Wow, it has already been 3 weeks! Every 2 weeks, some old volunteers leave and some new volunteers come in. The transition is pretty interesting, because you find that you can get pretty close to people when you spend your entire days with them. I am sad to see Victoria and Craig go, they are both from England and very cool people! I hope I get to see them in the future. Victoria is currently making her way up Mt. Kili and will be back just for Friday night to tell us all about it. Me, and another volunteer, Rose, are hoping to make it to the summit at the end of November. Next week we will start looking for a good company and route to go...so excited! Nervous too though, because I know it will be the hardest thing I have ever done physically and probably mentally too! Craig is sunning himself in Zanzibar right now for a few days and then heading home.
This past weekend was relaxing, got a 45 minute dala dala ride to Marangu. Dala dalas, are even more packed up then the buses...literally people are packed on top of one another. We made our way to the Kibo Hotel because we read that is the best place to line up a tour guide for the day. Well the stop before Kibo Hotel we managed to get 2 guys claiming to be wonderful tour guides trying to get us to book with them. Even with an "ID" these guys are not too be trusted, you just never know who they really are and mostly likely they will run off with your money or leave you stranded. I'm not interested in that! Well, they also don't seem to understand the meaning of NO, THANK YOU. They rode the back of the dala dala poking their head in occasionally trying to seel themselves. ugh, how frustrating...as if the presistence will win me over. Well we get off at the hotel and they continue to bug us until we get to the entrance. Thank goodness for Masaai guards. The Masaai tribe live in the bush in Kenya and Tanzania and apparently they are crazy warriors with big knives, which make them perfect security guards! Several restaurants and hotels have them at the entrances to avoid problems that could occur. We have a Masaai guarding the volunteer house 24 hrs a day and he is great. He walks back and forth with his long knife dragging on the floor...haha. They have interesting ear pircings, decorative jewelery, wear plaid robes, and often have several wifes. We are all a little curious about how many people our Masaai may have killed in his lifetime thus far. Very nice guy though to have a chat with. Loves his little radio he lugs around and giggles like a girl when looking at pictures from a digital camera. Anyway back to Marangu, sorry for the tangent....The Masaai guard prevented these guys from entering the hotel with us and it was great. However, they remained at the gate for about 30 minutes waiting for us and then finally got the clue that we were completely not interested in them. We watched them from the cafe sipping a nice coffee and laughing about how annoying they were. Oh well.
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