Arrival

Yikes, that's a big mountain!

Well we are finally here in Tanzania. We left Toronto about an hour behind schedule as they had to deice the plane, which made our layover much shorter in Amsterdam. Just enough time to stretch our legs and use the washrooms. We arrived in Tanzania around 8:30 Saturday night...and it was hot! We drove about an hour to our hotel, along a very bumpy road, not just your typical bumpy road, I'm talking giant craters. The drivers just go wherever they want on the roads to avoid the bumps. We checked into our hotel and were in bed, under our mosquito nets by 11:30. We slept good considering the heat, and no AC, and were up by 7:30 for breakfast. We got our first glimpse of Kilimanjaro, right outside our bedroom...and it looks huge! Are we really climbing that? Like seriously? It looks much bigger then all the pictures I've seen. After breakfast we decided to head into town for a little tour. Our helpful guide Hamassi took us to the local market, and all throughout Moshi. The people were really friendly, but some a little pushy trying to get us to buy their products.

We eventually stocked up on souvenirs, and then headed back to the hotel. Most of the people at the hotel have either just climbed Kili, or are about to. I was eavesdropping on a guy who was doing the same route as us (8 day Lemosho) and he had to come down on the 5th day...yikes! That could be me, or one of us. But, we are all pretty positive so far, besides feeling a bit off from the Malaria medication. We had a meeting with our head guide Shabaz, he seems like a nice guy, and wouldn't ya know it, he has the same goal in mind for our climb- to get us to the top! At least we're all on the same page. He said we were to leave by 8:30 the next morning, so we went to bed early to be ready for our first day of hiking.