Kilimanjaro

On Friday, March 1st Kendra and I will begin our trek up Mount Kilimanjaro. The itinerary says we start at Machame Gate (1800 meters) and walk through a rainforest type environment to the Machame Hut camp (3000 meters). The next day, we leave Machame to get to Shira camp (3840 meters). This is a 4-5 hour hike in mooreland. Sunday is an important day for acclimatization, as we will go as far as “the junction of Lava Tour” at 4600 meters before returning to Baranco camp at 3950 meters. Monday we “ascend the great Baranco wall” which is reported to take 1.5 hours (is that just the wall, or the whole day’s hiking? I don’t know) and then end in Karanga Valley (4100 meters). Tuesday we leave our camp in Karanga Valley and arrive at Barafu hut (4600 meters) in time for lunch. Hopefully we will be able to go to bed and sleep early in the night, because in the wee hours of the morning we will get up to make the last leg of the journey to the summit. The schedule I have says we will go via Stela Point to reach Uhuru Peak at 5895 meters. Take some pictures! And start the trek down…

It goes much faster on the way down.  We will have lunch at the same camp as the day before (Barafu) and then descend to Mweka camp at 3200 meters. The last day (Thursday), is only a 3 hour walk in the rainforest to get from Mweka camp to Mweka gate. A car ride back to Moshi will complete our Kilimanjaro adventure. What next?    

*- Safari-*

Our plan right now is to meet the DMU students that arrived on the 17th of February for a 4 day safari from March 8-11. We will definitely go to Ngorongoro crater, and hopefully we will be able to get over to see the Serengeti in that time as well. After that, Kendra and I catch a bus back to Dar where we will spend the night before flying home. Natalie and Eva, the other students, will have a few more days at Gonja before continuing their 4th year adventures in Uganda. I’m betting that I won’t be able to get on the internet again after we leave Gonja, so this is goodbye until I see you again back in the states! Thanks for paying attention to all my ramblings!