What is a good guidebook?
I like Africa On A Shoestring. Since it attempts to cover all of Africa, you might want to get Lonely Planet’s East Africa instead. One of the things I like to do when travelling is to read books that have something to do with where I am. On Mt. Kilimanjaro, I read “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemmingway. It’s just one of several short stories in the collection, and I think a good introduction to Hemmingway if you haven’t read him before. I also read Hemmingway’s “The Green Hills of Africa” while there. These books are always called bloody and violent; but I’m what you’d call a bunny-hugging environmentalist, and they didn’t bother me. Great stuff. You can read them even if you don’t go to Africa.
