Back to Africa!

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It had been less than half a year since I was in Africa, and I could not be happier about returning. While I was in west Africa last time on a humanitarian school trip, I was now headed to east Africa for the main purpose of climbing the highest peak on the continent, Mt Kilimanjaro. My folks were coming along with me. My mom, who had been planning this trip for years, had asked me if I wanted to take part because she knows I love climbing. My dad would be attempting Kili as well (although he didn't train) but his primary focus was photography.

Our trip began with an 11 hour layover in London, England. Upon arrivin, we made our way through Heathrow and got onto the tube, taking the picadilly line all the way to the heart of the city. Despite our limited time we were able to see the Big Ben clocktower, some parliment buildings, St. James park, Buckingham palace, and passed by many old churches and architecture before making our way back to the airport to catch our connecting flight to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. The nine hour flight was pretty easy and I managed to sleep for about half of it.

We were immediately greeted with heat and humidity upon landing. We had our visa's filled out and exited customs and I immediately recognized some similarities between Ghana and Tanzania. I guess one explanation could be that they were both former British colonies or maybe it's just sub-saharan Africaesque. After some arguing we boarded a short flight onwards to the Kilimanjaro airport. The outfitter we'd be using to climb Kili was the Marangu hotel (you absolutely need an outfitter to climb this mountain). They sent a driver from the hotel to pick us up as we were about an hour and a half away. My folks had their first taste of subsaharan Africa, while I had a flashback of Ghana in terms of traffic, roads, infrastructure, markets and even the "rumble strips" as we drove towards the hotel. About half way there we stopped at an international school near Moshi to pick up Desmonds two kids. Desmond was an owner of the Marangu Hotel and had been in contact with us often. He was a white Tanzanian born man whom had lived in the Canadian Arctic for 25 years as a defense lawyer, before moving back home to look after his ailing mother and take over the family business. His two children were eleven year old Jerry and eight year old Theodora, both real nice and curious kids. We asked each other plenty of questions. By late afternoon we arrived at the hotel and checked in. The grounds were beatiful, formerly a coffee plantation, we could see a clear view of Kibo peak. We were all suffering something aweful from jetlag. I tried to get some shut eye before our climbing briefing that evening. Desmond gave an expert briefing entailing everything we would need to know for our expedition. He presented it very well but we were all so jetlagged that we began passing out. Needless to say I didn't have any trouble with sleeping that night.

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