First briefing with Serengeti Pride Safari

The hotel we stayed in, Planet Lodge in Arusha, was a surprise to me.  It was very spotlessly clean!  It was nice and clean and no bugs!  Even cleaner than the 6-star hotel we stayed in Costa Rica can you believe that!  If I ever come back to Tanzania i would stay here for sure again.

Our Room #25, Margaret in front

Hotel grounds.  Very tranquil

Do I have a big appetite haha?  My breakfast from the buffet at the hotel.  The food selection was minimal but edible.  Cannot complain too much!

Before the briefing, we laid down our fear on the bed for gear check.

At 10:30am, we had a briefing with our tour leader, Lema Peter, who is also the co-owner of Serengeti Pride Safari.  He brought along three assistant guides: Kappange, Aga and Tumani.   It was a long meeting but the guides explained some history of Tanzania, and also briefly how the route is going up the mountain, what a typical day is like, and Q&A.  I found that they are very organized and have some good information.  

Before the gear check in each of our room, we settled with the rental items: Margaret rented a sleeping bag plus thermarest, and me the same plus a pair of trekking poles.  The sleeping bag looks very warm so I am a bit more relieved after seeing how thick it is.

Then the whole crew went into our room to check carefully what we brought for each item.  They also wanted to make sure we do not bring unnecessary things on the trail as they are a member for KPAP to support fair treatment to the porters.  I wanted to use my overbag as a liner so they suggest to take the fleece liner away from my rented sleeping bag (I am not gonna use that liner anyway) as it would save some weight for the porters.

By the time they are done its almost 1pm!  We better do lunch before heading out.  We wanted to do some souvenir shopping plus getting SIM cards.  Lema said he would come back to get us at around 2pm to the town of Arusha.