Out of Spendid Isolation

I've come a far way on this long, long day.

I started the morning in the spendid isolation of Ibo in Northern Mozambique. I awoke on an island without electricity, bathed in sweat at 6am under my mosquito net. The two Dutch medical students had walked to the beach at 4am to try to get a dhow to take them to the main land before the tide went out, and my posse had headed to their own chartered dhow at 6am. So I was the last tourist on the island. (More about these people in tomorrow's post).

A young man drove me and my packs to the airstrip on the back of his motorbike, slithering along the loose sand track and waiting with me in the silence of the bush until we heard the motors of the small Cessna coming in to pick me up.

Three flights and 12 hours later, my bags and I arrived intact on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Northern Tanzania. I've settled into a solid little business hotel on Aga Khan road in Moshi, and ate Dahl and rice while watching a Bollywood music video channel.

And instead of the 35 degree temperature this morning, I'm enjoying a cool 23 degree breeze even though I'm almost on the equator. I know the snow capped mountain, the highest in Africa, is out there... I look forward to daylight tomorrow and the chance to see it.

At every turn, the diversity of experiences on this trip surprises me.