Africa Day 2 - Tuesday September 24th

Africa Day 2 - Tuesday September 24th
Title: Preparing for Kili

We were woken up at 8:40 by the front desk asking what time we wanted breakfast. We decided we should get up and start the day. We quickly got ready and headed to the main lodge where a breakfast buffet awaited us. While eating breakfast we enjoyed some wi-fi which is a rarity in these parts.

At 11 PM, our main guide and the trip manager from Summit Africa came to visit us. The trip manager spent about an hour going over what we can expect from the experience, start to finish. He talked about safety, shared his personal experiences and made sure all of our questions were answered. After that we went with our guide to our room to ensure our kits were properly prepared.  We passed with flying colors.

After our time with the guides we headed up for lunch. After a quick lunch we hopped in the lodge's shuttle and headed to town. The trip to "town" took about 30 minutes. Our first stop was a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities called Sanga Shop.  Here they had multiple physically handicapped people making all sorts of handicrafts including blankets, bracelets, necklaces and, most impressive, blown glass. After shopping there we were driven to the heart of "town" which wasn't much.  Most of town was people sitting on the side of the road selling worn shoes and farm foods.  The bus system was very interesting.  The buses were just a bit bigger than VW vans and they had no less than 20 people in each one.  The buses kept coming and coming as well.  We saw over 40 in just a 10 minute span.

We walked in to a few stores but decided to head back to the hotel to rest. Earlier in the day we learned 3G is available almost all the way up Kilimanjaro. So, just before jumping in the van to leave, we decided to buy a cheap cell phone that would allow us to tether our devices to it. Cell wi-fi here is crazy expensive, $20 per meg!  For non techies, one picture from an iPhone can cost $60 to upload. Little did I know that this phone would be the bane of my next 24 hours (and the saga continues). As of now we still can't tether :(

Back at the lodge we ate dinner and headed back to the room for an early night.  We watched a few movies and tried to call it a night. Evan and Jamie did ok, I ended up pulling an all-nighter, not by choice.  I guess I got such a great night of sleep the night before, I just couldn't sleep.  Or perhaps it was the Kevin Spacey movie Evan had us watch which pretty much freaked me out. Overall it was a pretty lazy day.  Tomorrow starts the big day!