Why this trip?

Good question!
I like to hike, but I've never really considered climbing mountains and at 5892 m, Kilimanjaro is a mountain of somewhat scary proportions to the non climber. True, it's not a technical climb, but it is high. And, lots of people get acute mountain sickness (AMS) on the way up. This is partly to do with the route, but mostly, it seems to do with the aggressive climbing schedule that Tanzanian operators promote. This could lead to a lengthy exposition on diamox, which if I haven't already asked your opinion on consider yourself lucky. So, back to the titular question. I'm going to climb Kilimanjaro and tour a bit of East Africa because a dear old friend of mine was already planning to go with a group of friends and he invited me to join in the fun. My first reaction was "um...hmmm, Kili is not really on my bucket list (see Morgan Freeman & Jack Nicholson movie, I'd argue you're never too young to have a bucket list) and I'm not much of a mountaineer and frankly the risk of AMS freaks the crap out of me." But, on reflection, I thought, if it scares me a bit, that's probably a good reason to go and if the trip is largely planned already, why not? I, of course, well trained in arguing both sides, had a long list of reasons not to go, not least my aforementioned dream of candidacy (which the longer I type at this blog...), and the fact that it is not exactly a budget holiday. However, I've been lucky enough to have some good consulting projects this year, my interest piqued, I threw caution to the wind, and  said "maybe".

Then my grandpa died reminding us all of how, inevitably, times does pass. So, I asked my dad if he wanted to *finally* take that trip with me (for some years we've been bandying about the idea of a trip together) and join in the climb and trip to East Africa. Dad said "Sure!" Although he has declined the climb (for knee issues) we are meeting in Arusha where we're going on safari (hence the url of this blog) and then to Zanzibar and finally Mombasa.