I'm happy to report that one of my biggest fears of this trip has not been realized...both of my bags made it all the way to Arusha! That was quite the relief to see them come off the conveyer belt at the airport. Actually, considering the power went out while we were waiting in the immigration line, I think I should be happy that ANYTHING came off the conveyer belt! Backing up a bit from that experience, I should be happy we landed on the runway...as we were coming in to land, I was sitting next to the window and reporting to Tracy that I still didn't see any lights from the airport when all of a sudden we LANDED. That was wild.
As was the plan, we were met at the airport by a representative of Destination Tanzania Safaris, Ayubu. He turned out to be quite a hoot. He has a great laugh and used it often as he got all our bags crammed into the land rover to drive from the airport to our lodge here in Arusha. I immediately felt as though I was back in Benin as the driving experience was as crazy and chaotic as any I had experienced during my Peace Corps stint. After driving on a very nice paved road for the drive from the airport to Arusha, we then turned on to what Ayubu called "an African Massage road" for the final trek to the lodge. That road DEFINITELY reminded me of Benin. See the picture below...
The lodge is very nice. Claudia and I are sharing a room, while Tracy and Lisa are in the room next to ours. We each have a single bed, one bathroom in each room, and plenty of floor space for all our gear. After we got here last night we hit the bar in the lodge to have a celebatory beer. I took an immediate liking to the Kilimanjaro beer - it's very good! We all crashed about midnight. I expected that I would fall asleep quickly but that my body would view the sleep as a nap. Sure enough, about 2am (6pm the previous evening, Minneapolis time) I was wide awake! It did not help that there was an OBNOXIOUS dog barking his fool head off. I did eventually fall back to sleep and possibly got about 2-3 hours total. Little did I know, but Claudia was also having trouble sleeping...however, she was passing the time playing Angry Birds on her iPad under the covers! Craziness for our first nignt in Africa!
This morning we had a very nice breakfast in the lodge. We also met the other couple who will be climbing with us. Larry and Virgie. Both are retired teachers, although Larry had moved into administration and was a Principal by the time he retired from the White Bear Lake school district. They live part of the year in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and are avid hikers. Me thinks we have been given an additional Guide in the form of Larry!
Speaking of guides, our main guide, Justin showed up at 10am to give us our Orientation. We sat out by the pool while he described the details of the trek. Having read up extensively on this trek, most of the information he shared was stuff I already knew. Justin did explain that we will indeed be hiking through the treacherous Western Breach area at night so as to avoid rock falls. Yikes. After the meeting he came and inspected each of our gear to make sure that we had everything we needed. We all passed that with flying colors. Now it is time to head down to Arusha and poke around a bit. I am excited as I can already tell that it will remind me of Benin!
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