We arrived in Africa on 29-Dec-31. We stayed in Arusha, a town in north eastern Tanzania. Most Kilimanjaro climbs and Serengeti safaris are based from here. Arusha lies at the base of Mt Meru, a 15000 foot inactive volcano. Here are some pictures taken while we were staying there.
On New Year's eve, we started our climb up Kilimanjaro. The climb starrts at 5600 feet and finishes at 19,340 feet. The ascent took us 4.5 days. Coming down was only 1.5 days.
After the climb, we went back to Arusha for one night and then headed out on a 6 day driving safari. We visited many areas in the Great Rift Valley including the Serengeti. Many of the animals we saw were less than 20 feet from the Land Rover.
After the safari, we returned to Arusha for one more night and then hopped on a small plane and headed for Zanzibar Island. Zanzibar lies off the coast of Tanzania. It was the center of the Spice Trade and the Slave Trave. The capital, Stone Town, was controlled by Oman sultans for most of its history. After visiting Stone Town and going on a Spice Tour around the island, we headed to the remote northeast corner of the island and went scuba diving for 2 days and hung out on the plam-lined beach for one more day before returning to Stone Town.
After that, we flew to Dar Es Salaam for the day. It is the largest city in East Africa with over 4 million people. We left Tanzania on 19-Jan-2004 at midnight. It took 20 hours of flying, 8 hours of waiting in airports, and 4 hours of driving to get us back to Blacksburg at 2:00AM on 21-Jan 2004.