Kili Time

This update is way delayed, but I finally have a second to sit down and do a little recap.
I am writing this in Hotel Potala in the tourist district of Kathmandu, but my time on Kilimanjaro is still fresh in my mind.
The hiking bit of days 1 and 2 were super enjoyable. Day 1 was a four hour hike through the jungle book. Day 2 was more steep and mostly rocky, but again only 4 hours of hiking. At that point, I developed a UTI, which stayed with me for the remainder of the trip. My poor climbing group had to hear me complain about my aches and pains AND stop for me to pee about every 10 minutes. Bless them. :)
My first night I think I may have slept an hour. I didnt feel like I slept at all, but the only reason I knew I slept was because I remembered my dream. It was about my little gay Spanish soul mate, Samuel. Aww. I was telling my tent mate, Kat about him the night before so naturally I dreamt about him.
My climbing group was awesome. My tent mate Kat is from Australia and on her second around the world trip. She's been robbed twice which makes me feel bad for her, but thank my lucky stars it hasn't happened to me. Hannah and Sam are from England, and they are just hilarious. Hannah asked one of our guides if he had a girlfriend. In Kenya and Tanzania you have to pay in animals in order to take a wife from her family. Of course Hannah asked if you could get a refund on the cows if you weren't happy, the guide didn't really understand.
Hannah and I practiced our Spanish all the way up the mountain and we all sang our Swahili song over and over again each time we passed a group of people. Let's just say everyone who climbed Kili at the same time as us definitely knows this song well, now.
JAMBO, JAMBO BWANA. HABARI GANI, MZURI SANA....
One night I walked into my tent and saw something slimy near my sleeping bag. It even had 2 antennae! Kat said she'd take care of it after she peed. When she came back, she took one look at it and came out of the tent laughing. "It's your wad of gum with hair stuck to it, mate."
Oops. :) hehe
The views from each stop were absolutely breathtaking. The sunrises were the best. And from each campsite you could see the top of Kili. THe glaciers would glow at night, waiting for our visit.
Day 3 was tough. We walked for 6 hours to "lava tower" where it was freeeezing cold. On the way down I got a real bad headache and my UTI was raging. We made it through in pretty good spirits considering. Because of the high altitude, the path goes up and down a lot to help with ACCLIMITIZATION! We were all really lucky that we didn't get sick. Just some minor headaches. I heard later that one guy who was climbing when we were, died! He was our age too! I guess he was getting the symptoms of altitude sickness and kept pushing himself. It's crazy shit.
Going pee is in the free, and sometimes its harder than you would think. Especially when its windy. On day 4, I went behind a rock real quick so not to hold up the group for too long. I came back and we were on our way. I may have peed a bit on my shoes and I may or may not have tried to hide it from the group, but good ol' Kat noticed and announced to the group in a loud voice, "Mate, you pissed on your shoes!" Thanks Kat!
Day 4 was like walking on the moon. It was slightly snowing when we reached our camp called Barafu and the guide told Kat it was the coldest its been in a long time. Lucky us. My poor toes!
I was wearing 7 layers of clothes, 4 pairs of socks and I was still cold. From Barafu camp, we would make our way to the summit.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
I didn't get a wink of sleep the night before our climb to the top because I was freeeezing. We hiked 6 hours in the morning. Tried to sleep in the afternoon and then woke up at 11pm to climb 7 more hours straight uphill! Insane. The first hour of the climb to the top wasn't horrible, but everything after that.... Not so enjoyable. Everything was hurting, I had to pee every 30 minutes, it was freezing to the point where I couldn't feel my fingers or toes, and it was getting more and more easy to get out of breath. It was either stop to catch your breath and freeze or keep going panting like a madwoman. Even our water froze. Solid.
The crawl to the top was just that. We went at snail pace because thats the fastest we could go. And their was a train of lights in front and behind us, from all the people trying to do the same thing we were. The moon was full and it helped us see our way. It was a full moon, we got super lucky. Absolutely beautiful. It lit up the glaciers as we crawled past them.
It felt like I'd been hit by a car and running on no sleep didn't help. Everyone was struggling after the 4th or 5th hour. FINALLY we made it to the top bit and we all started crying. We were overwhelmed and completely exhausted. We made it to the peak right at sunrise. A moment I will never ever forget.

After Kili, we relaxed our aching bodies for a couple of days before taking off on a 2 day safari to the Ngorongoro Crater. The highlight of our safari were the lions, of course. They came wandering right up to our vehicle and used the shadow of the car for shade. They basically look like my cat (for those of you who know her, Kiki) except slightly bigger and beige in color. They are amazing. Their paws are about the size of my face. I was trying to talk to them, but they weren't interested.

We said goodbye to all the animals, and the Masai people and headed to Dar Es Salaam. Hannah, Sam and I stuck together for the rest of our trip and Kat said Adios as she headed towards South Africa. Dar was a bustling city, with great food. Lebanese for dinner was yum yum in my tum! Hummus, falafel, and garlicy eggplant heaven.
We took the 4 hour ferry to Zanzibar and were in paradise for 4 whole nights.
There were lots of reggae men, dreads, weed, and still.. amazing food. Really I can't remember much besides all of the yummy dishes we managed to come across. Mostly seafood as for those of you who don't know, Zanzibar is a tropical island.
The water color was crystal goodness, so of course we had to do some snorkeling. Mostly eating but a bit of snorkeling and swimming. The island seems to be taken over by Italians, so the locals speak Swahili and Italian, naturally.
I heart Zanzibar.

We made our way back to Dar after our nice tropical vacation, and parted ways. It was the first time I'd been alone in a while so it was weird to get used to but I knew I would be meeting my good ol friend Josie in just a couple of days so all was well.

I said my goodbyes to Africa and hopped on the flight to Doha. During my 5 hour layover in Doha I plopped myself down in one of the amazingly comfortable plastic chairs of the waiting terminal and low and behold there was a stunning Asian warrior a few rows ahead of me. He had a confidence to him that usually doesn't fit the shy Asian personality I am used to. I watched him for a while. I couldn't take my eyes off of him, actually. He noticed. We kept making eye contact, but I couldn't get myself to smile. I was infixiated on him and wondering why, as I've never really been keen on Asian men. I began wondering where he was from and kept hoping he was going to Nepal too...
Turned out he was on the same plane and he was only the beginning of the handsome men that make up the beautiful country of Nepal ...