Dad, Rich and I arrived in Kenya yesterday and stayed at the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi. Last night all eight of us met for dinner and I got a chance to meet the other members of our group for the first time. The group consists of Dad, Rich, myself, Paul and his son Jeff, Wil, Don, and Jerry.

This morning we met for breakfast at 7 AM. What a spread! And even more so because we knew it was going to be our last good meal for awhile. They had a full hot and cold buffet - cheese, yogurt, cereal, fruit, fresh bread, hot pancakes, eggs, juice - everything you could want. After breakfast we hurried to get everything together for the 8AM bus to the Marangu Hotel.

The bus arrived and we started to bring our stuff over to it and load it up.  Paul said when he booked the ride that they told him it would be a six hour bus ride and that we would have a 28 seat bus to ourselves for the entire length of the ride. If we had only known.... Well so we started to load our things on the roof rack of the bus but there were all sorts of hold-ups because the bus accountant woman said Paul needed his ticket and he couldn’t find it. Then we looked in the bus and noticed that it was full of native people. We were like are they getting off because there is nowhere for us. Then another bus pulled up and they said oh this is your bus now, so they took all of our stuff off of the roof rack and moved it to the new bus. By the time all the dust settled it was almost 9 AM and we were finally on our way.

Until this day I have never truly seen a “bad” driver. I will always be lenient with that term from now on... This driver was so reckless. If I wasn’t sure that we were going to be sideswiped then I was certain that we would hit the car in front head on or one in the other lane while passing every vehicle on the road. I think that was his goal - to pass every car, even if it was two miles ahead he would speed up and pass it. Plus the roads were a few years overdue for repairs and so the bus was flying all over the place, hitting all sorts of bumps. Every time we came to a small town there were speed bumps on the road, pretty high too, but that didn’t stop this driver. He would either swerve to the other side or completely off the road if he had to (without slowing down of course) so that he could avoid them. And the guys weren’t helping either - they all kept quoting statistics that they read about how more tourists die in car accidents than anything else. I needed that encouragement.

Anyway, we drove through Kenya towards Tanzania. For about 100 miles we drove through national park. There were armed guards along the border of the park to protect the animals from hunting and poaching. We passed quite a few random small villages along the way. They were so dirty and poverty-stricken. Most buildings looked like temporary army-type aluminum shacks that had probably been there for a few decades. I slept awhile on the Kenyan side and woke up just as we approached the border. What chaos! All different shacks lined up with all sorts of people coming out and trying to sell us stuff from the outside of the bus. The bus driver told us not to take out any money or take any pictures - to just walk to the immigration office and come right back. He stayed in the bus to guard our belongings. Meanwhile we had to walk through a mob scene of locals trying to lure us down different alleys - one guy wanted to buy Dad’s sneakers off of him. We got our passport stamped, walked back to the bus, and waited to leave. Again people surrounded us, and they were tapping the glass, holding up necklaces, blankets, wood carvings, etc, and yelling bargain prices - “Special for you,” “One time only,” “Buy one get one free.” I bought a bracelet off of a woman for $1 just as the bus began to pull away.

We finally arrived at our destination - the Marangu Hotel - around 3:30 PM and were assigned our rooms. Upon arrival, each person was told to spread their hiking gear out on their bed for inspection. Three woman came around and checked the gear to make sure that everyone had all of the essential items needed for the climb.