I NEED A NEW FLIGHT PLAN NOW

 I had an early breakfast the morning I left for Gombe. I said goodbye to Susan, the other member of our group who is not hiking. Susan pulled the entire group together from Bakersfield and beyond, and has summited Kilimanjaro once before. She is the “mom,” the leader of the group, and fully expected to go up the mountain again with her people. As bad luck would have it, she fainted and hit her head hard a few days before leaving for Africa. After all her effort and training, a slight concussion is preventing her from climbing. Not one to miss out on any of the enjoyment of her “favorite continent!” she is off on a five-day safari.

After a short wait at the Arusha airport yesterday, I boarded the plane to Kigoma, which will be the starting point for my Gombe trip. I trusted my pilot immediately: an adorable White South African guy, about 30 years old with a winning smile and all the confidence in the world. (I’m not sure I ever got his name.) I was a little nervous that there was no co-pilot, since the other flight we had taken had two pilots. “One engine, one pilot, says the Tanzanian government.” Oh goodie.

Since I was the only passenger for the first leg of the trip, I sat up front so we could chat a bit and he could point out some sights along the way. We flew over Oldonyo Lengai, the Maasai “Mountain of God,” which my Maasai friend Korianka told me about. The Maasai make pilgrimages to the top to ask for rain, wearing black shukas and hauling up a black goat and black sheep for sacrifice. Korianka says it works every time. The bush pilot says it's the hardest mountain to climb in Tanzania, because it is very steep and there is lots of scrambling. You sleep on boulders about ¾ of the way up. The entire trek has to be done at night because it’s scorching hot during the day. The pilot also said that since it is an active volcano, you can feel the mountain shifting under your feet. Thanks, but no thanks.

We also flew over the river in the Serengeti where the Great Migration crosses in the summer months. The pilot says, “You know the river they always show on National Geographic where the wildebeests are running through? This is it! Now you can say you’ve seen it.”

He’s been flying in TZ since 2011, in Arusha for about a year. The bush pilots get 2-year contracts, and so far he’s been renewing his. Now, he’s ready to move on when this one expires. Perhaps Indonesia or Belize, where he could do the same type of thing. “The girlfriend is looking for a teaching job at an international school, and I’ll go where she gets her position.” He refers to his girlfriend as “the girlfriend” several times in our conversation. Like an official title: “The Girlfriend.”

Apparently there are no direct flights on a bush plane. It’s like a bus in the sky. This one is a charter that the company who owns the hotels pays for all day Mondays and Thursdays. So they can send the plane anywhere they need to pick up guests. We fly from Arusha > Serengeti  > Mahale > Kigoma. (a small dirt landing strip with a long name I don’t remember), and picked up two passengers. Then 2.5 hours to the Mahale mountains. There are also chimps there, and if I had more time I would have visited. <<Anthros: This is where Richard Wrangham does his chimp research.>>

About 20 minutes before landing, the pilot turns to me with a stern face and asks me firmly to stow my backpack and make sure I’m strapped in tightly. Uh, what’s up? Oh, only the worst-case weather scenario when flying in a bush plane. Thunderstorms.

Pilot: This storm is bigger than I thought…

Me: …

I am suddenly deeply regretting my decision not to take the usual Xanax-for-flying today. We fly directly into an intense thunderstorm. I can see it’s intense not only because we are bouncing around like hot popcorn, but also because the plane’s weather radar is a few feet in front of me and we are in the pink. Not just the yellow, not just the red, but the PINK. I lean back, close my eyes, and begin the bush plane mantra: “I trust him, I trust him…”

In general, I’m finding that I’m a lot less nervous in a bush plane than in a massive 777. It’s weird, I know, but somehow seeing the pilot actually fly the plane makes me feel much safer than being isolated in the back of a jumbo jet like cattle. 

The pilot expertly gets us down on the ground through the bouncy-bouncy, we do not get hit by lightning (which was my real fear), and gets on his cell phone to the control room “SEND ME A NEW FLIGHT PLAN, I NEED A NEW FLIGHT PLAN TO KIGOMA NOW.” We pick up some additional passengers – another 2 sets of mzungu (White) tourists and a Tanzanian mama with her three daughters. He is moving us quickly so we can take off before the storm catches up with us. Taking off, we go right back into the pink. Back to the mantra for another 10 minutes, and we are finally out of it. I come to the conclusion that I love this pilot with all of my heart and soul. If I knew his name I would name my first born child after him. From now on, Maya will be known as “Pilot.”

We land in Kigoma, and I’m whisked off in a truck to the lovely Kigoma Hilltop Hotel. The area is very different from Arusha – it’s green and lush, with farms all along the road, while Arusha is dusty, busy, full of construction and motorcycle taxis. There is more space here for people, it seems.

We arrive at the hotel, and I am taken in a golf cart to my beautiful dark wood room with the ubiquitous four-poster bed with mosquito netting. It has a view of the calm, blue Lake Tanganyika. The desk staff tells me that I’ve paid for a tour of Ujiji, 20 minutes away, to see where Stanley met Livingstone (“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”). I just cannot imagine getting back in any kind of vehicle at this point. I politely refuse the tour, and even though I can see the driver is a little disappointed at a missed opportunity, I just can’t do it. So instead of getting back in the truck, I sit and stare at the lake like a complete vegetable for a long while. Once my wits are about me once again, I go have some delicious lunch at the restaurant (fried eggplant in peanut sauce with garbanzos) and sleep away the entire afternoon.