Some trip details...

I thought that some might be interested in the itinerary details of our trip, so here you go!


I depart on July 2nd from Atlanta.  It is a three-legged flight to our destination in Africa.  First we fly to Detroit, then to Amsterdam, and finally to Arusha in Tanzania.  I have calculated about 20 hours in the air between these flights.  Luckily, on the long flights I was able to get something called "economy comfort seating", which supposedly allows a little more leg room.  It's not first-class, but it's a step up from coach.  I hope.  And evidently they can give those seats away without warning.


I will be arriving in Arusha, Tanzania on the 3rd at about 7:30 pm.  My thought is that I'll probably go to bed shortly after arriving in the hotel (nothing fancy there...hoping for electricity and warm water) to help get adjusted to the time change.  I have all day on the 4th and 5th to laze around the hotel and just generally rest up before we start climbing on the 6th. 


We depart on our big trek adventure on Sunday, July 6th, early morning.  We will be climbing anywhere from 5 - 8 miles per day, from what I gather.  They insist that you walk SLOWLY to  help acclimatize to the altitude change each day.  Therefore, it seems we have 6-8 hour hikes each day.  As I think I mentioned earlier, I only will be carrying my daypack.  Porters carry tents, etc, and set it all up for us.  I just have to make sure I'm carrying what I need for that day.  Around midnight of day 7 (July 12), we are scheduled to start our attack on the summit.  If all goes well, we should arrive there after sunrise, around 6:00 or so in the morning.  We turn around and immediately head down, where we take a short rest at the camp we left, and then hike further on down more than halfway down the mountain!  We hike for around 16 hours that day, less breaks.  This is the day prayers will be most fervently needed, assuming altitude hasn't taken me out of the game by that point. 


The next day, the 13th, it's just a couple more hours of hiking, and we are done.  We will get our certificates for climbing (again... assuming...) and then we are delivered back to our hotel, which probably will look a LOT nicer now than it did at the beginning of the trip as it will offer running water (hot or not) with which to shower for the first time in more than a week.
We have the 14th, all day, to rest again, and then on the 15th we will begin our Safari.  We will be heading to the Ngorongoro crater and three other areas of savannah.  This is (for all you natural science lovers) where australopithicus africanus early humans were discovered.  If I spelled that even close to right, it's thanks to Dr. Wangeman back at Lakeland College in the early 90s! ;-)  This safari is three days long, and then we leave Africa on the 18th, arriving home to the US on the 19th. 


I'll post this info again, but we are traveling under the direction of an outfit called Team Kilimanjaro.  If you go to their website, www.teamkilimanjaro.com, there is a link for "interactive" options, and from there you can click on the map to see where we are on the mountain.  We will be identified with the code HS-SAMO or HS-NIBE.  Our lead guide will send updates back to headquarters any day that he can with our progress.  I encourage you to follow us, and PRAY for our success and good health!  Please??!!!??  One week from tomorrow it all begins!