The Wandering Enginerds

Mike and I survived our extensively long journey from Tanzania to Cape Town and proceeded to crash for a 4 hour nap. We walked down to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, had a delicious dinner at Harbor House on the water and got great views of Table Mountain in the distance. South Africa is quite the change from Kenya and Tanzania, it is totally Westernized, and we were able to walk down the streets in peace without being cat called at by everyone we passed. It also has the largest wealth disparity I have ever seen. We passed essentially Hooverville tin shack neighborhoods on the way to the city from the airport, and then not even 10 minutes later are passing extravagant town houses. The next day we rented a car and did a road trip around the Cape. We saw penguins in Simon's Town at Boulder Bay beach, hiked up to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope - the most southwestern point of Africa, then returned north via Chapman's Peak drive and Hought Bay. Despite the weather bein...

Doug, Mike, and I all met up in Moshi, Tanzania to trek to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. I took a bus from Nairobi to Moshi which far exceeded my expectations for Africa. It was certainly better than any bus ride I took in Nepal. We booked our tour through Monkey Adventures and did the 7 day Lemosho route. The Kilimanjaro trek has a lot of controversy surrounding it because of companies trying to do it for cheap and cutting corners, such as not paying the porters and guides properly or not abiding to proper acclimatization rules. The longer the trek the better for acclimatization. You start around 1,200m elevation in Moshi and end at 5,895m at Uhuru Peak at the summit of the volcano. We met our guide and the other three people that were in our group the night before taking off for the trek. Derrick was our head guide for the week. Kelcey and Pat were both from California, and Mareike was from Germany. The Crew Starting Gate The first day was a few hours of bussi...