a day in the life of mergs

We took off from Amsterdam with KLM and we landed about 8 hours later at Kilimanjaro airport, about halfway between Arusha and Moshi. It only took us about 22 hours to get here and 4 of those were wandering about Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. The flight is not bad at all! The airport was very small; and about what you'd expect to greet you in the Carribean.

However, there was something different about this place. Maybe it was the "smell of Africa" that hit you as you departed the plane and climbed down the stairs to the tarmac, maybe it was just knowing that you were in Africa, finally. Whatever it was, we were immediately excited and it finally hit us: "wow, we're in Africa".

After customs and baggage claim, we were greeted by Yohannes Kamm (our driver and guide for the next 8 days) at the airport and promptly driven off to our lodge in Moshi called the Kilimanjaro Lodge (aka Mama Clementina Foundation). MCF is a vocational training school for women and girls so that they can learn skills in the hospitality and restaurant business. The accomodations were very comfortable and nexpensive, and the staff was ueber freindly and professional. All meals were delicious, quite varied and also inexpensive. This would be our "base camp" between safaris, whereas we'd return here several times over the next 21 days.

The guides we used were Tanganyika Trekkers (www.tanganyikatrekkers.com) and their office is out behind the MCF so the location is ideal.

We arrived late but the staff had a wonderful meal waiting for us and we enjoyed it thoroughly, along with couple of Kilimanjaro Lagers. The beds were very comfortable and firm so sleep came quickly for both of us, but I found myself wide awake again at 2am and decided to simply read for a while. At about 5am I think I fell asleep again.

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