The Way Back Down and Moshi

What goes up, must come down.  It took 4 days to go up and 1 1/2 days to go down.  We booked it too.  My two big toes are numb and my knee hurts from the trip down but the oxygen in the air is so much thicker that breathing is no problem anymore!  Yay!

The dining tent:

Vicki managed to forget about the Pringles she packed in her duffel at the start of the climb (who does that!).  She found them on the last day and brought them to tea time in the dining tent.  Words do not describe how delicious and salty they were.  Normally Pringles are not my favorite but these were divine 🙂

Here is the whole group: Hikers, guides, porters, and cooks:

After breakfast we still had about 5 hours of downhill hiking to do so we got to it.

We finally saw the Kili flower that only grows on Kilimanjaro- Impatiens kilimanjari is its scientific name.  Take a look, if you don’t climb the mountain you will miss out on this tiny flora.

Then it appeared….the end!  This is when I felt joy and elation, a shower and real toliet now seemed in my grasp!

We hopped on that red bus, which had a giant hole in the floor, and headed back to the Springlands Hotel in Moshi to celebrate.  We had many things to celebrate today- The Dutchman Flip’s birthday, American Artemis’ birthday, having conquered Kilimanjaro, and the all –mighty long overdue shower.

Springlands Hotel Courtyard:

Beer never tasted so good!  Side note:  Safari>Tusker>Kilimanjaro beer

We got our certificates of completion.  Mine will be hung on my wall when I get back to Baltimore to always remind me that I too am a badass.

Post-shower Andrea in clean clothes! You cannot tell but my calves are as hard as rocks.  Yay mountain climbing!

The festivities continued with birthday dinner and cake for Flip and Artemis.

And birthday drinks.  New Zealand Ang found what looks like big ketchup packets filled with alcohol.  Weird but fun!

The next morning was sad.  Over half the group left for their next journeys (safari, Kenya, Zanzibar, or back home).  A few of us stayed to explore Moshi.  I definitely think it is worth your time to stay one extra day to explore, learn about how the people live.

We met everyone for lunch and did some exploring in the city center and market place.  Our hotel gives free tours so we just took the guide to lunch with us and started the tour after.

photo by Chris

There were a few markets, one covered, one not.

Everyone was very friendly to us and let us take pictures.  We didn’t buy much because it was mostly vegetables and fruits (and we just ate) but it was good to see.

Here is a soccer field near the markets with Kilimanjaro in the distance

I loved this sign.  Stressed out?  Take a safari!

We climbed 7 flights of stairs to see the “view” of Moshi and Kili.  No one was even winded.  It was a little too cloudy to see Kili but we took a group shot anyway.

That’s it from Moshi and this trip to Africa! I loved my climbing buddies a lot of miss them dearly.  There is talk of a reunion trip to some other adventurous locale in a few years.  Can’t wait!