Day One: Diamox Talks

After a fitful night of sleep at the Outpost Lodge in Arusha, it was at last time to head for the mountain. I hopped out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to enjoy my last shower for the week only to discover that the only water coming from the tap was ice cold.  Hmmm...not a good start.  I began with a shocking shampoo and prioritized from there - already dreaming of the post-climb shower before we had even left the hotel.  I bid the kids good-bye over Skype and gave them one last glimpse of all of my fingers and toes in the event that any should be missing upon my return.  When the Smurf reported that there was no water at all in his room and begged for a freezing shower in ours, my spirits lifted a little.  Misery loves company.

At 8:30 the Team Kilimanjaro crew arrived with the rest of the freaks.  This was our first meeting, and we were all on our best behavior.  The jury was still out on exactly what kind of group bonding was going to occur on this adventure.  We piled into the "short bus" that was designed to carry far fewer passengers than we squished and stacked onto the available seats.  There were the nine of us (the paying climbers  - or the marshmallows) and about 15-20 more TK staff (the chocolate chips) squeezed in for this smelly adventure.  It was, indeed, quite ripe already, and I could only imagine what that bus was bound to smell like on our return trip.

Eggs in the heat.
Hmmm...E. coli anyone?

The drive to the Rongai Gate, where we would begin our climb, took about five hours with various stops along the way to pick up more staff, food and prescriptions.  We caught some early glimpses of the mountain, and I was pleased to see that the summit was still covered in snow.  We searched and searched for the elusive giraffe that appears on every postcard of Kilimanjaro.  We may as well have been searching for a unicorn.  As we got closer to the mountain, the scenery turned from dusty and brown to tropical with endless banana trees. 

Early glimpse of the mountain

Sun hats? Souvenirs?

Once we reached the gate, we "officially" registered, used the toilets a few times (Howard's foray into the "staff toilet" convinced him that he would not be pooping this week) and ate our first meal of soup and sandwiches together.    This first round of soup tasted great.  By day seven, we would not think so kindly of this dietary option.  However, on day one, the excitement was still running high, and we all wore rose-colored soup glasses.  I believe we may even have marveled at how tasty the tomato and "Medium Fat Spread" sandwiches were.  The super-sized tub of Medium Fat Spread that would grace our meal table for the next week (in various forms ranging from slightly melted to frozen solid)  became a sort of sick fascination (along with the Nido - instant creamer).  Would a product called "Medium Fat Spread" ever sell in the United States?

The porters spent their time at the gate sorting and weighing our equipment, repackaging our backpacks into large "rice bags" which they would carry atop their heads and, no doubt, fighting for the job of carrying the "private potty tent and equipment." Apparently the person who takes on this job (including the cleaning task) gets a hefty chunk of the tips at the end of the climb (as they well should). The porters are paid based on the weight that they carry up the mountain, so I was happy to do my part in bringing along enough layers to keep a sun-seeking iguana warm at the summit.  I do believe there was a small scuffle over who had dibs on my monstrous bag (just after the toilet tent job had been assigned).

Ummm...yeah, I could do that.

The porters took off ahead of us - practically sprinting up the trail - so that they would have our camp set up when we arrived three hours later.  We snapped the last of the shiny, squeaky-clean, smiley photos before setting off up the trail.  The adrenalin was pumping.  At last we were getting started on this adventure that had been looming for so long. Our natural reflex was to run up the mountain.  It seemed flat.  The path was smooth - alternating between green grass and tropical plants and shady pine forest.  This is where we got our first lesson in the TK pace...pole, pole.  With a guide at the front as a human barrier against sprinting, our pace was, at best, a turtle walk.  Having been stuck in a bus all day with the anticipation of the climb ahead of us, the speed restriction was challenging.  But, this would be just the first of many occasions on which it was best to trust the instinct of the guides.

Smiling...

Still squeaky clean!  Sue, where are you?

The three hours we hiked over gradually rising terrain turned into polite socializing time.  We learned more about our Ohio climbing crew and our lone Aussie. When we reached Simba Camp at 5:30, we marveled at the level of pampered-camping we found waiting for us.  Our tents were arranged in two areas...the north cul-de-sac, for the couples' tents, and the south cul-de-sac for the singles (or "the land of the misfits" as I preferred to call ourselves).  Our sleeping pads had been dusted.  Toilet paper, soap and a bowl of hot water for "bathing" was delivered to each of us*.  Our water bottles were picked up for refilling.  There was nothing to do but "bathe" and keep out precious bars of soap safe from the soap-eating ravens we* had been warned about (these flying rodents hovered nearby for the entire week).

Highlights from the trail on Day #1

(Kelly, where's the banana photo?)

The South Cul-de-Sac and the Al Fresco Bath (sounds nicer already)

Home for a week

Bathing in a small bowl of water with a bar of soap, no cloth, no towel and no clean water for rinsing is really a fruitless activity.  At this point on the climb, the water was still arriving warm, so it at least served as a good hand soak for a few minutes.  Baby wipes, however, were really the bathing "tool" of choice.  Fortunately one of the goals of the TK guides was to never let us sweat - another reason for the plodding pace.  At higher elevations and colder temperatures, sweaty clothes would translate into freezing bodies.  Thus, the baby wipe bath was more an exercise in wiping away grime than sweat, because sweating was strictly forbidden.

Attention Fashion Police!  Smurf's footware at the end of the day closely
resembles Crocs (hmmm...this is the boy who claims that Crocs are indeed
the Devil's gift to fashion).  But no, it's actually worse!  These are not Crocs.
They are Frocs (fraudulent Crocs - decorated in nothing less than a faux
wood-paneling a la 1970's pattern).  Ooooh...the standards are dropping quickly.

In addition to "bathing." we had a few minutes to compare the "long-drop" permanent toilets with the private portable potties that had been carried up the mountain. The long drops smelled awful, but there was a certain sense of anonymity in pooping where thousands before you had done the same. The same can not be said for the private potty. In a group of nine, you are always going to know where the contents that greet your arrival in the potty tent came from. This is the point at which Howard informed us that he would not be using the private potty tent because he did not want to touch the same zipper that all of us had unzipped and zipped on our way in and out of the tent each time. Apparently the "long-drop" was a less germy option because he could kick the door open and closed. Can I just say, eeeeeew?

The offending zipper and accompanying toilet

Once everyone had spread out their sleeping bags, bathed with wipes and explored the restroom facilities, we reconvened in the "dining tent" for our first dinner together.  This is where the polite social banter began to breakdown, the potty talk began, and the real bonding commenced.  For starters, another steadfast TK rule (after "pole, pole," and NO SWEATING) was 4X4 - referring to the need to drink at least four liters of water everyday before 4:00 p.m.  This would not be a collective four liters of water for the group, but four liters per person before 4:00.  This presented a serious challenge for me.  I am a camel by nature.  I don't typically drink 1/2 glass of water in a day - never mind four liters.  I will run an entire marathon without drinking.  I don't really like water.  What's a girl to do?

Romantic candlelit dinner with a bunch of trash-talking teenagers

Well, slightly petrified about the threat of altitude sickness, I drank my heart out.  I started sucking on that Camelback first thing in the morning and didn't stop until it had been drained twice.  Ugh.  Naturally this unusually high rate of water consumption lead to an unusually high frequency of trail side pit stops for everyone in the group.  Nothing like repeatedly stopping to pee behind a tree (which only got more amusing as we climbed above the tree line and were reduced to a wild pack of peeing dogs intent on laying claim to the largest rocks we could find) with a group of people you barely know.

Naturally, the conversation quickly became potty talk.  How many liters did you drink?  How many times did you pee? Are you taking Diamox (a prescription drug that is supposed to help alleviate symptoms of altitude sickness that also, you guessed it, makes you pee)?  If so, did you drink the recommended five liters of water?  Are you tingling?

Tingling?  Yes.  One of the side effects of Diamox is the Diamox tingle - an odd numb-tingling sensation that feels a little like part of your body has gone to sleep, and it's going through a warm tingle to wake up again.  Many of us were taking Diamox, and we would be struck with tingles at any time during the day.  Toes, heels, fingers, lips...you name it, it tingled.  Apparently Chris got the full-tongue tingle on this first day.  He started talking at dinner, and we couldn't shut him up.  He babbled in off-color commentary for a good part of the meal.  Kelly shook her head in disbelief.  "Chris doesn't talk. I'm not sure what is going on."  We all decided it was the Diamox talking.  Kelly made a note to herself for future frustrations with lack of "spousal communication:" Administer one tablet of Diamox and wait for talking to begin.  Unfortunately we did not figure out how to shut him up.

Over our dinner of tilapia, potatoes and cabbage, we discussed the camping arrangements and all of the "accessories" that had been delivered to our tents prior to dinner.  *Howard looked confused.  "What toilet paper? You got water?  Soap?  They refilled your water bottles?  Are you guys kidding me?"  Apparently Howard's tent was a little too well hidden in the land of the misfits, and he had been forgotten in the "accessory delivery process."  Poor Howard. We all had a good laugh at his expense, and the teasing began in earnest.  As Howard forked bread on to his plate (rather than taking a piece with his hands), he took the first round of grief about his germaphobia as we all speculated about how he would possibly survive the week (and then proceeded to come up with as many possible ways to gross him out as possible).

Gayle was conspicuously absent from our dinner-time social hour (unfortunately for Howard, because she might have provided some badly needed support as he drowned in Diamox-induced banter).  Gayle was suffering the first signs of altitude trouble and was attempting to sleep it off and get it out of her system.  I think we all sobered up a bit and realised that this hike was likely to get tougher - not easier as the days progressed. 

Our fearless (and quite likely permanently traumatized by
our middle-school behavior) leader, John.

John, or "Wazi" (Open One) as everyone on the mountain seemed to know him, arrived after dinner to brief us on the next day's plan.  This would be the first of many pre-hike briefings that John would deliver - all memorable for the sheer speed at which they were delivered and the number of times in which the same information was repeated in a variety of different ways.  John spoke in the manner in which he wanted us to walk...pole, pole.  He thought through every word, breathed deeply (often mid sentence) and very, very slowly got his point across.  If anyone ventured a question, John repeated the answer in four or five different ways to make sure we understood.  Toward the end of the week, questions were strictly banned by the group just so we wouldn't have to endure the answer session.  There's nothing like having to desperately pee (remember how much we were drinking) when you are trapped at a table in a tent listening to suggestions for minor blister treatment being rephrased over and over again.

With day one behind us we all returned to our tents and crawled into our warm water beds (except for Howard, who apparently missed that memo and was stuck sleeping on a thin camp mattress for the entire week).

Meet the Freaks

Back in Vermont with a solid Internet connection for the first time in three weeks, there is a Kili story to tell.  SPOILER ALERT **** We made it.  Summited.  Descended.  I still have ten figures and toes.****

The good news is that this enables me to type as I always have (in contrast to the pre-trip visions I had of having to relearn how to do everything with my nose after losing my appendages to frostbite).  So, if you are reading along simply to find out if we survived.  We did.  If you are reading because you are intereseted in climbing Kilimanjaro yourself and are researching Tanzanian flora and fauna, possible climbing routes and the environmental impact of global warning on the famed Kilimanjaro glaciers, you are definitely in the wrong place.  If you would like to hear a funny story about a group of nine slightly off-balance people drawn together by the pull of a mountain challenge and repelled from one another by the smell of their socks after too many days of baby wipe baths, you are in the right spot. Hold your nose, supress your gag reflex, and enjoy the ride.

Well before our trip began (back when we officially registered to climb with Team Kilimanjaro), Chris sent a reminder email to the five of us who had signed up to climb together. "Once our climb is posted on the site, anyone can sign up to join us.  Recruit your friends.  Otherwise you never know what kind of freaks we may end up with!"  None of us heeded his sinister warning.

Meet the freaks*

*In fairness to the beauties below, all closeup face shots were taken on the seventh day of our climb.  No one had showered in a week.  Hats were strictly forbidden.

 

Howard: A fifty-one-year-old reformed lawyer who runs a company that invests in cell towers (or something like that) came along on this trip as a part of a threesome from Ohio (with his friends Jeff and Gayle).  "Howie" (as only Gayle was technically allowed to call him because she has known him since birth, but by the end of the week we all took the liberty of using "Howie" because we felt like we'd known him for a lifetime) left twin ten-year-old daughters and a wife who "would never poop in a box" behind in Ohio for this little adventure.  Howard confessed early on our first day to being a germaphobe (or perhaps it was just obvious by the way he forked his bread from the serving plate at lunch and looked on with disdain as the rest of us used our grubby little fingers to pick up our sandwiches). A phobia of germs is tricky to indulge on the trail when cooped in small, grubby tents and sharing dirty trail toilets with the sniffling, sneezing, unwashed heathens who are, in fact, your climbing companions (and only source of entertainment) for an entire week.  Howard merits three photos because, although we left him after our climbing adventure, his presence in the form of a cell tower or a soap eating raven seemed to watch over us for the remainder of our African journey.  It was spiritual in a creepy sort of way.

Jeff: Surgeon by day, covert mountain-top pharmaceuticals dealer by night.  Jeff instilled a sense of confidence in us all by reassuring us that if anyone lost a finger on the trail, he was definitely qualified to reattach it to his/her rectum (since that is apparently his area of expertise in his professional life).  Jeff arrived in Tanzania with Gayle and Howard by way of a longer than anticipated layover in Amsterdam where they watched TV and fretted about missing luggage.  Fortunately, Jeff had packed his fully stocked mountain first-aid kit overflowing with any possible drug you could anticipate needing on this climb. We should have paid extra to travel with this guy (or at least contriubuted a copay). Jeff and Gayle were celebrating their 20th anniversary (although Jeff assured us there would be no real "celebrating" going on in their tent at altitude - claiming it would be physically impossible. The rest of us were curious about this hypothesis and encouraged Jeff and Gayle to report back to us on the results of experimentation.  Gayle shook her head and claimed to be suffering from altitude headaches). Jeff and Gayle were also celebrating their 50th birthdays with this adventure. 

Gayle, pronounced "Gay Lee" by everyone on the Team Kilimanjaro staff due to the Swahili habit of pronouncing every letter in a word): First, Gayle's clean appearance and cheery smile is due to the fact that her picture was taken on the first day of our hike (not our last). I have made an exception in her case because A) she had just survived an enormous dust storm when we last saw her and was somewhat scantily clad as her wet laundry had been drenched in sand and B) she was just a sweet woman who deserves a break for having bravely endured this adventure in the company of Jeff and Howard. The story goes that it was Gayle who was the mastermind behind the Ohio crew's climbing effort.  Howie and Jeff both blamed their presence on the mountain on this persistent nurse/marathoner/mom who got it in her mind that they needed to climb Kilimanjaro.  Gayle was due to celebrate big #50 shortly after her return from Tanzania. Gayle and Jeff left their three children, ages 19, 17 and 15, at home to cheer from them from afar.

Sue (pronounced "Sue Eh" by the TK crew): This lone Australian in our group really had no idea what hit her for seven days.  Somehow this mother of two and grandmother of two, who ran away from Australia to escape her 50th birthday celebration, ended up with this crazy group of people headed up Kilimanjaro.  Her African itineraries had gotten jumbled.  She was supposed to be seeing gorillas in the mist but somehow ended up seeing out of only one eye from the roof of Africa (but that story will come later).  Consequently, Sue's trip preparation was a bit limited.  By the third day on the trail, we convinced her that she should zip her tent closed to stay warmer at night (it was below freezing mind you).  By the seventh day, Sue learned how to tie her hiking boots.  She provided comic relief for all of us. Throughout it all, Sue maintained a great sense of humor and her success was a tribute to how far you can go on sheer willpower.

Eva: An energetic and athletic, 23-year-old hailing from Alaska (but coming to us via Mexican and South African travel adventures) is Lisa's cousin.  She likely spent most of this trip wondering how exactly she ended up with this group of old geezers climbing the mountain.  Younger than everyone in our group by a decade or two or three, Eva dealt admirably with the slow pace and sophisticated conversations (mostly about bodily functions) of her geriatic trail mates.  With an Alaskan tolerance for cold, Eva's choice of shorts for hiking attire (and the glimpses they provided of her well-toned hiking legs) was likely responsible for motivating all twenty-plus porters and staff with our group to carry on up the trail every day.

Lisa: A dear friend from our junior-year-abroad in France and my connection to Africa, Lisa is my heroine.  I live vicariously through her as she jets around the world single-hendedly fighting poverty and hunger, protecting children and empowering communities. At the end of the day, this super woman comes home to her seven-year-old African princess, Bella, who generously shared her home and her mom with us. Africa is "home" for Lisa. She speaks fluent Swahili and is a tremendous asset to all travel adventures in this part of the world. She was excited to join us on Kilimanjaro and "do something touristy" for a change. We were thrilled to have her as part of our group - teaching us all of the necessary middle school locker room vacabulary in Swahili so we could describe various body parts we saw along the trail and various bodily functions we experienced along the way. Lisa made sure we didn't miss out on the guides' gossip, made various special requests in Swahili and, generally, just kept the story straight for us for the entire week.

Chris: a.k.a. Smurf, Chris was the Kilimanjaro planner in our group.  After an sunless few weeks spent frolicking in the rains of Vietnam, he was ready for another travel adventure – ideally one with less precipitation and mold.  A few weeks after he and the Smurfette returned to Vermont from Vietnam, I got the email.  “Are you serious about Kilimanjaro?”  My answer was, “Yes.”  The next thing I knew, we were signed on with Team Kilimanjaro, and the motivational links to videos and blogs of everyone and their mother climbing Kilimanjaro began arriving in my inbox.  Chris is a planner.  He did the research, studied the route, evaluated the proper number of days to spend on the mountain, did comparisons of success rates based on age, athletic ability, route choice, average temperatures and the phases of the moon (and I refuse to let him forget that he did not schedule our summit attempt on the night of a full moon).   On our first day on the trail, most of us were still trying to figure out exactly how many nights we were going to have to sleep in a tent.  Chris knew the mileage of our hike, the altitude we would gain, the type of forest we would be hiking through and what we should expect to see along the trail.  Thankfully someone knew what we were doing, because, by day five, we were all questioning what, exactly, we were doing.  And why?

Kelly: a.k.a. Smurfette, Kelly ended up on this adventure by virtue of being married to the Smurf.  There had been some decision making involved in the choice to leave behind sweet Atilia, the two-year-old Smurf baby, but in the end Kelly was game (if not completely clear on why she was doing this).  Kelly’s main contribution to our climbing group was her running commentary on the experience of the “Fat Woman on the Mountain” (a large Vermont woman who has summited Kilimanjaro three times). Kelly contacted the Fat Lady before coming to Africa and showered us with useful tidbits of information throughout our hike (ie. always use condoms at altitude, even if you have had a vasectomy, because you never know what your body will do on the mountain).  Some tidbits may have gotten slightly twisted along the way, but Fat Lady trivia made for excellent conversation nonetheless.  For you naysayers among us who were convinced this woman was a complete hoax (after having experienced the effort it took to haul your skinny little asses to the summit), here's her link http://fatwomanonthemountain.com/.

Jennifer (So I made a small exception to the "no hats" rule for myself...let's call it artistic license.  There is no way was I going to post a picture of myself on day seven): Yours truly has been dreaming about the Kili climb ever since I skipped it fifteen years ago (having just vomited my way up and down Mt. Kenya).  It was on my bucket list for my fortieth year, but that turned out to be a very long year.  So, footloose and forty-three seemed like as good a time as any to finally get to the mountain.  Leaving behind Foster, Brianna and Nolan was the toughest part. Knowing that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” made the separation possible.

Kilibound For Real

Arusha, Tanzania

Let the adventure begin! We hauled ourselves out of bed (or off the floor) in Nairobi this morning and find ourselves in Arusha, Tanzania tonight with a long walk up a large hill looming. 
We endured a dusty day of driving while folded into the "luxury liner" shuttle from Nairobi to Arusha. I managed to score the wheel well for the first three hours, which I happily traded for a flip-down jump seat with leg room at the Tanzanian border. It was a hot and dusty haul through desert-like conditions. The landscape was dotted with goats, cows and their colorful Masai herders.

We pulled in to the Outpost Lodge in Arusha just after 3:30 and were absolutely starving from our day on the road with no food stops. We quickly placed an order at the restaurant and then waited an African jiffy (70 minutes) for the food to arrive. We followed dinner with a brisk walk into town to stretch our legs before returning to the Outpost for our pre-climb briefing which was to start "promptly" at 6:00 p.m. At the appointed hour we were back at the lodge, dangling our feet in the pool, waiting to meet our guide. In another jiffy, he arrived promptly 45 minutes late (I'm sensing a pattern here),

"John" will be our head guide for this little climbing adventure. He talked us through the basics of the itinerary for our seven day adventure and went over multiple precautions for altitude sickness. Basically it came down to, "Drink lots, walk slowly, eat and rest." Sounds simple enough. He neglected to mention all of the vomiting and headaches that lie ahead, but I appreciate his positive outlook.

After John departed with a promise to pick us up "promptly" at 7:30 tomorrow morning, we set about packing and repacking our bags again with the added items of sleeping bags and climbing poles. I think all that remains to be done is to climb.

Testing the equipment

Africa, thus far, has failed me on the iPhone cracking front. Barring a small miracle tomorrow morning, it looks like we will be out of contact for seven days. There will be many adventures to write about from the beaches of Zanzibar when we return. Until then, think warm and positive thoughts for all of us. We'll be thinking of you!

If you would like to follow our climb (a small red dot that follows our group up the mountain), check out the link below. If the dot stops early, Kelly ate a peanut. If it stops later on, it means things are not pretty. If it keeps on moving (pole pole - go slow) all is well!

If the families/friends of those climbing want to follow the progress of the group on the TK Google Map, please see the link:

http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/track-a-kilimanjaro-climber.html

If they scroll down the page and find the map, and then look for the respective climb reference on the left hand side of the screen under ‘Track a Kilimanjaro climb’, they will find the climbing group listed as CHWI. If they click on the name CHWI, they will be taken to the latest recorded location on the mountain for the group. If those checking the map use the slider bar on the left edge of the actual map, they can zoom in to the exact location of the last reported position.

Where the guide provides any comment on the progress of the group, I will detail this in the commentary box and also on the blogspot : http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/live-climber-reports.html.

Warthogs and Ox Balls

 

Well, the Istanbul Airport treated us well, but more than 11 hours of waiting for our flight to Nairobi was plenty.  We tasted Turkish Delight at the Duty Free Shop a few different times and sampled the free Baileys in a variety of flavors. The hundreds of deep blue Turkish evil-eye charms on display at the souvenir shop were undoubtedly giving us the hairy eyeball. We were treated to the sight of hundreds of men clad only in loosely wrapped terry-cloth robes and rubber sandals strolling about the airport (headed en masse to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).  I managed to eat some kind of minced meat and three large chunks of pistachio baklava to fulfill the Turkish food requirement this time through. 

The Smurfs make it to Nairobi

After a two hour delay, our Nairobi flight went off without a hitch, and TaxiJim Cab met us at the airport at 3:30 a.m. with a cheery "Jambo" and an empty car.  A hassle-free start to Kenya.  Despite the fact that we had left the Holy Land Miracle Tour behind in Istanbul, we still felt that we were in good hands with TaxiJim.  Each time his cell phone rang, his Biblical verse ringtone echoed throughout the car.  Jim (whose name was actually something like Chaz) delivered us safely to my friend Lisa's house in Nairobi, where we promptly began snoring on her floor.

After an easy day of strolling through a Nairobi "forest" on Saturday (with only one small encounter with safari ants), we were ready for some hard-core Africa today.  Fred picked us up in the pampered Land Rover safari vehicle at 6:30 a.m. sharp for our game drive through the Nairobi National Park.  It really was quite amazing to drive through the game park with the Nairobi skyline as a backdrop - to watch a lioness suck the meat from a bloody warthog with skyscrapers in the distance.  We were appropriately mesmerized and entertained by the wildlife and sunburned by the equatorial sun.  It feels fantastic to be back in Africa.

Wild game on the loose in Nairobi

The tour of East African beer begins with
Kenyan Tusker.

      

     

 

The Hippo Walk: Our guide packs the big gun (at front).
No hippos were spotted, but we were well protected from
the love bird nervously perched in a tree along the way.

We followed up the safari with Ox Balls.  Yes indeed. In celebration of Chris' 40th birthday, we enjoyed a meal at the Carnivore - a Nairobi restaurant famous for its meat, including Ox balls, crocodile, ostrich, and the usuals as well as its featured drink, "Dawa," a concoction of vodka, lime, honey and sugar.  Stuffed to the gills, we are ready for our bus ride to Tanzania tomorrow with the start of our trek up Kilimanjaro looming on Tuesday.

What better way to celebrate #40 than with
fresh Ox Balls?

The medicine man mixes up our magical "dawa."

Chris looks a little wary about this option.

Still not ready to surrender

We're Off!

BTV and Smurf looks like he's already suffering from altitude.

We have arrived in Istanbul, Turkey after an uneventful flight from JFK. Turkish Airlines proved to be a treat with plenty of entertainment options, tasty food and hundreds of "friends" partaking in the "Miracle Tour to the Holy Land," according to their ID badges. The guy seated next to me read his golden Bible for the entire nine hour flight. I never doubted that we would arrive safely at our destination surrounded by this bubble of brotherly love.

Taste of Turkey?

We immediately immersed ourselves in Turkish culture at Starbucks and settled down for snoozes in an empty gate area. Now that I am reinvigorated and ready for red-eye number two, I have just a few thoughts to share on the Kili plan...
Apparently I was supposed to bring water treatment pills. Oops. I did bring Cipro to treat the ill effects of untreated water, so I'll go with that.

I wore 17 layers of clothes in anticipation of Kili being a frozen tundra. I have not stopped sweating since we left Burlington (thanks largely to the broken escalator at JFK which forced me to walk up an incredibly steep collection of stairs with a backpack on my back). I know that sounds lame given what lies ahead. Chris assures me the "personal porter" is still an option (after accidentally leading us on a tour of the Federal Circle Sky Train Station which was just halfway into NYC, rather than heading directly to Terminal #1). I think that means you can hire a porter to carry even your day pack for you. I'm wondering if they'll just carry me instead.

Smurfette demonstrates her ability to sleep anywhere.

There is more snow in Istanbul than there is in Vermont. Seems wrong...just wrong.

Born to Climb Glaciers



I'm sexy and I know it...girl, look at that body...I work out (circa. 1985)!

Eight hours to take off, and we can only pray that the Smurf will spare us his abs this time around (as well as the tube socks and red shorty shorts). I will do my best to tame the tresses, but I am quite sure the frozen facial grimace will look much the same if (I mean when) we hit that magical summit next week. Stay tuned...