Same Day, More Comments

This came in via the sat phone a little later. Kevin is a little more descriptive in this account, as his brother Craig is paying the bill - S. McQ

The flights were uneventful. We had a ~4 hour layover in Amsterdam Tuesday morning. We landed in Tanzania around 8:10 pm Tuesday. We obtained our Tanzanian visa, went through immigration and picked up our luggage - it had all made the trip- then met our driver and drove to the hotel, about 45 km (30 miles) from the airport. We did notice a lot of foot traffic along the dark, unlit roads. It started to rain hard and steady shortly after we left the airport.

We arrived at the hotel around 10 pm, checked in and were asleep by 10:30 pm. The rooms are very small but clean. Absolutely nothing fancy. We woke up around 7 am this morning.

We are at S 003 degrees, 19.907 minutes, E 037 degrees, 21.759 minutes. The elevation is 2,800 +/- 12 feet - only 16,530 feet to go.

We met with our two guides, Frances the head guide and Steven the assistant guide. Frances has been a guide for 11 years. In addition to the two guides we will have 22 porters. There are just the four of us in our group in addition to the 22 porters and two guides.

We've been using the DEET in addition to Malarone to minimize the malaria threat. So far no side effects from the Malarone. Brian, Allison and Michelle started their Diamox today. Diamox is highly recommended to reduce the likelihood of Acute Mountain Sickness (altitude sickness). It's a sulfa drug, so I can not take it. Excuse #1 is now official.

Our orientation included a health quiz/questionnaire for each of us - the guides asked questions and then used a pulse oximeter to record our resting pulse and blood O2 saturation. We all passed!! Allison had the highest blood sat level at 99%. Our lead guide said we shouldn't worry about some of ours which were 94%, 96% and 98% since his was 95%.

They also showed us the emergency equipment. Each guide will carry a bottle of O2. They also have a pressurization bag and a stretcher if someone needs to be carried down the mountain. Michelle asked if we could pay to have someone carry us up the mountain on the stretcher. That service is apparently not on the menu.

The electric power here is very iffy. We had no power this morning. We went into town this afternoon to an internet café. In the 30 minutes that we tried to use the internet the power went out three times. I think it had something to do with the guy using power tools in the back of the building.

The area reminds us of the poorer Caribbean countries. Almost everyone walks. The roads are very poor. Pedestrians seem to have zero rights compared to cars. It is now 4:35 pm - the mosquitoes start getting nasty at 5 pm - we have 98.11% DEET to take care of them. I can tell you that DEET really stings when it get in your eyes.

Of all the things I took I forgot to bring Advil/ibuprofen. Everything is cheap here except ibuprofen. I bought twenty four 400 mg ibuprofen tablets for $6.