Greetings from Africa !

Kenya acted as a landing point en route to Tanzania & I’m now in Arusha, a town that lies in the shadow of My Meru, Kili’s little sister. An entertaining bus trip from Nairobi had me mixing with locals & tourists alike. The Riverside Shuttle bus had approximately 20 passengers in total & sped over very pot hole it could find en route to the border. We bounced about for 5 hours once Nairobi’s morning rush hour had let us from it’s grasps. A jack knifed truck on one of the arterial roundabouts had Major confusion reeking chaos & added a good hour to the journey.

The border between Kenya & Tanzania was an expectedly chaotic affair with lots of paperwork all requiring masses of stamping, signing & counter checking ! I hope my passport has enough clean pages to cope! A fellow passenger had is mobile nicked as he returned to our bus, everyone (locals included) watched on as he took off after him robber, nailed him 200 yrds down the road with a rugby tackle & return to everyone’s applause!

Arusha, an hour on from the border sprawls out under Mt Meru, with Ilboru Lodge, the party’s accommodation located 30 minutes walk up a dusty trail from the town
centre. The hotel’s clean & far above what anyone had prepared themselves before arriving. A huge thunderstorm dropped buckets of wet stuff yesterday lunchtime & the local electricity pylon decided to put on a physics display on how electricity can jump through air! The charge jumped into a local tree, setting light to each numerous times before the same thunderstorm then responsible extinguished the
smoldering branches.

We meet is evening to run through our kit. Tomorrow we set off at 7am. Q 2 hour trip will have us at the park gates & the trek commences. 8 day s & 4900 metres vertical ascent will have us at 5,8909 metres; 100 metre above Everest base camp ! but hey who’s bragging….. I’ve got to get there first!

More to follow once I’m back ………. All the best, Ches