I slept great until about 5:00 am. I then dozed on and
off until 6:30. I didn't hear a peep from Jamie all night. He seemed to
sleep pretty well. We met everyone at 7:30 for breakfast. I met the
other two members of the team, Mike (the dad) and Ryan.
Ryan is 13 and the youngest member of our team. No one else seemed to
have slept very good last night. Some complained of barking dogs. I
didn't hear anything.
Breakfast was a combination of buffet and eggs or pancakes brought
out. I ordered scrambled eggs. The eggs here are very white, almost no
yellow. Jason tried to order egg whites but the waiter did not
understand him.
After breakfast we met for an hour or so to go over the climb. We
learned what gear we needed to bring on the mountain and what to leave
in storage at the Mount Village. Allen also showed us how to back our
dry bags that the porters would be carrying. We then had an hour to
start getting our gear in order.
At 11:00 am we regrouped for a game drive in nearby Arusha National
Park. We had two trucks for our group. I rode with Mynan, Nancy,
Susan, Andy, and Allen. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the park.
Right at the gate we saw giraffes. While stopped at the gate, the
drivers raised the tops of the vehicles so we could stand up and look
out. Once registered, we proceeded down a dirt road into the
park. We saw a bunch of animals. Being in the lead car we saw a few
animals the guys behind us did not see. In the park we saw giraffes,
cape ox, warthogs, bushbuck, dik-dik (smallest antelope) mongoose,
flamingos, and zebra. Allen said this is just a small taste of what we
will see when we go on safari after the climb. Along the way we stopped
at a nice overlook for lunch.
After the game drive we returned to Mt. Village and finished packing
for tomorrow. We met and had dinner at the hotel and then headed to bed.
Breakfast is at 7:00 am tomorrow.
