From Bonn, we travelled over to a new town for us – Porto, Portugal. The Okranauts had already set up camp there, so we got a fun introduction to the city. We got busy exploring the crags around the city, running to the ocean and enjoying the spectacular view of the Douro river.
Our time in Porto was filled to the brim with
- sangria,
- sunsets at virtudes,
- the FoundersFounders office,
- rock climbing at SAO,
- 2 euro pizzas from minipresso
- espresso
- tem peixe
- hours and hours with friends
Kisa and Okra last minute decided to attend an off-grid energy conference in Tanzania, so our summer-in-Europe got an unexpected side quest – exploring Tanzania (and for both of us, Africa) for the first time. We started off in the north of the country, right under Mt. Kilimanjaro in a town called Moshi. As we drove from the Kilimanjaro airport to Moshi the landscape turned from desert to lush forest (kinda like kihei to haiku on Maui). People, goats, kids, people with very distinct dress with large loads balanced on their heads.
Our first day we went on a long sunny hot hike up into the jungle – school kids fell into step with us on their way home and gabi tasted banana wine from a friendly stranger. Everyone who passed us stopped to see if we needed a ride. At first we said no, but eventually it became evident that we were not going to make it to the waterfall in the daylight without getting in a tuktuk… we made it to the huge waterfall with 6 personal tour guides and we prepared and drank the coffee growing on their family land.
Our first weekend in Tanzania was epic – first stop Arusha for food and coffee. Chapati and chicken soup. Next stop was Mto wa Mbu (“the river of mosquitos”!!!), where we saw rice and bananas growing, drank more banana wine and visited a group of Makonde tribe carvers.
Our Saturday night was spent in a Maasai village, eating goat listening to stories and sitting by the fire. Taylor and I spent an hour in the women’s hut eating and giggling. A total of 15 minutes were slept that night and we picked up some bed bugs.
Sunday we all hopped into our massive jeep for a safari in Tarangire national park. Although we were told this was one of the “smaller” parks, it was unbelievable.
The next week we camped out in Dar Es Salaam for Kisa’s conference and then made a quick escape to Zanzibar.
We also snuck a few runs in along the way in Dar, Zanzibar and Arusha.
We made our way to the UK via Porto. In the UK we spent the week with Louis and Lakena in Derby (Daaahby). Trying ales and pub food – the lake district was surprisingly charming. Everything was green and cottagecore.
Over a few ales and yelling over some live pub music, louis convinced us to do the three peak challenge: climbing the highest peak in England, Scotland and Wales in <24 hours.
The journey was epic. On Thursday night we drove up to stay near Loch Lomond north of Edenburgh. We stopped in Sheffield for the best Korean food EVER and got to the hotel at 11pm for a 5am wakeup to kick off our first hike up Ben Nevis. It was spectacularly sparkly sunny in Scotland and we went for a lovely dip in Loch Lomond on our way to Scafell Pike. We topped Scafell pike at sunset, walking slowly past some grumpy wet sheep in the rain and slamming wind. The drive from 11pm to 4am to Snowden was definitely the biggest struggle and we arrived for the last hike with a tight timeline and driving rain. We couldn’t see a thing on Snowdon and we were absolutely soaked to the bone immediately. Ultimately we made it back to the car just in time for the 24 hour deadline and immediately went for a massive classic English breakfast in Llanberis.
To wrap it up we spent 2 weeks in Paris and Fontainebleau. Drinking natural wine, fancy restaurants with Alex and Lorette, watching the sunset on the seine, soaking up art, playing in the forest and climbing into the summer night. We wrapped up our stay in France in Équemauville in Normandy with Gabi’s grandparents. Blackberries, kittens, cider and crepes.
Fontainebleau
Paris
Équemauville
Right after we got back to Montreal – Gabi snuck a ridiculous work trip in to Rwanda :O
