Rare Adventures

Category: Adventures

Stories about travel and adventure

Discover Madeira: A Springtime Adventure

I’d been told years ago that if you want to go to Madeira, do it in the spring because it is colourful. Invariably, I’d notice Madeira at some other time of the year and would make a mental note that I needed to remember to go there in the spring, and then forget.

This year I remembered and last week we finally made it to the island. This is a quick summary of what we found that will hopefully be helpful to others.

So in general, there are loads of things to do when you get away from Funchal, hotels are cheap, beer and food is very reasonable and if you are lucky, you too will bump into an old mate from Plymouth on the plane and get the chance to investigate the bars together.

The weather. I was watching the forecast in the week leading up to the flight and noticed that it seemed to be a bit chilly, and indeed it was. I’ve been to Portugal a few times and the weather has never lived up to the hype and the same applies to Madeira. When the sun was out it was lovely, as soon as the clouds appeared I might has well been in the UK. I’m hardy soul when it comes to cold but I was glad to have a jumper, so if you go in spring expect to take a coat.

Funchal is a concrete jungle, as bad or worse than the Canaries or the mainland. It stretches along the coast to the west away from the centre for 2 or 3 miles and then it suddenly stops and starts to become rural, but they are still building so it will only get bigger. The hotels are more upmarket than say, the Canaries, they are nearly all 4* and a lot more individual in design, they are also cheaper, you should be able to find a 4* with breakfast for about £100 per night.

Once you get out of Funchal the scenery is stunning and it feels like a totally different world.

Steep and colourful – the whole island is steep as it pops out of the sea and is well over 1000m high, so wherever you go expect to be walking up or down a hill, many of which are not for the faint hearted. People who just stay around their hotels in Funchal will never see or experience the things this island has to offer.

There is a really vibrant tourism industry specialising in a whole range of activities from hiking to canyoning that take advantage of the islands natural beauty and gradients, we explored the west of the island on the 4×4 truck tour and it was fantastic. We regretted that we did not have more time to try some of the more adrenaline filled events, but that’s life.

Ugly sea food, they have the best sea food selection of any place I had stayed. The restaurants are full of locally caught fish and it is very cheap. They also have the ugliest fish I have ever eaten, but fortunately it also happens to be the best tasting fish I have had the pleasure to eat – the local name is Scabbardfish and they live in a 1000m of water off the coast, absolutely lush.

06/05/2025
Exploring Kilimanjaro: One Day Trek Insights

As we were staying at the foot of Kilimanjaro it was natural to want to explore the biggest mountain in Africa. It had always had a mystical quality for me since I was a teenager, I had bought an album by Teardrop Explodes and it had a picture of the mountain on the cover.

I wanted to do the trek to the top, but our experiences from Peru and Wooksie’s quite serious issues with altitude sickness at Puno did make us cautious.

This is a pretty typical view of Kilimanjaro – it’s there somewhere

There are various options for trekking to the top, ranging from 5 to 10 days depending on your route. The one thing they all have in common is camping and altitude which isn’t Wooksie’s thing nowadays so we needed a different option.

Hanging out in Moshi we did notice that the mountain is always shrouded in mist. We only saw the peak once in the week we were around there so we were keen to get a better look.

One of the options is the one day trek on Killi. This is a very attractive option as you get the kudos of doing a trek on the famous mountain. It doesn’t come cheap mainly because of the need for the day pass into the park. There are some other 1 day treks that don’t technically enter the park and are a lot cheaper.

So we plumped for the official trek with a company called Killinge Adventures which we booked via Trip Advisor. They were very good but basically it was just the two of us with a guide to take us up the mountain.

And we are off – register at the entrance and off we go

The trek involves a 10km climb to the Mandara camp, this is about a 3rd of the way up Kilimanjaro. On the way up you don’t see much other than trees as the mountain is covered in forest, plenty of knackered looking trekkers making their way back down from the top though.

There are surprisingly few animals or birds. Apparently this is because it is a volcano but I was really amazed at the lack of wildlife, bearing in mind we are in the middle of safari world! We saw a couple of monkeys and the odd bird but that was about it, apparently it was much more interesting for people intrigued by odd vegetation.

Nice place for lunch

So after a couple of hours climbing we get to the camp, full of anticipation for something exciting but in general it was a bit disappointing. There are a few huts you can stay in, it isn’t in a particularly good location for views so not sure why you want to stay here.

So we had lunch, went to look at the Maundi crater rim, which wasn’t particularly impressive partly due to the visibility but a dead crater is a dead crater !

I did take the opportunity to recruit our guide into the Plymouth Argyle supporters Green Army while we were on the crater and get some photos, so it was time well spent !

Moshi Green Army battalion

Exhausted with all the fun, we headed back down and to be honest, the walk down felt tougher than the walk up. The visibility isn’t great in the shade so the return trip carried some jeopardy with the rocky paths and we were glad to get back.

So in summary, it is a 22km round trip, we climbed just short of 900m and took 5 hours 38 mins so it was a good workout after sitting in the safari truck. We can say we’ve trekked on Kilimanjaro but apart from that is wasn’t a particularly exciting experience, and at £200 each, very expensive.

22/04/2025
Arriving in Africa and Moshi

Arriving in Moshi

One of the reasons for doing this blog, is that I really struggled to get my head around what would happen when we arrived and what Moshi was like. Hopefully this will fill in some gaps to help others.

Landing at Killi airport and going through immigration you very quickly realise you are in the heart of Affica, it might be the main tourist airport but this works at African pace.

Tired Westerners meets African paperwork and bureaucracy in no rush to get anything done. For the numerous Europeans hadn’t organised visas, hope you enjoyed that queue folks.

No rush getting through immigration anyway, the baggage handlers were even less of a rush, so just get used to it.

We organised a taxi in advance from the hotel but it didn’t turn up on time, this was a bit uncomfortable, no taxi, no phone signal, no cash,surrounded by dodgy looking locals and no idea how far away the hotel in Moshi was – alarm bells starting ringing.

Out of the blue, a guy came up and checked our name and said our taxi driver was on his way and would be about 30 mins which was a relief still we got in the cab. It appears road worthiness isn’t a requirement in Tanzania so we spent an hour in a car with a banging suspension, bouncing over potholes and talking about football with the driver – this is Africa after all. He supported Arsenal and learned a lot of things about Plymouth Argyle he hadn’t been expecting.j

Most of the references to Moshi are that it is the centre for trekking in the region. So I was expecting something like Cusco in Peru or Pokara in Nepal, with a mix of shops and plenty of trekky type folks wandering around and enjoying a beer.

But it isn’t like that, it is a really busy transport and commercial hub developed as part of the German empire. It is a great chance to see what real Africa is like away from the tourists.. People speak English and don’t expect much in the way aircon, but there is plenty of Premier League football in every cafe and bar !

We didn’t see any other Western faces around and we were a bit of a curiosity with Wooksies red hair. I guess it it was a bit intimidating initially but we got used to it.

it is worth bearing in mind that Arusha is the alternative town and it a bigger version of Moshi, do expect something similar. We based through it and it was much bigger.

Inevitably there are street hawkers waiting for some jetlagged tourists, they were all harmless, good humoured and keen to relieve you of your cash. I ended up with this souvenir woolly hat, the last thing in the world I needed but it was useful for snowboarding !

We stayed at the Kilimanjaro Crane hotel, which was probably the best in Moshi as it was a conference centre and even had a pool.

Wooksie wasn’t too happy with it but this is Africa, things don’t work like they do in the UK, though maybe some better training for their plumbers and electricians might help.

I offered to move to the Hilton – oh hang on, there isn’t one. Anyway, the electricity worked most of the time, we got the hot water working on the second day and the pool and grounds were fine – definitely the best choice available and the staff were always really friendly and helpful.

We later discovered that people arriving for treks and safaris stay at variety of resorts and specialist western hotels within 20 mins of the airport, we did this on our return from Zanzibar for convenience.

They are very nice, well equipped, and very boring with no sense of adventure or being in Africa, so we don’t regret our trip to Moshi but I doubt we will be going back !

There was a view of Killimanjaro from the hotel roof lounge, sadly it is always covered in clouds we discovered – its up there somewhere

20/04/2025
The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your Tanzanian Safari
Last year we decided that we should try a safari. It hadn’t really been high on my agenda as a family thing in the past but now it is just Wooksie and I, we decided it was next on the list.

My eldest lad had done a safari for his honeymoon, and explained that they sat in a lodge, silently, for hours waiting for the animals to turn up.

Quite frankly this sounded like my idea of hell, being hyper active and a very noisy person that rejoices in lots of noise and action, then this didn’t sound like my bag.

Types of safaris

So a bit of research highlighted 3 types of safaris,
1. Game lodges, these seemed to be mainly private and based around South Africa and the countries in that area.
2. Game drives. Where you belt around the countryside looking for animals in a 4×4, these seemed to be on the Serengeti so tended to be popular in Kenya and Tanzania.
3. Specialist gigs. Seemed to be for people who had done the above and wanted something more specific or rarer animals.
It is more complicated than this as there are variants and combinations of each type but hopefully you get the idea.

Type – So a quick search reveals thousands of tours and options so where the hell do we start. Deciding we wanted to go chasing animals was important and it slimmed the options down to Kenya and Tanzania.

Where – the options were Kenya or Tanzania – the safaris are either north or south of Kilimanjaro and the vast Serengeti which stretches into both countries. (nobody seems to have explained to the wildebeest the charge between them for their annual holidays). We settled on Tanzania because it sounded more exotic and we were able to fly directly into Kilimanjaro airport rather than via a smoggy capital like Nairobi.

Length – there are also loads of different options for length, from 2 days to 21 days. A chat with eldest son helped further, as they said they saw most of the animals in one particular area and their other activities were more of the same, so we focused our search on 3 to 5 days, as after discussions with Wooksie we both agreed we would probably get bored any longer.

Tour company – with one or two minor exceptions we have always planned our holidays independently, which is why we have so many adventures but a safari seemed different and risky and there are hundreds to chose from, so where do we start.

Having worked out roughly what we wanted I contacted the main specialist operators in the UK for a rough price and got wildly different pricing. So I decided I needed to better understand the pricing model and break it down so did more research.

I found this website that was a portal for the local safari companies, that basically put us in direct contact with the safari companies and took out the middle man. It was then quite easy to work out the actual prices we would pay and realised we could save a lot by doing it ourselves.

We contacted half a dozen of the companies offering the 3 day tour, specified that the accommodation needed to be decent, Wooksie insisted she wouldn’t sleep in a tent surrounded by beasts and creepy crawlies.

The companies were based in Tanzania, mostly in Moshi and eventually we settled on Joining Safaris Ltd, Erick was a really helpful guy who gave straight answers to our questions promptly, you can find them at http://www.joiningsafaris.com and I’d definately recommend them.

The second part of the adventure was some down time, if you are in Tanzania Zanzibar is a short flight away so that was simple enough, hotels booked through hotels.com and booking.com plus safari booked with Erick.

Price Breakdown

So when planning, here is the rough price breakdown in 2024 so you can discuss with an agent or book it yourself

Flight from UK to Kilimanjaro return – about £1000 with premium economy one way (KLM)

Safari – £1200 with mid range accommodation each

Flights to Zanzibar, about £200 return

6 nights Hotel on Zanzibar at TUI Zanzibar Bay Resort and Spa about £650 via Booking.com
19/04/2025