Discovery Channel

Ngorongoro Crater Lodge 5:45pm - First, it sounds like Stan the Man has come through for us. At 9:05am today, we received a phone call from Stanley from Jo'burg via our guides cell phone. Stan said that he had our 2 bags in front of him in his office and that he personally was going to put them on the plane to Kilimanjaro Airport this afternoon. The plan is for us to pick them up at Kili airport tomorrow morning...as long as the Kili airport staff don't all of a sudden become efficient and effective!!!

On the wildlife front...today was the day of lions. At about 10am we came across a male lion and a female lion sitting about 10m off the road. About 5 minutes later they were "doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel". Yes we saw the whole show. It only lasted about 20 seconds...good news Jenkins. And I feel a bit like a movie producer...it is all on film...Jenkins, you'll have to wait till we get home, sorry. Funny thing is, six hours later on our way back to the hotel, we passed the same lions in the same spot, still exhausted from the morning's activities!!!

Forgot to tell you about our "close encounter" experience while driving in the Serengeti fixing flat tires. As our guide pulls over to another 4x4 that has a flat...the other 4 vehicles don't have the right size tire iron...we see a guy with a Calgary Stampeders t-shirt. How much closer to home can you get!!! We snapped a few photos of the guy, he was trying to figure out why he had become such a celebrity...luckily our guide could explain the situation to him before he tried to charge us for the photos!!!

We have just finished a few beers on the patio overlooking the Ngorongoro Crater next to 2 couples from Britain. They were happy to hear our stories about lost luggage and climbing Kili...oh yeah, we have the finale of that for you coming up.

Now onto Kili, hopefully we haven't lost you along the way...we just about lost Kim...

We start climbing at midnight, right on time...but with only one headlamp, the other is in the "lost" luggage. We are prepared for 6 hours of straight up climbing or so we think. Just imagine no light, no sound...no nothing, except the heals of the climber in front of you...and the odd gagging vomit noise by other climbers. About 30 minutes into the climb I (Grant) hit a gut ache. Don't know whether from nerves or some bad water, but wrenching gut ache. At one point I am pants down, attempting relief in the rocks with no luck. Another 2 or so hours pass, at one of our rest spots, I tell Kim, that if I can't make it she has to go on...as she is looking fine! The look I get back is one of fear...not sure if it is fear for me or fear of safety or fear of summiting alone. At this point I have to give myself a little pep talk...luckily climbing Kili is mostly a head game at this point...it hurts, but we have come too far. I make it the next 2 hours no problem...now it is Kim's turn. At hour 4...she turns to me and says "I'm out". I hear about 40% real "I'm out" and about 60% "this just sucks, but I can make it" in the comment. Now I begin to give the pep talk to Kim. I sound like Tony Robbins on Kili. For the next 2 hours it is positive messages, "we have come to far to give up an hour short" or "it is just one step at a time, that is how everything great happens". At this point it is just mental anguish we are suffering...no headaches or nausea. At 6am we hit Stella Point...almost the top. The sun was just beginning to rise and the horizon was a glorious red. Our excellent guide, Kassim and assistant guide John gave us a spot of tea as we readied for the final trudge to Uhuru - 5895m the roof of Africa. This was about 150m in elevation and maybe 1km in total distance. And, yes - WE MADE IT!!! It wasn't easy, but we made it. What a feeling. I don't remember much of the views, but the camera will tell the story!!! Even more fun our 7 hours up took us one hour down! We scree ran the entire slope down. We were back in camp by 9am.

At this point we figured we would just climb right to the bottom...try to locate luggage and at least get a good nights sleep. 5 hours later we were at the bottom...so that is a total of 7 hours up...and 6 hours down...all on about 2 hours sleep!!!

This is our last day of safari...now we are off to Zanzibar at 2:15pm tomorrow...the real holiday begins!!!

We'll keep you posted, as the adventure continues!!

g&k