui had only packed a couple of litres of water each for the trip, so we insisted we stop to get more – in a desert area like Natron a person needs at least 2 litres a day, and that is when sitting about, not hiking up mountains. We also bought a kilo of peanuts, which turned out to be raw – I tried to convince Yuki that this was what was in trail mix – it is isn’t it?

The hotel had a very nice roof terrace where they served a buffet. I quaffed several bowls of carrot soup, and Yuki tucked into some very nice looking crab. Too rich for my condition. Then we turned in, feeling rested and ready for the coming nine hour bus trip north.

And then the stomach pains started again, and wouldn’t go away no matter what I did.

We had arranged for a cab to take us to the bus station at 7, but he was a little surprised to see we had no baggage when we jumped in. “Take us to the ISC Medical Centre” Yuki blurted, as I doubled over on the seat.

The ISC Medical Centre was a little more like a British Health Clinic than the Kokni Muslim. Air conditioned, and the staff walked with urgency and purpose. Of course, it cost ten times as much. I was not presented with any match sticks this time. A doctor who looked and sounded like Condaleeza Rice explained that the Cipro I had been given the previous night had not been a long enough course, and the shigella was back. I would have to take a five day course of Cipro, and I must be sure to eat something before taking each twice daily pill.

Back at the hotel I tried to wolf down a dry cracker, and plugged the Cipro into my throat and waited. By lunchtime the pain had become a little more manageable, and Yuki brought me a bowl of soup. The cipro was playing with my taste buds and the soup tasted foul, but I supped it down nonetheless.

In the evening, just before I was due to take the next tablet, I suddenly felt cold and started to shiver. The shiver turned into an uncontrolable shaking, my legs bouncing off the mattress, my arms clutched around me. I was terrified. I was dying! Here far from home, for no reason, from some bacteria in the stomach. The fear fed the shivering fed the fear, dancing around furiously, and Yuki had to talk me down by telling me about her book on the first British man to experience Japan. Eventually I managed to slurp down half a soft banana, and neck the next Cipro in the pack, and lay on my back. When the shivering subsided completely I noticed that the pain in my stomach had gone.

Water dripped in big drops from long dry gutters into long empty puddles, refreshed by an earlier heavy shower that marked the beginning of the long rains. This year the rains are predicted to be light. The air had lost much of its heaviness to the rain. Heavyness that had clung on in the hospital ward, barely shifted by the thunderous ceiling fans. The air and the darkness outside I found refreshing like a cold drink at the end of a long sweaty confined bus journey. The ward’s stark neon strip lights relentlessly shone, although the other patient, the one with the rotting feet, required a torch in order to see the progress he made as he tore deliberate strips away from the scabs. That I could see this with or without the torch was another prompt to escape.

Down each street I passed cats would run at each other, making brief, noisy but mostly bloodless territorial losses and gains. These howling squeals percussed and rattled from the plain metal doors which hid the identity and purpose of all the shops. Unlike in Europe or America the streets of Africa at night are free of deliberate distractions. One is free to avoid the cracks in the pavement, imagination not drawn to flickering adverts and inticing displays. One is free to evade the tea selling gangs of street children.

I’d had three litres of fluid dripped into my body, and imprisoned by needles and tubes attached deeply in a vein on my right hand I hadn’t had much opportunity to lose much of this. My eyes and skin bulged with the moisture, the street lights cast curving beams that arched out as if the whole world bulged with me. I thought I was on Libya street, but with no shops and this new geometry to get used to I was a little confused and hoped that perhaps tea selling street gang might be able to give me directions, but the streets were mine alone that night.

I felt elated at my decision to leave the hospital. The doctor hadn’t mentioned anything about Cyprofloxacin Ivs, nor about any overnight stays. These had been revealed to me at each step of the way. I had confirmed with the night doctor that I had completed my treatment, and chosen to spend the last few hours of sleep available curled up with my wife, rather than hiding my eyes from the indian chaps endevours with his feet.

I finally saw the sign for the Safari Inn, and made it to bed. Tomorrow would be day of rest, and then on Wednesday we would return to Arusha.

When the results finally came, I went back into the doctor’s room, and he was still chuckling away to himself. I nearly tripped over a chair entering the room. “Ok, you have a little malaria in your blood, and there is something in your stool. You’ll be ok. We can give you medicine.” We explained we were due to go to Arusha the next day. “You are very weak. You will go on a drip to rehydrate you, and there will be antibiotics then you should be fine.” He muttered something about 3 hours, and spidered some more on my notes and passed them back to me. The receptionist said “25,000 shillings”. I handed over the money, and a nurse led us up the stairs. The ward had 5 beds in it. The one facing the entrance was occupied by a rather broad indian looking man with has naked hairy back turned to the rest of the room, and what looked like a pair of underpants draped over his eyes to allow him to sleep. Another bed was occupied by a frail looking boy in denim on a drip asleep under his mother’s gaze. I was lead to a bed with terrible stains all over it, so I walked past it and lay down on the cleanest bed I could see. I looked to see Yuki’s face which was clearly taking in the rattling ceiling fans, the indian man, and the stains on the bed I had evaded. I decided I would have to try and charm the nurses best I could. After all, they would be sticking needles into the back of my hand. “What is your name?” I asked, smiling. “Mary” she said. She took my pulse and noted it down on a clipboard. She walked away. Another nurse, this one in a dark blue uniform walked over. She had a pronounced limp on her right hip which rotated that whole side of her body around a different axis to the other side when she walked. “Are you matron?” I asked. “Yes” she said. She gestured to Yuki to come over. “What are you doing over there? You are the first nurse!” she said friendlily and limped over and carried a chair back despite Yuki trying to carry it for herself. I asked the Matron her name. “Mary” she said. The first nurse walked over with a tin plate containing some boxes, some tubes, some bottles and the needles. They lay it down on the stainy bed and then the first nurse started looking around for a drip stand. The mother of the young boy lifted one of the stands that held her son’s drips to show they had one spare. The awoke the little boy a little, and he stared at me from his pillow. The first nurse fetched the drip stand and they started sorting through the parephenalia. I craned my neck desparately searching for evidence that the butterfly needle they would be stabbing into my vein was still wrapped and therfore sterile. I saw the packaging and breathed a sigh of relief when they tore it open. Then they tied a plastic tube around my wrist, and waited for a vein to show on the back of my hand. Soon enough they found it, and they took my hand. I winced and looked away, not wanting to see them puncture me. Yuki later told me that the small boy watched this, and smiled before going back to sleep quietly. The needle in place the nurses had to fix it. Someone had forgotten to bring the tape. Matron Mary semt Nurse Mary to find the tape, and I tried to make more small talk and not to look at the green plastic flaps that marked where the needle was buried in my vein up to. Nurse Mary returned with the tape, and started to cut off a piece about a foot long. “Economi, economi” Matron Mary shouted, which I guess means “Economy, don’t use all the tape!” in kiswahili. Nurse Mary proceeded to cut the foot of tape in half, then again down the middle. Matron Mary then taped the needle to my hand with two strips, then attached the drip tube to the needle’s tube, and taped that to my forearm. She took one of the large plastic bottles (it held about a litre) and hung it upside down from the drip rack. She stabbed the neck of the bottle with the other end of the drip tube, and then took out another syringe, this one with a long, coarse looking hyperdermic. We are going to give you some vitamins. The hairs on my neck did a mexican wave around the stadium at the thought of being given an injection with that elephant needle. But the nurse took the needle, and stabbed the base of the drip bottle with it, to allow air in. She then filled the syringe, and injected it’s contents into the drip bottle. It was a dark yellow colour. The only thing it looked like was urine. The corners of my mouth turned down, but they started the drip dripping, and a lay back in the bed. Yuki clearly needed a brief change of scene and asked me if there was anything I needed from outside. “Some Bananas and a copy of Newsweek or something” I said. She headed off. I lay back and watched the fan turn, listened to it whir violently. In Iraq bombs were dropping. Terrible things were going on. I was completely detached from it, sitting in the Kokni Muslim Medical Centre, trying to see if I could feel the yellowy liquid rehydrating me…

The drive to Mafia Airport was extremely bumpy. Every corrugation made me brace myself for a dreaded flush, but the blocker held fast, and after an hour of holding my breath and my belly we arrived at Kilondoni.

At the airport I needed to toilet badly. I was rushed through to the departure lounge (full of dewy eyed American J Year students lounging around like in a Tommy advert) and show the toilets. I selected the one marked Male, and then opted for the sit down rather than the squat. I wasn’t sure how long I might need to be there, and I wasn’t feeling particularly strong in my calves and thighs at that time. Surprisingly enough what passed wasn’t shocking or dreadful. I won’t give you any details. What was shocking and dreadful was that the toilet door had developed that fault where the handle on the outside turns the bar, which slides the latch, but the handle from the inside no longer makes the required contact. It merely gives the impression of working due to the spring mechanism still being intact. Like one of those human mouse traps – you can get in easily, but you can’t get out on your own. I sighed, took a breath and tried again, watching the latch through the catch to see if there was any movement. Perhaps if I shook the door a little the bar inside might just slide a milimeter enough to engage. I started knocking on the door. “Hello!”. “Hello!”. Nothing. I paused, and looked around me. I saw louvered windows, and wondered if I was going to have to slide the louvers out of their metal clips and collect them together, then climb out of the window and present them at the front of the airport – “Your toilet door is broken sir”. I turned around and started hammering on the door with my fist. “Hello”. “HELLO!”. I could hear American laughter in the waiting room. Were they laughing at me? “Is there anyone there?”. “Is no one going to come?” “HELP!”. Eventually a Tommy came and I told him the door was bust, and I needed him to open it from outside. “We didn’t hear you” he said. I stormed out into the waiting room. A scene of pretty American’s pop quizzing each other on aquatic life in the indian ocean, in their large number unnaffected by the surrounding environment or its other inhabitants. I stormed through to the check in desk, and insisted that the man accompanied me to the toilet. “I see” he said unconvincingly. Back at the security check the man scanning our luggage said “What do you think of Tony Blair?”