Day 1: The Journey Begins to Tanzania

Today marks the beginning of an incredible journey! Everyone has arrived safely at Mount Meru Hotel in Arusha, Tanzania. Similar to Mount Kilimanjaro, which comprises of three volcano cones, Mount Meru is also a dormant volcano and stands at 14,968 ft. Let’s hope our climbers have good weather on Mount Kilimanjaro because on a clear day, you can see Mount Meru from Mount Kilimanjaro which is 43 miles west! Keep an eye on this trip journal! We’ll be posting everyday from now until the end of the trip!

Hellooo from Tanzania! After a long journey here, we landed safely at Kilimanjaro Airport last night, where Chris met us and drove us about an hour to our hotel in Arusha. Today we gratefully had an extra day of rest! We had a lovely breakfast at the breakfast buffet, took a quick nap, ate lunch at the hotel, and Chris took us shopping! First, we went to a super cool jewelry store called Sidai Designs, which had gorgeous Maasai beaded jewelry. The store owner kindly walked us around and showed us their workshop, where we met the women who make all the jewelry by hand (their mission is to support sustainable employment for Maasai women). Then, we drove to the Cultural Heritage Centre to do some more shopping—it’s a huge marketplace with every type of Tanzanian gift you can imagine! Chris drove us back, we relaxed a bit more, and ate dinner at the hotel. Ready for gear check tomorrow!