Kilimanjaro...Tanzania

What a fantastic week! I had thought about staring this post from the beginning, taking you through every moment, each detail, leaving you hanging until the very end...did she make, didn't she make it, what happened. Then I thought...no way, I can't hold it in, I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and I want to scream it from the rooftops!

I flew into Tanzania last Saturday morning and by the evening had met the other 8 members of 'the group.' I just happened to be the only American surrounded by English, Irish and French, sounds scary? More like highly entertaining. Not only did I learn Swahili, but I learned English as well. Pericetimon, loo, bugger, I could go on for days, but that's for another day. Anyhow, Sunday morning it all started...camping, no showers, no running water...we did get a bowl of hot water for 'wash wash' almost every day. We were woken up each morning with hot tea or coffee in our tent, we had our very own green room (loo...toilet) in camp each evening and we had by far the best chef known to mankind. Honestly, the food was amazing and even though we were burning thousands of calories a day, I'm pretty sure nobody walked away any lighter than we started. The guides were incredibly knowledgeable, never wrong, very kind and oh so helpful. Oh, back to the food thing. The guides talked a lot about signs of AMS, acute mountain sickness...saying lack of appetite was one of the signs...not a problem with our group...who ranged in age from 25 to 50ish (I think)...Georgi and I were the only girls and I'm happy to report we held up our end up just fine.

The higher we climbed, the colder it got...duh. But 'brrr, its cold outside' has new meaning. Each morning we were up around 6:30 and on the road by 7:30 or 8, climbing poli poli (slowly, slowly). We soon figured out that our chief and guides (Samuel, JT, Elli and Joseph) knew what they were talking about and if we listened to them we'd be just fine, it seemed to really work that way. If you are familiar with the mountain, then you know that there are many different routes and timetables you can follow to get to the top, so remind me to tell you all about that in the next posting. Its super late (ok, not really), its about 10:30, but we were going to bed around 8 or 9 most evenings and then there was the final push...we hiked for a very, very, very, very long time. Besides, if you've read this far, you must be falling asleep, so next time...the route, the scenery, the nitty gritty....until then here's your second Swahili word of the day...Jambo! Anyone know what it means? Here's a hint...it should have been at the beginning of this post, not the end.

Good night!