The most amazing week and a half of my life. First of all, I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro! I did not summit, nor did I regret that decision. I did get 4/5up, to Kibo, which is well above the clouds. Like many people, I got altitude sickness, so I was nauseas and ate little as a result. The porters who carry our duffles and the guides who walk with us and support and encourage us are so amazing. When we reached Kibo, they danced and sang as we approached camp. Many high fives and fist bumps all around. The photos of Kilimanjaro can not do it justice. I was not expecting the rugged arid places to be so beautiful. I suspect that my pictures, too, will not capture the experience
My Internet connection keeps cutting out, so my apologies for misspellings and lack of more d
We stayed at a lodge run by the Maasi people. Our cabin was round with a. Thatched roof and windows facing out onto a flood plain where elephants, lions and leopards roamed! When we wanted to leave our cabin to go to dinner, we had to stand on our porch and call our Maasai warrior to escort us because we were in the wild, and amount the animals. This morning we saw elephant and leopard tracks outside the cabins! Later we danced with the Maasai people. Tomorrow we start up Mt Kilimanjaro so I won,t be able to blog for 7 days. This is Lake Victoria. It's a little blurry, but it has the most amazingly large rocks, some are the sizable of small houses. Also Lake Victoria. This is from the ride from the airport. Tanzania is very dusty, in fact as we flew in, we could see several small dust tornados, or "Dust Devils" along the air strip. So, yesterday, my Internet stopped before I could explain the photo below. If you look closely,amount the clouds you can see some vertical white shapes. Those are the glaciers on Kilimanjaro! Today we flew (again) to Mwanza, the second largest city in Tanzania. After settling in, we took a boat tour of Lake Victoria, which is the second largest fresh water lake in the world. This one is for the students, guess what the largest fresh water lake? I'll give you a hint; it's in Michigan! Tomorrow we are going to visit town, an orphanage and school, and see the tribal museum of the segunda tribe (not sure of the spelling) and the go to the market place. I wasn't able to download all the pictures yesterday, I will try again tonight. all good things are worth waiting for. I have been preparing for 6 months and I am finally here. we flew from Detroit to Washington D.C., then onto Ethiopia, and finally onto Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. we left. Saturday afternoon and finally arrived today at 2 pm. As we drove through the city of Kilimanjaro, we were AMAZED at the size of Mount Kilimanjaro. Nearly every teacher said the same thing; we're going to climb THAT! It's absolutely enormous. We are very tired and very happy. I took many pictures today and will attempt to download them for you. (Our wireless connection is a little unpredictable, but as I learned from a missionary worker on the plane ride, Africa is not about being predictable.:)
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