Arrival!

We have arrived and have already had a fabulous day, though not even 24 hours have passed since we touched ground in Africa.  Our 26-hour voyage wasn't nearly as painful as we expected and we were so excited once we landed at Kilimanjaro airport that we wouldn't have rested no matter what.

Fortunately, our friend Tim Leinbach was there at the airport to meet us.  We got the opportunity to come here because Tim's wife, Fran Vavrus, gave us the information that we needed to inspire us to buy tickets and fly to Tanzania.  Tim works for a safari group called Nomadic Expeditions and he happens to be in country right now (even though he normally lives in Minneapolis).

Tim picked us up and gave us a quick driving tour of Moshi town.  We bombarded Tim with questions as fast as we could because we knew that he was leaving Tuesday morning for a bike trip to the coast.  Sadly, he will be away from Moshi for the rest of our time here.

He helped us get great night time views of Mt. Kilimanjaro and drove us past the university where the conference that drew us here will be held.  We got so tired that we finally had to try to sleep, though we remained too excited to really sleep soundly.

We got up in the morning and got a whole new view of the obviously stunning locale in which we now find ourselves.  We fear that the speed of our internet connection means that we will have trouble posting pictures, but we will try later . . .

We need to report in on today's events, but we also need to eat.  More soon.