17 December 2011

EK Climbs Kili: Why?

Before I start yammering on and on with details about my upcoming trip to Tanzania, I'd better start at the very beginning about where this cray-cray idea came about in the first place. Trouble is, I'm not sure exactly where it came from. All I know is, one day about 2 years ago, I decided I wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
http://www.new7wonders.com/archives/wonder/kilimanjaro
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I believe it had nothing to do with the physical challenge of the climb and everything to do with witnessing with my own eyes a very tangible sign of climate change: the shrinking snow cover on the summit.

My first tactic was that it could be a family trip. My brother and I could climb the mountain, my parents could go on safari, and we could all have a jolly time hanging out together in Africa. Since we had chosen a wildly different family vacation (a Caribbean cruise) to celebrate college/high school graduations (mine from college and my brother's from high school), somehow I thought that it would be a great idea to fly us all across the Atlantic and celebrate there this time around. So in 2009 I did a little research, I requested some brochures, but in the end no one really clamped onto the idea and I therefore dropped it.

I mentioned my aspirations to a few friends in 2010, but it seemed everyone was busy with trying to keep their jobs in the middle of the recession. No one wanted to go. Weird.
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/
Fast forward to 10:54am, 14-Nov-2011. I get a message from my good college friend Chris:
 so do you want to go climb Kilimanjaro? 
And I replied yes, and we started researching, and we found a guide who was good and not crazy costly, and we found flights that were good and not crazy costly, and we booked both of them. 

I'm going to Kilimanjaro!
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