Yes! I read the reviews and watched the videos on YouTube. And, yes, there were concerns about transportation from the airport, food at the hotel, and the walking. There was a lot of talk about the walking. I’ll get back to that one. First, let me come clean. I’m a RPCV, a returned Peace Corps volunteer. I served in Kenya, in the mid 1980s. This stay was my first trip to Tanzania and I was traveling with two other RPCVs that I served with thirty years ago. There was also a friend of a friend with us.
We arranged for four (4) single rooms and two airport pick ups. The friend of the friend was arriving after us. By the time we reached the airport, we may have been a tad late, the driver picking us up was also late, and we all decided to just wait for the friend. First off, there was only one driver. The poor fellow would have to drive the three of us to the lodge and then turn around to get our friend. Secondly, our friend wasn’t a RPCV. The idea of having her navigate getting to the lodge, without us, in the middle of the night, didn’t seem fair.
True to all online reports. The car we were in could NOT make the final push to the hotel. Another car, one that had been following us, at some point, pulled in front, after our car became stuck. The four of us bounced out, entered the new vehicle, and arrived at the hotel, shortly before midnight. We did not find four individual rooms. Too tired to deal with it, two of us took singles and the other two took a room for five!
The next morning we woke up and saw the view. We were home. For some, it looked like our old site in Kenya. For others, it was the site we always wanted. Either way, it was amazing. The rooms had hot water (after a day or after we figured it out), a toilet, and a bed. The staff was great! They gave us a choice of breakfast and lunch or breakfast and dinner. We went with the latter and requested only local food! During our stay, we did the three hour coffee tour, visited a local church (and cried like babies, watching a choir rehearsing) and taught “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, at a primary school. We loved every single moment of our stay. Even the walk from our rooms/huts to main area for our meals became wonderful! Those steps brought us closer to the most wonderful views of Kilimanjaro. The time we spent together, hot drink in hand, brought us closer to each other.
We never wanted our time there to end.
The Mount Kilimanjaro View Lodge isn’t for everyone. But, ... if you’ve been missing East Africa, the red of the dirt, the laughter of the children, and the person you were, the last time you lived there, you really don’t have a choice.
