Arrived in Africa

The 8 hour KLM flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro was quite enjoyable. After a 45-minute delay to fix an engine (not what you hope for beginning any flight), we finally got on our way. The skies were clear so we had fabulous views of the Alps, as well as Northern Italy and along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. There was not a cloud to be seen as we flew over northern Africa. I had hoped we would arrive in daylight to catch a glimpse of the mountain from the air, but it turned dark earlier than back home, because of our proximity to the equator, so I'll have to wait until morning.

We arrived at Kilimanjaro airport an hour later than originally scheduled. Luckily we were one of the first to get off the plane because entry through their passport control included photos and fingerprinting. The lineups got quite long, but we were in and out without too much delay.

We met up with our tour guide Dean Staples and his partner Lydia who both work for Adventure Consultants as mountain guides. Dean is leading our climb and Lydia climbs a day later with another group. They had a long travel day (or two) from New Zealand which in total took them about 50 hours with a seven-leg flight

We had about an hour drive from the Kilimanjaro airport to our home base here in Arusha. We joked that the first two animals we saw in Africa were a domestic cat and dog on the side of the road. We hope it gets better! We are staying at the Arusha Coffee Lodge just outside of town. What a wonderful place, and we haven't even seen it in daylight yet. We were greeted with iced coffee and shown to our rooms which are actually little cottages. Can't wait to see it in the morning and have a coffee from beans harvested right here.

Well, I will hopefully get some photos up of our day tomorrow. We have a rest day and we will be doing some local sightseeing in the Arusha/Moshi area. We have a briefing tomorrow night for our climb which starts on Friday.

Karen