Archive for the World Travels category
Middle East
The Nile near AswanAfter exploring the ancient sites near Cairo, it was time to head farther south into the country to visit a few of the antiquities on the Nile valley. I looked into bus schedules, but quickly decided to book a berth on the overnight tourist train from Cairo to Aswan. Arriving at the railway [...]
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Middle East
Pyramids!Once I arrived in Cairo, one of the first things that I wanted to do was head out to Giza to see the pyramids. Originally I figured I’d just go take the local bus out here, but after checking out my guidebook I decided that I’d get more out of it by hooking up [...]
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Africa
Kilimanjaro Day 6Our final day on the mountain! We’d been told that there were only about two and a half hours of walking today, so we were eager to get an early start. We practically wolfed down our breakfast in our haste to hurry up and get out of there. All we could think [...]
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Africa
A White Christmas in Africa?!Kilimanjaro summit day! By today, the fifth day of our trek, our guides had gotten the hang of Emid and my trekking speed. Most treking groups seemed to leave the campsite around 11:00 pm for the push to the summit, but since we were moving so quickly we got to sleep till about 12:30 am. [...]
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Africa
Kilimanjaro Day 4
Camp El 15351 ft. Asc 3024 ft. 13.86km distance.
Today was the farthest distance for hiking so far. It was cloudy all day yesterday when we were in camp , so it was quite a surprise to see how close we actually were to the mountain. Our guide said that it [...]
Africa
Kilimanjaro Day 3
Max El: 15247 ft. Total ascent 2056 ft. Camp el: 13080 ft. Distance 10.46k.
I woke up to 34F temperatures inside my tent, and quickly realized that it was colder than that outside when I opened up the tent flap and found there was ice formed on it. Most of the rain [...]
Africa
Kilimanjaro Day 2
5.62km (3.49mi) distance. Total ascent 778m (2550ft). Camp Elevation 3845m (12620 ft)
Last night was pretty chilly, dropping down to 42 degrees Fahrenheit. The skies cleared overnight leaving a sky full of the typically amazing African stars. In the morning, the summit was clearly visible from camp, looking as if it was [...]
Africa
Kilimanjaro Day 1 4.5 hours walking. 10.91km (6.78 miles) Final elevation 3016m (9896 ft) total gain 1122m (4689 feet).
Day one has been surprisingly easy. I’d expected (and would have been happy) to have gone another two or three hours. My climbing partner is a good guy named Imed, a model agent from New [...]
Africa
Chimpanzee IslandA visit to an island in the middle of Lake Victoria, where chimpanzees have been rescued from captivity, and have been returned to the wild.
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Africa
Mzungu in the mistGorilla day today! We wake up early (not so bad due to a favorable 1 hour time change from Uganda) and get driven to Volcanoes National park headquarters. Thank god they’ve got free coffee available! We’ve been told by other trekkers that have gone already to try to get assigned to the "Susa" group of [...]
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