Day 2

I woke up this morning and headed down for breakfast.  None of the others were up yet, so wandered around and took a few pictures. The grounds are nice but it was too cloudy to see the mountain.  I eventually made it over for coffee and breakfast.  Lisa joined me first followed shortly by Mike and June.  After breakfast we went to our trek briefing, met our guide Liberate, and tried on our rental gear.  They reiterated the weight limits and told us to meet Kaseem in 20 minutes to leave.  

We headed to the ranch about an hour away.  On the road we got our fist glimpse of the mountain.  It is a bit hazy but here she is:

Once we arrived at the ranch they let us weigh Our bags so we can do last minute adjustments tonight.  They told us that in each room there is a wooden box to put any food in.  This keeps out the monkeys.  I thought sure, right but did it anyway.  The rooms are permanent tents:

As I was leaving the room a monkey was peeking in from the roof.  I was a little startled and shooed him away.  I walked about 100 yards away, then snuck back.  Sure enough the sneaky rascal was in my room trying to get into the box.   So I chased him into the bathroom and folded down the flap.  I put a coffee table in the doorway so he could not push it open.  Next, I put my my backpack inside it and placed the suitcase and duffel bag on top of the box.

After lunch I came back to my room to work on this post and the Monkey came back with two friends. I chased them away.  It was cool to see them jumping from tree to tree.  Here is the sneaky devil.

I came back to the check in hut where they have Wifi.  As I am posting this there are numerous monkeys and antelope wandering around the open hut.

We are off to a treehouse near a watering hole on the ranch.  I will try and post more after we get back or in the morning before we leave.