The Kilimanjaro Adventure Begins!

Our travels up north to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (Kili) have begun. We left on Dec. 6 and are currently at a southern Tanzania in a town called Mbeya. It has been quite the journey. A few highlights are listed below. I hope everyone is getting amped for the holiday season!

-We had 34 people, 38 if you include babies on the backs of their mothers, crammed in an open backed chappa, a small truck where three people sit in the front cab and the back of the truck has a canvas cover with two benches down the side. In the back about 6 people sit on each bench and the rest of the people stand. This was a record for a chappa ride I've been able to partake in. Another great part was when the gas tank dropped and was dragged on the ground for a few hundred feet. No worries, we just stopped and they tied it back up and we drove on.
-We went over a road for with so many potholes that we spent most of the time on the side of the road in the dirt so we didn't have to weave around the potholes on the asphalt.
-We stayed at a Portuguese gentleman's extra house in Chimoio, Mozambique that had 4 bedrooms, air conditioning, a swimming pool, and more cockroaches and ants then I've ever seen in a kitchen. All out of the goodness of his heart, no charge, he likes US Peace Corps volunteers.
-We camped in Blantyre, Malawi for $1.50 per person at a backpackers.
-We rode in the back of a flat bed truck for 6 hours with chickens, rice bags, 20 people, and no seats in the heat of the sun. At one time I was straddling one woman and her baby, my ankle was being torqued by a gentleman on my right, and the guys on blocked any comfortable position for my left leg. At one stop a climbing team member was playing soccer with no shoes on. Turned out he popped two huge blisters on the bottom of his feet in the process. It was a memorable ride.
-We rode on the one bus for 16.5 hours overnight, a new personal record. On this trip we also had our most serious racial prejudice treatment of the trip. There were people in the bus aisles the whole time blocking any sort of stretching out that may have been possible. Good times.
-One of our climbing team members had around $35 stolen from him at the border in between Malawi and Tanzania. Lesson learned, stay away from sketchy money changers in between borders.
-We are in our third country and crossed both borders in 48 hours. Malawi only took 20 hours to cross by bus.
-Christmas is not in the air, but plenty of pollution and body odor makes up for the sweet scent of Christmas.

So we will try to travel north to Moshi, Tanzania by December 15 where we will secure a Mt. Kilimanjaro guide. We hope to be climbing the mountain over Christmas, should be fun.