Honey Badger Anyone?

If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you know I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro this past February.  It was a fantastic experience that I am glad I was dared to do.  Before we embarked on that hike, we spent a few days in the town of Moshi visiting and working with a local orphanage, Kili Centre.  A great couple of days to set us off for our hike.  But those couple of days allowed me to meet the honey badger of that viral video.  The reason the topic the video came up was not just because we were in Tanzania where likely there are honey badgers.  It came up because we stayed at the awesome Honey Badger Lodge outside of Moshi!

We arrived around 2AM at the lodge due to a flight delay leaving Amsterdam.  Obviously, everything was pretty dark and quiet when we got there and we were eager to get to our rooms and bed.  We were all sharing rooms with other trekkers but my roommate was arriving the next night so I appreciated having the room to myself that first night.  My room was in a standalone cabin whereas some other rooms were adjoining rooms in small buildings.  My cabin was super spacious with two queen beds (with mosquito nets).  No fan though…  Oh, and it had separate shower area from the rest of the bathroom.

Half of my cabin!

The hotel grounds had a lot of nice vegetation and monkeys too.  There was a nice sized pool with a great area around it to sit and a few steps down from it was the dining area full of picnic-like tables and the bar.  It all felt very close and convenient yet I felt there was a lot of space and openness.

Notice the monkey?

One night, there was a show with local music and dancing that was quite enjoyable; I think this is done often for the benefit of the guests.  The lodge can also arrange any number of activities for the visitor including climbs of Mt. Kilimanjaro – even if you don’t use them for that, I highly recommend staying there before and after!

But the good news about the Honey Badger Lodge don’t end there.  The lodge makes a serious effort to to contribute to the local community.  A portion of the profit goes to support local education and other projects and they strive to train staff and give them a good situation for employment (read more in their website).  The current owners, Joseph and Jenny, do this but this started when the owner (and founder of the lodge) -the mother of the current owner- decided her business could be more than just to make a living for her and her family.

I enjoyed my stay there because of the nice layout and the knowledge that our giving them our business would have more of an impact.  But, as a final word, I will say that I enjoyed my stay there because the staff was very friendly and made an effort to call us by our name.  I was impressed.  Clearly management knows what it’s doing and I like that in every which way!

Neighbors of the lodge and the roof of Africa behind them