Browsing Category

Africa

13 posts

It took me a while before I really started to explore Africa, but since then, I have made some of my best omakase memories: from an amazing summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world to my quarterly week in Marrakech and from Johannesburg to Egypt. It is such a rich, welcoming, intense continent. He paused for a moment, my Uber driver in Nairobi, Kenya, who had been so talkative most of the route. We had been talking about Eliud Kipchoge, their local hero, and the global marathon legend who just had crushed the 2h00 barrier for the marathon. We had talked about MPesa, the payment startup that was doing so well around the globe. We had been talking about his family, my family, life in Kenya, and my plans to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. He pointed at the other lane on the highway we had been driving on for a while. He pointed and said, “You don’t have that in Europe, right? Free parking in the middle of the highway”. And he started to laugh. He laughed one of those contagious laughs. A laugh that -even if you didn’t want to- had to join. Such a laugh.

The other lane had an epic traffic jam. Thousands of people were stranded and people were even getting out of their car to see what was happening.

And my driver had maybe done the most African thing ever. Turning a sad, depressing situation into an amazing positive spirit, a great joke. The positivity, happiness, smiles, and jokes I encounter every single time in Africa is something I will most definitely never forget.I have so many memories here, but these are some of my favorites.

Subcategories

11 August 2024

PPlanning & Preparation

Planning and preparing for the Drakensberg Grand Traverse

byPolle
No comments
7 minute read

Drakensberg Grand Traverse (Midjourney interpretation)

How do you plan and prepare for “one of the most difficult hikes in the world”, the Drakensberg…

08 August 2024

HHiking

Solo hiking the Drakensberg Grand Traverse through South Africa and Lesotho

byPolle
No comments
2 minute read

“One of the most difficult hikes in the world”, the Drakensberg Grand Traverse. Multiple days in the mountains…

04 November 2019

HHiking

Kilimanjaro Lemosho trail – my story

byPolle
4 comments
13 minute read

It is 05h30 in the morning on a Monday and I am crying, patting a wooden sign. The…

04 November 2019

HHiking

Kilimanjaro Lemosho route – all you need to know

byPolle
2 comments
5 minute read

Don’t believe the hype. In October 2019, I summited Mount Kilimanjaro via the Lemosho route. This is the…

03 November 2019

HHiking

Learnings from my Kilimanjaro Lemosho hike

byPolle
One comment
8 minute read

I tend to prepare very well for my hikes, I even have a special blog category for it.…

27 October 2019

LLanguage

Swahili words for hiking Kilimanjaro

byPolle
No comments
1 minute read

From my hikes in Japan, Greenland and Jordan I learned that some basic knowledge of local languages helps…

08 September 2019

TTanzania

Kilimanjaro Lemosho trek day pack packing list

byPolle
3 comments
2 minute read

Rain forest on our way toi Big Tree camp

2* Powerbar gel 2* Powerbar Gelshots 1* Bifi Norrit O.R.S. Pain killers Extra vitamins Diaper Rash Cream Diamox…

27 March 2019

CCity trip

The best tips for Marrakech – according to me

byPolle
3 comments
3 minute read

CITYTRIP, MOROCCO The smells, the colours, the culture … wow, just wow. This is Marrakech. These are the…