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Arriving in the dust
July 2013, day 11. We ride from Lake Chala to Amboseli and arrive in the late afternoon. Everything about us is grey-white. The dust of the dried-out lakebed has followed us all day, and the wind has blown it against our visors hour after hour. You swallow it, you chew it, you pull it out of your ears. If you want to arrive clean, book something else.
As I climb off, I draw a line with my finger across my seat. Underneath, the black is still visible. I can't help grinning. It's the most honest weather map you'll get in Africa.
The mountain everyone comes for hasn't shown itself once since Moshi. The guests have stopped asking about it. That's a good sign and a bad one at the same time: they've stopped hoping, but they keep riding anyway. Here, too, there's only a milky wall on the horizon, exactly where it should be standing.
I say: "It's there. It just doesn't feel like it."
Nobody laughs out loud. But a few nod, and that's enough for me. Then we go and beat the dust off ourselves.
A cup of bad coffee before sunrise
The next morning I wake nobody. I stand alone at the edge of the lodge before sunrise, with a cup of bad coffee. That's all it takes. If you're waiting for something in Africa, you should at least have something in your hand while you do.
Around six the wind stops. Not slowly, but from one minute to the next. It gets so quiet that I can hear my own sip. After a day when the wind constantly sat in your helmet, this silence is almost indecently loud.
The dust settles. And suddenly a piece of the mountain hangs above the layer of cloud, with no base, snow on top, lit up pink. So Kilimanjaro did feel like it after all. It had just been waiting for the wind.
Beneath it, a family of elephants walks across the plain, trailing a golden plume of dust behind them. The very dust that nearly took our sight the day before is now the most beautiful thing in the picture. I stand there, holding my cup, and think: so that's what it was for.
A quarter of an hour, then it's all closed again
The guests come out of the tents one by one and say nothing. Nobody asks whether someone has a photo. They just stand there.
After a quarter of an hour the cloud closes again, and the mountain is gone as if nothing had happened. Over breakfast everyone then talks at once.
I walk over to the motorcycle. There's a new, thin layer of dust on the seat, but my line from the evening before is still visible, just flatter. I don't wipe it away, and I ride off with it.
What this means for you if you want to ride it
Kilimanjaro isn't an item on the programme that you can tick off. It shows itself when wind and clouds allow it, and sometimes only for a quarter of an hour. If you expect that as a package tourist, you're in the wrong place. If you get up early and have patience, you have a chance. There's no entitlement to it.
The tour takes you along the slopes of Africa's highest mountain. You ride through Tanzania and Kenya, and what you get to see of it is decided by the weather. So don't plan the perfect moment, just set off and let yourself be surprised. That's usually the better idea.
Expect enduro on tracks, dust in every crevice and a small group of four to seven people. This is not a route for someone who dreams of the shower on the very first day. It's a route for someone who likes laughing about the day in the evening, even if they didn't quite understand it.
And one more thing about the dust: it's not your enemy. It's the reason the elephants' plume looks golden in the morning. Once you've seen that, you clean your visor afterwards with different feelings. I certainly do.
A full day of safari in Amboseli is part of the tour, and the park is known for its large elephant herds against this backdrop. Whether the mountain plays along isn't for me to decide. For the best time to travel and everything formal, the current details are in our travel information for Kenya.
Here you can ride the route: Motorcycle tour Kenya & Tanzania: Enduro to the Indian Ocean, 13 days. If you only want to stay in Kenya, you'll also find Amboseli on the Kenya tour Offroad & Safari, and if you prefer more safari and less dust, take a look at the Masai Mara tour.
