First camp in the rain forest, Mti Mkubwa Camp 9/25/18

I was up because of the roosters crowing, however, Andy was up at five. I slept well last night no mosquitoes, but every time the mosquito net touched my body I twitched. I'll do whatever I can to not be fresh meat. Andy didn’t do so well with the mosquitoes. He slept with his arm out of the mosquito net because he was too big for the bed, and his arm was mauled like a 2 legged dog in the Serengeti.

Breakfast was delicious. We ate a lot of food preparing for the hike (well we always eat a lot for breakfast). We had an omelet, bacon, yogurt, and delicious coffee. We were feeling pretty good even with the beers we were trying to pound down last night with Achmed. We were supposed to meet him this morning but he was a no-show. Probably hung over after he hit up a bar on the way home. After breakfast, we talked to Ben (our guide) to prepare for the hike today, got all our gear together and hit the road before 8 o’clock.

The drive to the trailhead took about five hours. The trip included a stop at the ranger station so the porters could all wear their bags to make sure they were no more than 50 pounds each. The weight was just for our needs, not their personal items, so some will carry more than 50 pounds (that's a ridiculous weight to carry up the mountain). Along the way we drove through several towns like Moshi, where there was new construction on churches and a new road going to the ranger station. The churches were quite large which was surprising since Christianity isn’t the only religion in this country, but they were extremely large compared to other buildings. I saw some Chinese man with the construction workers building the new road. Ben said it’s because the money for the new road came from the Chinese, similarly to the large buildings being built in Nairobi.

On the way, the man asked Andy if he lived in Hollywood. They all thought he reminded them of a movie star. Ben asked if he was in "London is falling", but Andy said you might’ve seen "300". Ben’s eyes got really big. I was shaking my head no no over Andy's shoulder since he didn’t exactly tell them that he was not Gerard Butler. Later on and the trip Ben asked again if he really was Gerard Butler to which he finally said "I am Spartan". I had to tell the duped man though because Andy would keep this going the whole hike.

After the ranger station, we had a short drive to the trailhead. We quickly got our gear and Ben put us with Michael the assistant guide, and we started hiking ahead of the porters. The hike had some stairs through the rainforest but it wasn’t too strenuous. I think we were going to quickly from Michael, he was caring a 40 pound bag. We passed some porters that left ahead of us, and while we expected our porters to pass us, they did not. We were the second group to the camp so we were able to pick out good camp spots, away from the red ants. Ben was impressed with our hiking ability, even though he keeps calling Andy an old man. 

When our porters arrived, we took the tent and wanted to put it up ourselves, because it’s so easy. However the porters insisted to help us put it up, so we showed them. They made us some hot water to wash our hands and face. Then we had some tea, cocoa, milk, and popcorn in the circus tent with then while we chatted. The other camps assembled all around us. Some of them had very fancy tents, like the mountain hardware Everest base camp tents. Many groups have private toilets. We met a guy from Baltimore named John, he said, "I heard the toilets are really gross". Perfect. I imagine we’ve probably seen worse in Tibet.

It was time for dinner at 6 o’clock. There were only three seats so it was the two of us with Ben. Andy asked, has Michael not earned a seat at the table? Ben said no. Dinner was really good. We started with cucumber soup, and the entrée was fried fish with fried potatoes and curry vegetables. We drank as much hot water as possible but didn’t want to drink more for fear of having to get up at night. The first day was amazing hiking up through the rainforest. We have a solid team and they are very attentive and catering to us.