Kilimanjaro: Travel Day and Day 0

It's been a month since my last blog entry as we had the 'post-holiday' lull (i.e. too broke to travel). I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the prospect of a monstrous 'Tanzania Trip' blog entry; therefore, I've decided to break it into daily chunks so that I can have the satisfaction of 'completion' even when I'm not finished. So, here goes: Travel Day and Day 0!

Ever since Doug was accepted to BIPAI and we found out that we'd be moving to the continent of Africa, I've been dreaming of climbing Kilimanjaro. I knew that Swaziland was nowhere near Kilimanjaro, but I didn't care. I wanted to go. Doug actually referred to the vacation as 'your trip' because he didn't really care either way whether we went or not (blasphemy). So, we left on Thursday 10 February for Tanzania and I was SUPER excited, while Doug was really just looking forward to the post-climb safari in the Ngorongoro Crater (think 'colosseum' for animals).

We flew through Nairobi, Kenya and landed at Kilimanjaro airport just before midnight. Our friends, Risa and Dave, and our friend Garrett's friends, Nick and Matt, arrived an hour earlier and were waiting for us to take the shuttle to The Marangu Hotel. The Marangu Hotel is owned and operated by our friend (in Swaziland) Antz's Mom and two uncles. Antz connected us with his family and they really looked after us and made our trip perfect.

Our room

Bathroom

The grounds of the hotel were particularly beautiful; lots of seating areas surrounded by flowers!

Believe it or not, there's a gazebo underneath all of those flowers

On Friday morning we gathered for breakfast and then laid out all of our gear for the climb. Marangu staff checked our gear and loaned us any items that we were missing/were necessary. We were each given a potato sack to pack our belongings for a porter to carry up the mountain, so after completing the gear check we were more or less ready to go! With the better part of the day remaining and the other members of our group enroute we had a beer at the restaurant bar and then hired a local to take us on a hike to a nearby waterfall.

From left to right: Dave, Nick, Garrett, Matt, Doug and Risa

Our guide took us through the nearby banana and coffee plantations and for a swim in the falls.

Banana tree

Wild Poinsetta (as tall as me)

On our way down to the falls

Underneath the falls

It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon as we didn't need to be back at the hotel until 4:00pm for our 'briefing' meeting. During the briefing we basically received a play-by-play of our pending trip up the mountain and had the opportunity to ask questions, etc. We left the meeting feeling a bit mixed as we were headed on a 5-day climb and two other groups were going for 7 and 9 days respectively; which made us feel like we were not going to acclimate and make it to the summit!

After a traditional dinner we went to bed early to prepare for Day 1.