fellsadventures

Our first night in the N'dutu wilderness camp was a slightly more wild experience. Although the canvas tents were more luxurious than we expected, including beds and porta-potties, we still felt a tad unsure of their safety rating should we be swarmed by animals in the night. The manager of the camp assured Morgan (with a totally straight face) that the canvas and plastic venting were completely "lion proof." Yeah. Right. This was why we were always escorted to our tents with a Maasai gaurd armed with a spear and also why we were not allowed to leave our tents until daylight. We headed out that afternoon on an evening game drive, with the hopes of coming across the wildebeests migrating. We were met with no success and were just a tad curious where you could ... read more

Tangire Park What an amazing adventure the past six days has been, the safari has exceeded all of our expectations and every day held a new highlight, and each park was uniquely different from the next. The first night was our introduction to "tented" camping on Safari, and it was anything but roughing it, and even included a pool. Our rooms were as big as an apartment back at home, and the only way of knowing we were tenting was the lack of soundproofing. The first park we visited was the Tangire National Park and with it came many breath-taking elephant encounters. The herds were watering themselves by a watering hole, and as they caught wind of us, they slowly sauntered around the vehicles and away from where we were. The first night as we pulled ... read more

Sorry, this is a long one! Day 4 Day 4 was a built in acclimatization day, we started at 14200ft and did a three hour acclimatization hike and gained another 1000ft. Along the way it became increasing difficult for Jody as she was have stomach issues. We rested for the rest of the day in preparation for the next couple of days. Day 5/6 It is hard to separate these two days as there really was to be no break between them. We got off to an early start to begin the march to Kibo base camp. We walked 8k and gained 1600ft. This turned out to be a grueling hike across an expansive saddle. The morning sun was relentless as it started to wear down our reserves. Jody was really suffering at this point, then ... read more

Sorry no pictures. Wifi is a hit and miss in Africa! Day 2 We woke this morning to the majestic Mawenzi peak in the background. WOW! The view was breathtaking. We were also able to catch the odd glimpse of Kibo which is the final destination. It looked pretty manageable from this distance. We were told that this would be a long and hard day and no truer words spoken. We would walk 15k and gain 1000ft in altitude. The morning was the hardest however as we did the lions share of the climbing before lunch with the sun beating down upon us relentlessly. It is worth noting that the intensity of the sun seemed too increase with every foot of elevation gained. Most of our group wilts in the heat and by the time we ... read more

And we are off!! We left Rivertrees and headed out onward to the Marangu Gate to get permits from the park ranger. The land-rover that we had some issues with the day before overheated and we had to abandon it (as well as the 7 passengers it was carrying). Summits Africa was quick to replace it however and we were quickly off again, new cruiser and driver. The new driver was quite a character, racing over the dirt bumpy roads Like a one ton hot shot on the sierra high grade (Garett's description). This seemed to please him as much as it displeased his mother:) After 4 hours or so of driving and registering we were finally at the Rongai Gate (north side of the mountain close to Kenya). Here we met up with our 4 ... read more

So I guess that we have discovered that if any culture knows how to ring in the New Year, hands down, the Germans take the cake! I think that I will never again in my life be a witness to such a city-wide all out party. It was difficult to miss that the Germans take New Years Eve very seriously, and I am not joking when I say that it was an ALL out city party. Firstly, every store that is not a party location closes sometime in the very early afternoon. This made us a tad bit worried that we wouldn't be able to find a restaurant for dinner, but lucky for us, all the pubs were open for business. We thought that it would be wise to take an afternoon nap prior to getting ... read more