Ultimate Kilimanjaro Expedition

John Stackowicz

SUNDAY 02-11-12
Made it to Kilimanjaro after being in airplanes for 18 hours and airports for 9 hours. Packed planes, screaming babies but good food and wine. They even offer you free cognac after your meal! We got bumped from 1 hotel where everyone who is climbing stays, to another hotel then to another hotel where the air conditioning did not work, no lights in the hallway and the room only had 1 double bed. They eventually gave us 2 rooms so I didn't have to sleep with Dan, we will be doing enough of that over the next few weeks!

After writing an email to the booking company they moved us to where we were suppose to be in the first place and giving us $50 back each. Now we are with everyone in our group and met only 3 others. The other 3 are MIA! 2 young men from Australia ages 21 (personal trainer) and 25 and 1man from England who is 35. I haven't seen any older people, I think I am the oldest out of the 60 climbers that are staying at this hotel.

We leave tomorrow at 8:30 for a 2 hour ride through a dirt road to the gate and start our 6 hour hike, can't wait!

We toured all of Moshi today and everyone is begging or wants to be your guide through town. Went to a Catholic mass at 11 this morning and it was all in Swahili and it only lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. A lot of African singing and hand clapping. We were the only white people in the church and got a lot of stares. Wish me luck and say a prayer for me. I will try emailing you tomorrow night. Sunday…
12:30 A.M. Eastern time the trek will commence, 2 hour drive on dirt roads and then a 6 hour hike. Ready or not!

FULL STORY HERE