The Gopal Family Kilimanjaro Climb and Safari Dispatch

August 10, 2012 – The Gopal Family First Day on the Mountain

This is the Gopal family’s day 2 dispatch of our trip up Kilimanjaro, I am recording this message overlooking a stunning vista in front of us.

The first day we left Arusha we took a Land Cruiser and drove up to the base of the mountain to the first camp. From where we started, the road was an incredibly bumpy and adventurous journey on itself..

We reached the camp and were welcomed by the porters who have set up an incredible gorgeous lunch for us. As we walked in, they danced and sang and welcomed us into the camp. It was an amazing experience.

We got ready and started walking up through a rain forest for about 4 hours to the first camp which was the Big Tree Camp and spent the night there, pretty crowded camp, lots of people from all over the world. We met people from the US, from Pennsylvania , from New York, and from Washington DC. We also met people from UK. We met people, I guess, from all over the world. It was quite an amazing united nations of people.

When we reached the camp and we were then welcomed by the porters who had already set up the camp. They had set up dinner for us; they had tea for us, hot ginger tea which was very refreshing at a time like this, on a cold day reaching camp after a day of hiking. We slept well…

Listen to audio of Gopal family's call

The Rain forest

Beautiful views