Everyone met in the lobby and checked out. Breakfast was not yet open but Steph and Cindy did manage to get some coffee and water from one of the small shops in the lobby. Most at protein bars to tide us over until the airport. Mike mentioned that often African airlines are strict on the size of your carry-on bag. Even though we were only carrying backpacks, we stuffed all non-essential items that would fit into our duffel bags in the lobby and locked them. The Hilton shuttle picked us up to take us to the airport once again. There was little traffic so early in the morning and we made it there in about 20 min. We were all wearing our team shirts.
We notified the driver that we were flying on Fly 540, a small African airline and he took us to the terminal. Unfortunately, he took us to the domestic terminal rather than the international one (we didn't even think about this 45 min flight as being 'international', even though we were going from Kenya to Tanzania). Our bags were unloaded and we showed our ticket to the security agent who caught the mistake. Fortunately, the driver was just pulling away and he yelled to him. We loaded the bags again and he drove us to the international terminal.Had to go through security to even get into the airport. Next stop was the bag-wrapping station. African airports are somewhat notorious for helping themselves to whatever is easily accessible in your checked baggage. For this reason, locks and wrapping luggage in clear plastic are encouraged. For a small $7 fee, they wrap it multiple times and even use a razor blade to cut out the handle and wheels so it is easier to carry.
We were all somewhat suspicious of what Fly 540 was going to like. Checking in did not help that, as we received boarding passes which were hand written.
From there, it was back through customs (we are becoming very good at filling out customs forms....we will all likely have our passport numbers memorized by the end of the trip). The airport is still as hot and smelly as it was the day prior. As the granola bar breakfast was running thin, we decided to find something to eat. We found a food stand where most of us ordered a croissant wrapped around a neon-pink hot dog....don't want to know what was in that.
After that we went through security at the gate. The propellor plane was being pulled by a (non-John Deere) tractor across the tarmac towards us. John and Steph both get motion sick easily so the propellors were an unwelcomed sight. Boarded across the tarmac. It was so humid that water vapor was pouring out of all of the blower vents. Some people were being dripped on from the vents.
The actual 45 min flight was very smooth. We even received beverage service which is more than can be said for a 45 min flight in the US. Most of us had Coke to taste the difference between here and what it tastes like in the states. The highlight of the flight was that the flight pattern went directly between Mt Meru and Mt Kilimanjaro. We were flying at ~17,000 feet which was intimidating as we were flying 2000 feet below where we were going to be climbing in a few days. In the words of the girl sitting behind Steph and Cindy on the plane....'you're going to climb that thing?!'.
The arrival quadrant of Kilimanjaro International airport is not very elaborate. Walk directly from the plane into the customs / baggage pickup room. It was in the 80's outside, but too cloudy to see the Kilimanjaro summit (we could only see it from the plane because we were above the clouds). We stood at a desk and filled out our customs forms and then retrieved our bags. All of them made it, with plastic wrap still intact. Our driver met us as we were coming out of the airport and took our bag cart to the vehicle.
The drive to Moshi, a town close to the mountain, was the first time it really felt like we were in Africa. Everyone watched the people herding cattle, playing pool (below left), carrying everything from TVs to produce on their heads, and just sitting staring at the ground along the side of the road. The drive took ~45 min to get into Moshi.
The town was somewhat chaotic to drive through, but then we turned into the gates of Bristol Cottages and saw our cottages in midst of perfectly landscaped grounds. When we arrived, some of the workers were actually scrubbing the rocks on the pavement with water and brushes. Bags were unloaded from the vehicle and we checked into our rooms.
It feels late in the day after all we have gone through so far, but it is only ~1:00 PM. After getting organized in the rooms, we decided to find lunch. John, Mike and Cindy were looking through travel books on the porch to evaluate which restaurant was both close and decent. We chose to go to a place called Chrisburger near the clocktower circle, which was just a short walk from our cottages. As soon as we left the confines of the cottages, it was a barrage of people asking us to buy small souvenirs, water, pineapples, etc. Simko met someone named 'Kevin' who followed him around for the whole day. Even waited outside while we were eating lunch, until Simko and Mitch finally bought bracelets from him after negotiating with him that whole time.
Moshi was not necessarily easy to get around, and at ~150,000 people, was bigger than expected. No street signs. We also didn't see any other tourists wandering around town. Cindy had a map but it was difficult to tell exactly were, especially as we were dodging people and cars coming from the opposite direction as we were used to. Finally, someone was helpful enough to stop and help us without trying to sell us anything (although, ironically we would end up in his shop later in the trip) and pointed us towards Chrisburger. We sat in a covered outdoor patio which had a disco ball on the ceiling. We all had our first Kilimanjaro Beer here. Mitch ordered Ox Tongue, Mike and I ordered Steak and Chips, and the other three ordered chicken and fries. The chicken did not end up being chicken fingers, but rather was a dried piece of fried chicken. Steph and Cindy ended up ordering fish sticks, which tasted terrible. The steak and chips and ox tongue were good.
After lunch, we found a 'grocery store' where we each bought a 5 L jug of water to fill up all of our water bottles with for the hike starting tomorrow, as well as to brush our teeth in our rooms. Once finally back inside of the Bristol cottages, none of us really felt like going out again so we spent the afternoon relaxing and getting things re-organized for the hike starting tomorrow. Mitch did discover that his waterbottle was leaking, so he and Steph went back into town to purchase some Kilimanjaro-branded water bottles. They have maps of the routes and camps we will be staying at on our hike.
Around 5:30 PM, the clouds cleared enough to see the summit so we walked outside of the compound to a small hill to see the mountain.
As we were heading out to take the pictures, we passed Phillip, who is in charge of the hiking company we were booked with. He mentioned that our guide was on the way. Soon after getting back from our pictures and sitting down with Phillip, our guide Azizi showed up. He answered some of our questions about the hike, collected the $10 from each of us for the hiking poles we were renting from him and told us to be ready by 9 AM the next morning. He suggested eating a strong breakfast, or 'even two breakfasts' in the morning. After the discussion, we went back to the rooms to do some minor packing modifications (except for Simko, who had to repack everything into his duffel bag).
At 6:30, we met for dinner. There was a debate about how much altitude medicine we should take and when. Some had pills only half the size of others, so Steph, Simko and I spent part of dinner cutting our larger pills in half in case we wanted to start off only taking them one at a time. It was done with butter knives, but we figured this would be the best chance we would have for awhile to have a sanitary place to do it. We all ordered ice cream after dinner.
Hike is tomorrow. We were glad to hear that Azizi said that 95-97% of people he leads make it to the summit (we had read that overall it was closer to 50%). Ready for a night of sleeping under the mosquito nets.
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