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Showing posts from December, 2011

Pyramids and Papyrus.

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One of the mixed blessings of getting older is that there are fewer things left to do!  One of my things was to see the Pyramids. That has been now ticked off the list of things to do before I die. But I have added a caveat to this accomplishment. See them properly next time and not from the roof of a rather persistent local's house who really would rather we had paid a lot more money to him and he could then have taken us into the enclosed area at a special rate.... just for you... very cheap...etc etc. Instead we climbed the steps to the third floor roof and had an amazing view across the roof tops of the rambling suburb that is right up against the tourist zone that is the Pyramids and the guarding Sphinx. A 16 hours stopover on the way back from Tanzania to the UK meant this whistle stop visit to these ancient tombs of the Pharaohs was possible.  We got a taxi from the airport hotel and off we went. Very clear instructions of what we wanted were totally ignored by the driver

Kilimanjaro revealed.

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All this week we have been working in churches and at a World Vision Conference in the N E of Tanzania.  Every place we have been has been on the lower flanks of  Africa's highest mountain, Mt Kilimanjaro.  I have heard of this mountain all my life and remember watching the old movie called the Snows of Kilimanjaro. I know a lot about this mountain, it is almost 20,000 feet high and is a volcano. It rises above the vast African plains of the Tsavo and Masai heart lands that stretch for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. It has captured the imaginations of countless generations of African tribes who live in its sight.  European explorers, settlers and writers have immortalized it in our psyche. It is shrouded with mystery as much as it is wreathed in cloud. Arriving at the nearest airport, Kilimanjaro International, I strained to see the fabled mountain from the aircraft as we came into land.  All there was to see were  clouds.   Our hosts greeted us and assured us that t