Wirlwind through Tanzania (aka Kylie ate goat)

poa kuchizi com ndizi nani frigi

Likely butchered that a hundred-fold but it's something about being as cool and clean as a banana in the fridge...oh my.

It's been awhile since we've written and we've of course had many adventures in the meantime, so I think I may address them in list form and we'll see how long I last in this stuffy internet cafe where I have limited arm movement due to my dress and have seen a number of mosquitoes circling above.

1. After a 21h (yes, that's right nearly an entire day) bus ride from Kampala to Arusha we disembarked only to be swarmed by touts and after steadfastly refusing, donning our bags and tromping off in what we believed to be the right direction one of them took "pity" (pity being naturally laced with ulterior motives that we were too exhausted to care about) on us and walked us to our hotel (very cute, bright and clean Catholic hostel). After a day of hunting for tours we found ourselves, two days later, at the base of Mt. Meru with two rather fit couples, one German and one British, in their 30's/40's. Mt. Meru was a lovely, lovely climb, though it didn't quite measure up to Mt. Kenya overall. We spent day one hiking though cloud forest, day two doing a similar hike only to find SUNshine! at the second hut and climbed up Little Meru (3800m) in the afternoon. The next morning we set off for our summit hike at 3am and it was absolutely beautiful. We followed our guide Godwine up first to rhino point and then up along a ridge around the ash cone from the volcanic blowout and up to the peak (Socialist peak, 4566m). As we neared to the peak the sun was rising and we could clearly see Kilimanjaro in the background, it was a stunning hike and strikingly different going up and down despite it being along the same path. After making our way back to saddle hut (Godwine complimented us by writing "extremely fit" in our comments sections) we then headed down to the first camp to spend our last night and hiked out the next day.

Kylie is losing paaaaaatience....

2. Off to Lushoto in the heart of the Usambaras there we
a. Ate delicious food at the Irente farm
b. Looked out over the Usambaras and down a 1500m drop to the valley below
c. Met Eddy the Ediburgh rugby player from NZ who joined us on the rest of our Usambara adventures.
d. Spent a day at the Mkuzu waterfalls (the sun came out!), swimming in ice cold water, sleeping in the sun, spotting chameleons, and Eddy believes he saw a green mamba that skirted across his shoeless feet...
e. On our third day we set out for a day hit to the Mzumbai forest (some of the only virgin rainforest in the area). We first took a daladala to Soni, then to Bumbuli and then walked along the road. And some more. And still some more. We kept asking and everyone kept pointing along the road so we kept walking. After a few hours we finally came to some forest and kept walking in search of the guesthouse that was rumoured to be hiding in its depths. When we came across the guesthouse we were surprised to see that it was a perfectly maintained colonial home with wood floors, massive bathrooms, down comforters, a usable hearth, and absolutely no one except the care taker inside. We decided that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend the night and sent Eddy off to the market on the back of the caretakers motorcycle to fetch us the ingredients for dinner. We took hot water bucket baths in the enormous bathtubs, curled up next to a roaring fire and pondered over how this place could possibly exist. (note: the Swiss owner up and left in 1981 and hasn't been seen since but somehow it's still being funded and is run).
f. Next day we returned to our home at the Karibuni lodge in Lushoto for a satisfying dinner of beer, buns, and peanut butter. Day after, Dar time!

3. Experienced first real African traffic jam in trying to get back into Dar's city center after cruising out of town to get our Dar-Nairobi tickets (so soon!), we did make our ferry on time.

4. And here we are on Zanzibar, a gorgeous town despite being full, full, full of tourists. We've had a lovely day and a half just wandering the narrow, maze-like streets and eating and snacking all day long (dates, coconut, fresh bread, bananas, coffee, spiced cookies). The sea is gorgeous and we're heading to the beach tomorrow for a couple days of swimming, frolicking and sunning ourselves. We've just come from the fish market where we dined on skewers of red snapper, shark fish, kingfish, prawns, tuna, fallafal, casava, salad, and drank cane sugar juice with ginger and lime (yummmmm). We of course finished off with a banana chocolate zanzibari pizza, essentially fried dough with banana and chocolate inside and covered in sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sauce.
Oh food.
Alright, I need water, and some stretching, and some fresh air and packing.
Take care, much love, and hopefully I will be seeing you all soon!