Africa ! Here I come....

Dubai (5am) -> Addis Ababa -> Nairobi -> Kilimanjaro airport (2pm)

Have you ever travelled to Africa on an African airline? Well let me tell you about it... Imagine the departure time is 5am, I was at the airport at 2:20am.. I thought I have plenty of time walking around in the duty free... Guess what time I finally checked in? 4:20am !!!! Yes, almost 2 hrs at the check-in queue! You should be there and see it with your own eyes.. The amount of luggage they had with them! To me it looked more like a cargo plane than a passenger flight!!! And finally when it was my turn, they said I should have the same credit card that I used to buy the ticket! Ok, nobody had told me that and guess what? They were not going to let me check in and told me to go home and bring the credit card! To go home??! What time was it? 3:50am !!! There was no way I was going to leave that queue and even if I had done that, I wouldn't have been back in time! To cut the story short, after lots of haggling and speaking to the manager, finally they let me pass through... Pffff.... That was close !!!

The flight was quite long, but I did not mind it at all. I had the option of flying by Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airways. I chose the 2nd one because I wanted to have a taste of Ethiopia. It sounds very exotic to me. Also I had no idea it would stop over in Nairobi when I paid for it. I realised it only a day before! The mean airliner had made sure that this was well hidden!!

I expected Addis Ababa to be a dry and semi-desert place, but it was in fact the opposite. It was green and quite beautiful from the air. I've got to come back and see this place properly !

Outside the hotel gate

I was picked up by a Zara tour representative and taken to the Springlands hotel just outside Moshi town. There was another guy in the van who had just arrived and seemed to know the place and could speak a bit of Swahili with the locals. He looked rather tough, tall and big and had all sort of mountain gears with him. He introduced himself as 'Chad' from the US. He was a tour guide and is sent by his company all around the world. He was going to do the Kilimanjaro tour for one and a half month and then fly to Russia. He said he had done cycling from China to Denmark before, and this and that... And here I was listening to this guy and thinking, 'what a lucky guy' !!! I wish I had such a job !!! He was really cool and down to earth.. I could see this as we arrived at the hotel, all the hotel staff (the security, the waiters, etc) started screaming, and hugging him.. Quite a character!

A young guy from Masai tribe. They make holes in
their ears. This one had cuts all over his ears.

The hotel is located in the outskirt of Moshi. It is somewhat secluded. The architecture and the colour is quite welcoming. It was full of people going for either Safaris or Kilimanjaro climb. For dinner, they make you sit next to other people... The two American friends on my table (Ian and Dan) were very friendly and funny. They had just finished the climb and were telling me all about their experience. It was so much fun talking to them... One of them was a teacher and had travelled to many places... I still didn't know who was going to be in my group.. I had been told 3 others... i wished they could be even half as much fun as these two Americans.....

 

 

 

Tomorrow is going to be my free day at the hotel...... The climb starts the day after tomorrow......