Pre-Kilimanjaro Climb

Hi everyone! Again I am skipping about a day from Zanzibar that we will need to make up, but we are now in Arusha, our starting point to head out for our 7 day climb of Kili!

We were greeted here by a manager from our travel outfitter, Good Earth Tours, to make sure we arrived at the hotel safe and sound. She said someone would meet us in the lobby at 5:30pm to discuss the plans for tomorrow.

We showed up at 5:30 and met our guide that will lead our excursion up the mountain. His name is Jemsi (yes, that is spelled correctly), and he says he has climbed Kili over 700 times... But he does not look old enough for that, so we will see. He is very nice and we had a little bit of a roles and responsibilities expectation setting discussion with him - to make sure he knows we appreciate a 'high-content' hike with plenty of info on the mountain and eco-systems and local culture. :-) Poor guy doesn't know who he has to deal with for the next week! But we got along, and he seems really good. We meet the other 7 or 8 porters, cooks, and assistant guide tomorrow.

We were a little bummed to find out that the other couple that was signed up for the same dates as us had a last-minute cancelation... just 2 days ago. So it is the 2 of us and the whole porter team to tackle the mountain! I am sure we will meet others on the trail from other tour operators, though...so that will be good. We also bought a deck of card and a couple of books for time in camp.

Our tour group said they have had a LOT of safari trip cancelations this year....Tanzania is feeling America's economic problems.

So tonight we are at our hotel and enjoying a real bathroom (read toilet and shower) for the last time for several days and got some food and packed our bags for the hike...filling duffel bags that the porters will carry and 2 day pack backpacks that we will each carry with our water and rain gear. The first 2 days of hiking will be pretty warm, then gradually gets cooler and then cold.

We felt pretty good, though, when the guide quizzed us on what gear we brought, and we have everything we need... but will rent sleeping bags from here. He also said to us 'you look very fit' which was a little confidence booster - it also prompted Kate to flex her arms for him (Romz - definitely let Kevin know about that!) ...he said he is very confident in our abilities to make it to the top.

So now we are packed and will get some sleep before our 6-7 hrs of trekking tomorrow.

We will lack e-mail access while we are up there, so Mr. Romz will do us a favor and paste into our blog the hiking itinerary for the next 7 days... And we look forward to checking back in with you when we are back from the hike. :-)

Thanks to those that are keeping up with this blog. I wish I could post photos, but Yahoo's mobile version does not seem to have a way to attach photos... So those may have to wait until I have full-size computer access.

Will be in touch again soon!!