Entry #020: Sunday, June 30, 2013 (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Well, I'm currently in South Africa, aka my home for the longest portion of this trip. Assuming a straight-up 365-day journey, I'll be in this country for 20% of the entire trip, despite being only 5% of the total number of countries currently on my itinerary. So get used to me using the "South Africa" tag on this blog (that is, if you noticed I used tags here at all). By the by, you might have noticed that I've skipped a number on this entry. That brings me to a:

Kilimanjaro Entry Update: So, I'll delve into this shortly, but Internet in SA is frickin' expensive. In order to properly upload my video (and, with the little amount I had left, maybe some of my truant photos), I would have had to purchase a data plan totaling $175. And I wouldn't  cover it. Sorry, but I don't love you all that much. Luckily, I can purchase an unlimited plan in Askari, so I'm crossing my fingers that this will fit the bill. In any case, I'll make sure it gets to you one way or another.

Entry #019: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 (Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania)

It's the Kilimanjaro blog special! Hooray!

For those who don't know - I don't really know how that's possible, but bear with me - I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. And it was pretty cool! I'm not going to write much, because I don't want to, so this will mostly be a multimedia blog entry.

Interlude: Sit Tight

As you might be able to gather by the fact that this entry doesn't begin with "To Whom it May Concern," I was able to make it down Mount Kilimanjaro safely, soundly, and successfully. Additionally, through a refresh of my computer, (an admittedly painful process), I'm able to connect to the Internet, and thus to Blogger, correctly again. Now, I was intending on posting my very first multimedia entry regarding Kilimanjaro (because I took videos of myself, and I really didn't want to have to rewrite it all). The irony is, it seems the Internet in Tanzania, while existent, is too slow for such things. For example, using the WiFi in my hotel, I can download a 5MB file...in an hour. And my video, being two hours long, is in the gigabytes range. So it probably would still be going when my flight left. Instead of transcribing everything (because even making the video was time and effort), I'm just going to wait until I get some (hopefully) decent WiFi in South  Africa.

Not too much has happened in the meantime, so don't fret. I'll be back before you know it!

Entry #018: Friday, June 14, 2013 (Arusha, Tanzania)

So, I'm back at the Arusha Budget Hotel right now, I head out for my Kilimanjaro climb tomorrow (though that's just the meet-up day; we head to the mountain on Sunday), and my stint at the orphanage is now done. The last several days have found me in a wide flux of emotions, ranging from a very acute sense of "I'm over it" to genuine feelings that I'm going to miss the place and the people.

Entry #017: Saturday, June 8, 2013 (Arusha, Tanzania)

[NOTE: As you might have noticed from the last entry, entitled "Technical Difficulties", I've been experiencing technical difficulties connecting to the Blogger server from my PC. As I've also been getting a bunch of 400 Errors on other websites, I can only assume the issue is on my end. It may very well be that the poor signal quality has caught up with my browsers, and like Popeye, they've stood all they could; they can't stands no more. Unfortunately, I can't actually see if this is the issue (or if it is, worse, some issue with my actual hardware) until I am in a place with a respectable Wi-Fi signal. In the meantime, I'm forced to post this in the most roundabout way possible, using Notepad, Dropbox, a program that uses my laptop as a Wi-Fi hotspot, and the mobile Blogger app. Additionally, this entry was written in two parts. The first was written on my actual birthday back on June 5. My issues began that night, before I could write about the evening's activities. The second part was just written today. I'll be sure to note them, so that I don't have to rewrite the syntax of the birthday entry.]

Interlude: Technical Difficulties...

Hey all, this is just a quick note to let you know that Blogger is acting strangely, and not allowing me to access posts, or write new posts, from my computer. Which is annoying, not least because I had one almost-fully-written entry ready for my birthday on the 5th. I can still access everything from my phone, but as you might imagine, this is not the ideal way to be writing things that have the length I normally afford my entries. So stay tuned while I try to figure out some sort of solution to this issue (or, even better, let's hope it just works itself out). Thanks for your understanding!

Entry #016: Monday, June 3, 2013 (Arusha, Tanzania)

So, um, remember how I was saying that I didn't really enjoy writing the last entry? Well, I can probably chalk that up - in part, at least - to the fact that I was physically not in the best of states. In fact, when I posted it, I was running a pretty healthy fever. The first sign of anything going wrong was after my exercise for that day (Thursday), after which I became more tired and winded and headache-y than I felt I should have been. So, I figured my fever was a continuation of my body telling me that I've pushed it too far.

Nope. Malaria.