Final Days

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We woke at 0430 to quickly eat and take transport to Moshi for the Kilimanjaro marathon. Mom would be running the half and I considered it but sadly waited too long to register. A few others from the Marangu hotel would be running. Astrid, once lived in Montreal and now worked in Kenya as a doctor and a Canadian couple who'd also attempted Kilimanjaro. I hate being on the sidelines of physical activity but the hell with it. We arrived at the stadium by the university and everything was set up. The organizers claimed that this was one of the biggest events in East Africa. Once the races began, Dad and I walked around with camera's and visited downtown Moshi for a few hours. The day grew hot quite early and I wondered how the runners were able to hold up. We waited forever for mom to show up and she apparently got lost for a while and didn't have such a great race time.

We headed back to Marangu and chilled out for the rest of the day. The following day we packed up our stuff, my folks bought some Tinga Tinga artwork, and we took a short transport to the local market. Frank, a local that Dad had met when we were up on Kili, accompanied us and helped my folks negotiate some deals on shirts and hats. Mom was quite intrigued with how this African market appeared while I was quite used to it due to ample time in Ghana previously. We had an early dinner and then took off for Kilimanjaro airport for a late flight back to Dar Es Salaam. We had an overnight there near the airport in a slum and then headed back from East Africa for a day in London. One of the in-flight movies I watched was the Lion King. It seemed quite fitting.

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