sun 10.21.07 Update

Hi all,

It's sunday oct 21 here in florence italy, and I thought I'd provide a quick "out of sequence" update. We've been surfing our way throughout the EEU, and have completed Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, Zurich, Lugano, Como, Milan, Venice, and are currently in Florence. We head off next to Naples, Capri, Rome, then somewhere else for a week or two to wrap up this trip.

Unfortunately, while Internet cafe's have been around, they are either ridiculously expensive (by US standards...upwards of $20/hr in many cases) or have not allowed me to download any pictures to load into the blog. So, I've been slow in updating both the Africa and EEU trips, as I really like to include pics with the text. I promise I'll get in all the stories once I get back to the US. Till then, some quicky stories to keep you amused...

- we're taking the late evening train munich to prague; there's 5 people on the train, us, an older prague women in front of us (older, as in our age...), and an older couple in front of her (older as in late 60's). As we near the prague station (an adventure in and of itself...different language, soviet block era construction...), the older couple starts talking to the prague lady to ask her some directions, and for here assistance in getting a cab ride to their hotel. As they're chatting, she asks where they are from...they say NY, which of course leads to questions about NYC. They tell her, "oh no, we're from Upstate NY not NYC" and go into that whole speel. We of course have to now get into the conversation...turns out that the couple is from Rochester, and live just a few miles from us. So, what are the chances of that...in Prague, 5 people on an evening train, and 4 of them are from Rochester!!!

- Continuing on with that trip, we exit the train, and the lady is going to help us get a cab also (as it's late night and we don't want to screw around with figuring out the tram-subway system with luggage). As we jump off the train, a driver walks up to us with his Marriott Courtyard limo sign, and asks if we are Wally such and such. We say no, then wally appears (a 6'4" gay guy from Dallas of all things....) and offers us a limo ride with him to his hotel, which just happens to be our hotel also. So, midnight in prague, and we get a limo pickup at the airport with a texas gay guy. Life is good!

- story 3...we're waiting on queue for a restaurant in Florence Italy. There's a pretty sizeable crowd (maybe 100 or so) as it's a fabulous restaurant. We start talking with the other queue-mates, do the "where are you from thing" and it turns out that the people in front of us in line (now retired) got married and first lived in Rochester, less than a mile from our current place. Then the gal behind us in line chimes in, and turns out that SHE lived in rochester also, less than a mile from our former house. WE get to swap Pudgie's Pizza stories! So, what are the chances of that!!!!

- And one last story for the morning...we're at the train station in Como Italy (summer home of George Clooney, I'll tell you all about having dinner with him in a later post) sitting on a bench awaiting our train, and alongside us is two of the biggest geeks known to mankind (and THIS is coming from me...). This beautiful Italian woman comes up to us and says "Is train to Milano?". The one geek looks right and here and says "HUUUUH?". Kathy and I totally loose it; this is probably the prettiest woman that has ever even addressed them, and their response is "HUUUUH?". Time to go back to the X-Box guys, you'll never make it in the real world...

Catch up in a few days once we get stationary again.

Lumpy out!

Peter, Peter, Kilimanjaro eater...

Our head guide, Peter Moto.

It's Monday morning, everyone is here, and it's time to get serious about the hike. Our head guide Peter Moto arrives and gives us the lowdown. Peter is a little guy (about 5'4") with the tenacity and determination of a bull. He first climbed Kili as a porter at age 13, and has made upwards of 300 summits over his 20 years of guiding and portering. We immediately have huge confidence in him, and we listen intently.

Here's a basic rundown of the trip. We will drive 4 hours to the Kili start gate at 6500" on tuesday, then hike up to 9500" where we will stay for the night. Wednesday, we will hike from 9500 to 12500 (which for many of us will be our highest elevation ever) and then overnight agani. Thursday we will do a day hike 12500 to 14500, stay for a bit to acclimate, then return to 12500 for an overnight. Friday is "kick butt day".

On friday, we hike am from 12500 to 15500, sleep for a couple of hours (sleep being a relative term, as you can't breath and your nerves are on edge), eat, sleep 2 more hours, then awake at 10pm for the summit attempt. We hike from 15500 to 19400 to the summit, spend a few minutes there in a state of near death, then hike back to 15000. We then sleep for an hour, then descend futher to 12500 for another overnight. The last day, we descend from 12500 back to the gate at 6500, some 15 miles or so of downhill.

More to come..

Lumpy out

Safari Day

TOP LEFT: A Wedding in Arusha

TOP RIGHT: Why did the monkey fall out of the tree? Because he was dead...

LOWER LEFT: Tom and Sam closing in on Cape Buffalo (big, scary animals). Note: Sam's calves are bigger than the Bull's...

LOWER RIGHT: A giraffe in flight. Gill was named "Gilli, the Giraffe" by the guide in a burst of tanzanian alliteration

Today the 5 of us head off to safari (Tom, Gary, Gill, Bob, and Sam from Denver). We're really looking forward to it. We will drive to Arusha National Park, where an AK-47 armed guard (getting this them yet?) will escort us on the safari. On the way, we come upon numerous weddings. These are basically the New Orleans equivalent of a funeral (I'll leave the wedding:funeral comparison to others...) where everybody gets all dressed up, and they play a marching band while driving around the city. Very cute cultural thing, and Tom vows to do likewise with Zoe.

At the park we drive about over really rugged roads in our land rover (like a freakin' tank, I swear) and see all manner of animals...columbus (sic) monkeys, giraffe's from as near as 10 feet, cape buffalo, wharthogs, and many others. Then we get out, and the guards/guides take us up close and personal to a bunch of the animals. The Cape buffalo were really scary, and when one of them started to move, we all did the "Jessee Owens". They laughed, telling us the the cape buffalo bulls always feign attack 3 times before really attacking. Yup, we want to be the one morons where the bull say 1, 2, attack!!!!

(ED NOTE: I'll add in some more safari pix once I get them from the crew back in the US now)

After the safari, we drive back to our new hotel, a coffee plantation set deep into the shantytown between arusha and moshi. It is a lovely place, with a wide veranda for talking and lounging, a small pool to cool off in, and the best gardens that I've seen anywhere except for hawaii. Just an incredible variety of flowers, plants, and trees, and just acres of them everywhere. Unfortunately, like arusha, you could never leave the compound on foot, as it was dangerous for tourists. So, we spent the day walking 1k circles around the compound, drinking the local beer (rather good!), and lounging at the pool. Tonite the remaining hikers arrive, and next post I'll give you an overview on everyone.

Lumpy out

Getting ready to Jambo!

Hi all

LEFT: Central Market in Arusha

RIGHT: "Foreigner" hotel pool in our AK-47 guarded gated compound

Jambo is the universal word here in Arusha, Tanzania. It means "hello" but is used for most everything. So, after only 24 hours, I am jambo'd out the whazoo. We decided to go into Arusha, the nearest town this morning. It's about a mile or so walk, but as the AK-46 armed guards at the hotel told us, we should not do the walk alone, it's not safe. So, we scheduled a "cab" to take us into town for 9am. Now, a couple things about time in Tanzania. First of all, there is none. This makes the Carribean islands out to be a model of timeliness. Second, they start counting time from 6am...so wake up is at 1, breakfast is at 2...you get the drift. But, not everybody does that, so nobody never really knows what time it is, or what time you're baselining from. Anyhow, I digress.

So, around 10:30 (or 4:30 depending upon how you are counting things), we still have no "cab" so we decide to hoof it into town. We figure (a) hey, we're americans, we can do anything, (b) how bad can 1 mile be, we've all been in north philly, camden, newark, and in peggy's case, south Provo, and (c) sam's with us. Now, Sam is a big guy, about 6'3", all muscle, bald, gijunda mutant calves, and a massive sense of humour. None of which translates however into Swahili, except the calves. So we leave the hotel compound and start to hoof it into town. We probaby get, oh, about 20 meters (that's 9/10th of a mile for those of you unfamiliar with the metric system) before the first panhandler attacks. "Hello my friend, please buy these used shoelaces from me". "Hello my friend, please buy this broken handheld pong game from me.". "Hello my friend, I have a sister that cannot be married off because we do not have enough cows (more to come on this tradition in a later blog...), please take her for 10 shillings.

For you bankers in the crowd, a shilling is worth about 10/10,000 of a cent. So, basically, you need about 67,000,000 shillings to buy a coke. If they even had a coke. So you go to market with a wheelbarrow full of money for even the most basic incidentals...kinda like Italy before WWII.

By the time we are to the town border, there are literally 50 panhandlers hanging off of us, trying to sell us every unimaginable piece of crap known to mankind. I try the clever ploy of telling them that "I'm an Aussie, Mate", which seems to get them to focus more on the others. Sam tries out "I'll beat you to a bloody pulp with my bare forearm" which unfortunately for him only encourages them more, as to be beaten bloody by a foreigner is apparently a sign of manhood. Finally, after about 20 minutes (6 hours TZ time), a AK-47 armed military man approaches us and waves off the panhandlers (by waving his rifle directly at their heads). This was quite effective, for all of the time it took him to turn and walk back to his sidewalk booth, whereupon the re-engaged, with even more verascity. My favorite was the guy who whipped out a Massai Sword and tried to sell me it. He's standing on the street, waving this sword, telling me how I must have it. (I'm thinking "yeah, to get the hell out of here intact!". We stay out for a few more minutes, then start making our way back to the hotel compound. As we get close the "cab" finally pulls up, and yells for us to come over and get in. They then take us to the "tourist market", an armed compound where they sell the tourists massively overpriced tanzanite (or at least purple rocks), wall masks, and spears. I'm thinking, what fun, travel around EEU (where I'm headed next) with a Massai spear for 6 weeks. I'm certain the Swiss authorities will love it!

Anyhow, we eventually get back to our hotel compound, tell tales over a quite nice dinner, and get ready for (a) our safari tomorrow (sunday), and meeting the rest of the hikers who are inbound sunday night from civilization.

Lumpy out

Made it out! alive (sorry Mary!)

Hi all
We made it out of Africa today. I am in Amsterdam with Kathy and a few of the hiking crew (Peggy, Larry, and Troy), and the rest have headed home for their (eh gads!) jobs! Short overview is that the hike was great, the people were great, all of the guys are sick from all the dust and volcanic ash, and most everybody made the summit (and those who didn't easily made their best vertical by several thousand feet). Big mountains are a whole different ballgame even from something like the 14'ers in Colorado...altitude sickness, brutal cold, punishing sunlight rays... I'm borrowing a PC at the hotel right now, but as soon as I can get to an Internet cafe here in Amsterdam I'll start putting up my blog of the trip itself. All kinds of fun stuff to write home about!

Lumpy out