Marangu: 1st Aug 09

Spent most of the morning driving out of the Serengeti region and into the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro – we got a glimpse of the peak but most of the mountain was covered in a haze.

On the way we visited an orphanage full of street kids which is sponsored by ‘Intrepid’, our tour operater. We were told not to give the kids any sweets or money but to buy them footballs and toys. When we got there though we realised they already have everything they need – they get 2 buses through there every week! I’m sure there are more needy causes out there so we decided to keep the bats, balls and ballons we bought and will find a more worthwhile home for them elsewhere. Some of the guys from the tour played footy with the kids – not us, we’re still scared someone might kick the ball at us! We sat it out and sunned ourselves.

After the orphanage visit we drove up the hills and the landscape changed rapidly from sporadic trees to a proper full-on equatorial forest. Our campsite was up the hill from the village of Morangu, home of the Chagga people, who cooked dinner for us. It was lovely – a beef stew with rice, roasted potatoes and plantains. The campsite was on terraces built into a steep forested ravine – quite precarious in the dark, but very pretty and we could hear a river running below.

Got quite drunk on a picnic table outside our tent with a few of the others in the night and had a good laugh, especially when a couple of the girls fell backwards off their bench and rolled down the hill (but thankfully not down the ravine). Paul was very gallant and decided it would be better to take photos of them lying in the mud before actually helping them up...

Oh – Matt’s got a full on beard now- looking very butch. Yum!