Addis airport is OK. After all this is a fairly poor country so you can't expect too much, but there is tea, coffee, and coke (fat coke not diet) for only a dollar. And beer if you wanted it, but it is 7 in the morning. I think a few of the other transit passengers did go for some though. The toilets could be a bit better (although far better than what we are expecting up the mountain). Security is tight, the metal detector goes off because of my glasses (or fillings) which is a first.
The flight to Kilimanjaro contains a number from the London flight, but also seems to have people who flew in from Frankfurt, Dubai (and further east) and Washington. So it is half full of people who are climbing. The other half seem to be getting off at Nairobi, where we touch down. But first we had to endure an extra hour on the ground while they tried to fix some problem with the plane. Now I didn't see it, but apparently the method of fixing the plane involved some guy jumping up trying to knock something back into place. Now some of the people who had beer might have been imagining things, but actually I think the ones who had beer were probably the ones who enjoyed the flight the most.
Eventually we got off the ground, and it was an OK flight until we began our approach to Nairobi. It was a fairly tricky landing, with a fair amount of turbulence, so much so that the poor girl sitting beside me spent the last 5 minutes of the flight with her head over a sick bag, although mercifully she was able to put it back unused at the end, and then quite a bang when we hit the runway. Now when I say quite a bang, I mean the hardest landing I can remember experiencing. I'm amazed it didn't set the girl off again.
After we unload all the non-Kili passengers we can finally see who are the mad people who are heading for the mountain and I get chatting to another Irish guy on the plane who is also going to be in my group, and actually all the group are sitting fairly close to each other. So by the time we land at Kili we already know each other. Kili airport is actually an airport built for all the tourists coming to climb the mountain (well OK there are people coming for safari as well - truth be told more come for that than to climb the mountain). Its about halfway between the two main towns in the area, Arusha and Moshi, which means is it right out in the middle of nowhere. It's a fairly small airport, not the smallest I've been to, but possibly the only one that seemed smaller than the plane we were getting off. A 767 isn't the biggest plane, but it seems to tower over the terminal building.
The building might be small, but it still takes a while to get through immigration. No delays, just such a big plane trying to get people into a small area. Eventually we get through and meet our tour guide, Samuel. There are 15 of us in the group, and we pile into a minibus for the 1 hour trip to Arusha. While on this trip I get my first look at real Africa (Egypt is not real Africa, it is more Middle East). First impressions are often made by the quality of the road, and its very good. While the crops in the fields don't look the best, I have to say the villages we go through look quite prosperous, with the usual few shops and large numbers of bars. In fact the ratio of bars to shops would rival any Irish village (and of course some of the bars are shops).
As we approach Arusha we go uphill a few hundred metres and by this time the landscape has changed and is quite green and lush. We are obviously in a rainy area in the shadow of Mt Meru, the smaller companion of Kilimanjaro, although small is relative, it is actually the 10th highest mountain in Africa, and is only 200m shorter than Mt Blanc. Unfortunately we don't really get a good view of Mt Meru, as it is shrouded in cloud. It's probably only a problem for me, I wanted an up close picture as Dorota had plenty of long distance ones from her climb up Kilimanjaro.
We reach the lodge where we were staying the night, and it is really nice. All the rooms are standalone huts on stilts on the side of a hill. The toilets are proper flush toilets (by proper I mean you can even put the paper down them and don't have to put it in the bin) and the shower looks good. Which is just as well as it will be the last one for 6 days, and the first one after the 6 days. I'm paired with Al, and we dump our gear and head for our pre climb briefing. There isn't much to note, we all introduce ourselves and then our guide gives us a bit of information. Nothing new really, except as I hoped we could leave some stuff here so we don't have to carry everything up. I wanted to leave my going home clothes here so I have something clean for the plane and don't stink the place out.
After sorting out the gear, which basically meant taking everything out of both the big rucksack and the small daypack, and then repacking so that rather than the stuff I couldn't afford to lose in transit being in the daypack there is now the stuff I might need during the walks in there (including any liquids like sun cream). This is important because we don't carry all our gear, we do have porters who will carry our heavy bags - up to 15 kg. I know my bags weigh just over 18 kg between them, so to leave less than 15kg I am going to have to carry about 4 kg, plus 3kg for water. Should be OK.
We have a group dinner which is very good, especially some really nice potatoes, and a few beers at $3 each. Probably a rip off compared to the local bars. but still not too bad. The bar is a really nice place to have a few drinks but we do have a mountain to climb, so after about 5 it was time to head for bed.
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