Lynda's Hiking Adventures: Back at Springlands Hotel

Day 6 of trek, day 8 of vacation

Exhaustion - it felt so good to be back in a place with a shower! One thing you have to remember when you're in this place is to turn the water heater on a while before you get into the shower.

My room at the hotel

ahhh ... king sized bed

The first thing I did after sorting through my clothes and packing my duffel with the stinky clothes (I had left my carry on at the hotel with fresh clean clothes in it), was take a loooong shower! The only problem was that I didn't turn the water heater on early enough and I only had about 5 minutes of hot water. It didn't matter, a cold shower was great too!

The plan for the evening was to go into town and meet our guide Omari for dinner. The reality of the evening was that it was a rainy, icky night and we ended up eating at the hotel again. I was craving good food and American comfort food - the buffet this evening did include pizza and fries, so I was fine with hanging there in the rain. I hung out for a little bit and then back to the room for a much needed good nights sleep. You know you're tired when you're laying in bed and watch a giant hairy centipede walk around the perimeter of the room and not really care. Heck, it's their Africa!

The next day we planned to go into Moshi for barbeque lunch and souvenirs. I woke up at 6:00am and thought, I'm on vacation, and rolled over and fell asleep until 9:30am and thought again, I'm on vacation. By the time I woke up and actually got out of bed at 11:30, everyone was already in Moshi. They had all woken up at 6:00am and wondered where I was. I grabbed my book and headed to the garden for some relaxing reading and (hopefully) some brunch. Kathryn had stayed behind and just finished a wonderful massage, so she joined me in the garden where we ordered food. They made a wonderful Spanish Omelet at the hotel and fries completed my brunch. Himanshu (who also didn't go into Moshi) joined us in a bit and we hung out and relaxed for a while.

Later that evening I finally got back to Moshi and we went out to a great Indian Italian restaurant where I finally found a beer that didn't taste like Bud to me!

Matthew & Mom Ming

Mark and Maureen, keeping me laughing

Lee - came for safari, Nancy - did the trek SOLO with just her guides and Himanshu

Mmmmmm ... chicken tiki masala and a fruity beer. Perfect (almost) ending dinner in Africa!

The next day, my tenth and final day in Africa, I watched our guides leave the hotel with a whole new contingent of trekkers, this time going on a different route up the mountain. These new folks were from the neighboring country of Zambia and I had been chatting with them (Sue, Sara, Richard and nine other Hindu trekkers) the day before in the garden.

Richard from Zambia and I - in person he looked a bit like Richard Branson, on film he looks more like Gary Busey :-P

I watched the people in our group who continued on to safari leave on their bus. G-d be with them, some of the new people in the group were what I consider "tourons". I hate to be judgmental, but ... oh, who am I kidding, I'm judgemental and I am who I am!

Then, Maureen and I loaded up for our day safari to Urusha National Park! Lions and tigers and bears ... oh ... no! There would be no lions and tigers for us, Zebra's and Giraffes and Monkeys OH MY!