06 September 2012

it starts....

On our second full day in Tanzania, we left for Kilimanjaro!  Our guiding company, One World Safaris (also locally owned) picked us up at our hotel and what did we find inside the bus??  Los Polish!!!  Our friends from Saudi Arabia had been on a week long Safari and we were now all joining up for the climb.  So we piled into the bus and made our way to Machame Gate, our starting point.

We hung out at the gat for awhile and took some silly photos.  Note on the attire: to my friends from the Costa Rica gang that are reading this, no, those are not my same zip off pants and no, I did not choose to hike in black rubber boots.  Sorry for any disappointment.  Before leaving for the trip, we were lucky enough to find the one outdoors store in Jeddah and find hiking boots for Pablo and I and a couple of pairs of zip off pants that almost fit.  I now vow never to travel without all of my own gear.  My accumulation of raincoats, fleece, climbing gear, etc. is sitting happily in my parent's house in the US, thus doing me no good on this side of the world...
Before beginning the hike we decided to eat our nicely packed lunches from One World.  Unfortunately, the Cheeky Monkey got away with our banana...

...and without further adieu, we were off!!  If we only knew what we were in for....

2 comments:

  1. Damn cheeky monkeys. We have them in Rio too. Once a monkey jumped into my friend's apartment window and stole her cell phone.

    Hope the rubber boots didn't slow you down too much! Can't wait to read about the hike

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well come on Em...give us the good stuff about the climb! I'm impatient! Love, M

    ReplyDelete