We leave Houston around 3:00 p.m. on August 21 on a KLM flight to Amsterdam. We arrive in Amsterdam the next morning at around 7:00 a.m. after 9 hours of flying. After a 2 hour layover at Schipol, we fly from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania on an 8 hour KLM flight, arriving at 9:00 p.m. Needless to say, we are all very tired from traveling. We drive from the Kilimanjaro airport to our hotel in Moshi, Tanzania, which takes about an hour. The first thing that strikes us as we land at the airport and drive to Moshi is that it is very dark. It is dark in the airport with a few dim lights on and then it is very dark on the way to and in Moshi. The next day at the hotel we meet our 3 guides from Tusker, Tobias, Charles, and Steven, all residents of the Moshi area. We also meet our fellow climbers. There are 10 climbers in our group. The climbers include Jill, a 37 year old pastry chef at the Harvard Business School, her friend Peter, a 51 year old food services manager at the Harvard Business School, Ethan and Ben, two 18 year old recent high school graduates from Washington, DC (taking a year off from school before entering Harvard and Stanford next fall), Louis, a 47 year old senator from the Virgin Islands, and 5 Haltom’s (three 13 year olds and two 47 year olds). At our meeting, the guides go over all of the safety equipment for the climb and then check our gear to see if it is suitable for the climb.